Deez Interviews: Meet The New Yorker’s director of newsletters who’s sharing all his best tips via one very helpful Google Doc

Happy Friday, Deezers!

Today’s interview gets a little meta with email wizard Dan Oshinsky, who’s currently at The New Yorker after building BuzzFeed’s newsletter strategy from the ground up. He recently launched a notanewsletter.com, which is, yes, ironically, a Google Doc full of newsletter-ing tips, so if that kind of shit is your kind of shit, you should definitely subscribe. We asked him about sharing the newsletter secret sauce and “the only perfect newsletter” that exists. Enjoy!

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The interviewee: Dan Oshinsky (follow him @danoshinsky!)

The gig: Director of Newsletters @ The New Yorker

First q: so, you’ve been working in newsletters since 2012 — before the newsletter “renaissance” really hit us. What’s surprised you most about the way mainstream media has since embraced this medium?

It’s been a thrill to see other media companies invest in newsletters. When I started at BuzzFeed, there weren’t many newsrooms that had a team — or even a single staffer! — devoted full-time to newsletters. In 2019, it’s a surprise when I discover a brand that hasn’t invested in email. That’s an exciting and welcome change.

You were the first newsletter editor at BuzzFeed, and you are the first and only newsletter staffer at The New Yorker now. Can you talk about the challenges of working as a team of usually one?

The challenge really isn’t trying to get others excited about newsletters — I get pitched new newsletters more often than I pitch my own! The teams I've worked with get why newsletters work and why they can be so powerful. But with a small team, the real challenge is trying to figure out which products make sense for our newsletter strategy, and which we have the time and resources to say yes to.

At the beginning of this year, you started notanewsletter.com, a Google Doc updated monthly with newsletter strategy tips and resources. What was the inspiration for this project? Also: why is it a Google Doc??

Most of the email resources — the conferences, the resources you find online — are geared towards marketers, as opposed to newsrooms or individuals with a personal newsletter. There’s a conversation I'd been wanting to have around email, and how we can make the inbox a better place, and since I wasn’t finding it elsewhere, I decided to start my own!

As for the Google Doc as publishing platform: a year ago, I made this doc of ways to get people to sign up for a newsletter, and it did really well. ("Well," as in: There were 37 anonymous quokkas in there at one point, and I got a lot of nice emails from unexpected places about it.) That stuck with me: Google Docs are so easily shared, and for this, I knew I needed a publishing platform that allowed for such natural sharing. It seemed like an interesting match of format and function.

But isn’t it weird to be sharing the newsletter secret sauce to success with anyone? Even competitors?

I’ve always found that when I share lessons or learnings with the larger email community, they typically share what they’ve learned right back. And what’s great about Not a Newsletter is that I’m going to be able to pass along all of that wisdom from the crowd to my readers. If this doc can play a small role in helping lots of people — even other newsrooms! — send better email, I’ll be a happy guy.

Finally, what’s one favorite newsletter that you’re always excited to open right away, no matter where you are?

BuzzFeed’s This Week in Cats. It’s only truly perfect newsletter.

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Don’t forget to follow Dan @danoshinsky or sign up for notanewsletter.com! Also: see you guys @ our party tonight yea???