The Great Unsubscribe, Week 1
Clearing Your Email Clutter
Last week I announced The Great Unsubscribe, aka the December Detox—four weeks of clearing space in our lives to make room for good things to come in 2024.
You might have specific goals and plans already that you want to reserve time, space, and energy for. Or maybe you have no idea at all yet. Maybe you just want to create some margin in your life to invite something new to come in. I was surprised to hear from so many people after last week saying that they needed this prompt to do some end-of-year clean up. Yay! Besides, cleaning is way more fun with friends!
This week, we’re clearing out all of our email clutter. I am always flabbergasted when I hear people talk about the hundreds of unread emails in their inboxes, or when I see the little number of notifications on their iPhone. I get heart palpitations on their behalf. I don’t know how people live like that, but that’s besides the point… we’re all here because we’ve accumulated some inbox dust bunnies.
So welcome. Let’s clear those suckers out.
Ground Rules for Unsubscribing
Do what you need to do, and don’t feel guilty about it. Emails don’t have feelings.
Don’t spend all day doing this (unless you want to!). Don’t make unsubscribing one more thing clogging up your to-do list. You might allocate just the first twenty minutes of your work day to unsubscribing, and then move on. Personally, I’m just doing it throughout each day as opportunities arise.
Delete the Backlog
First, let’s talk about the backlog.
Be real for a second. We’re all friends here.
Are you really going to click on the little arrow to the “Older” emails and do something with them? Or have they already been languishing in email purgatory for the last who-knows-how-many months?
Did you know in Gmail when you click to select all of your emails on page 1 of your inbox, it gives you the option of selecting all of the emails in your inbox, including all of the other pages?
This is your friend. Use it. Don’t let those emails languish any longer. You’re not going to go back to them. Just delete them and give yourself the gift of Inbox Zero (or maybe just Inbox Ten or Twenty) for Christmas.
Last year, my friend Allison Fallon actually came back from maternity leave to 5000 unread emails in her inbox. What did she do? She deleted them. All of them. She put out a post on Instagram saying, “If you emailed me while I was gone and it was important, please email me again.”
You can do the same.
Get the Onslaught Under Control
Okay, now let’s get to the emails that keep coming in. You know, the 20% off holiday deals from Shein or Crate & Barrel or REI or whatever other store. Thankfully, the holidays are the perfect time to unsubscribe from these emails because all of the vendors and influencers you haven’t heard from in months are popping back in to hopefully get you to buy something for the holidays.
My rule: If I haven’t seen an email from you or gotten something of value from you in months… I’m unsubscribing. And advertisements? That’s a firm do-not-pass-January, do-not-collect-$200.
Sometimes people are sneaky and put the link to “Unsubscribe” in white or the email is so long that you have to open it in your browser to Unsubscribe. Do it anyway. You won’t regret it, and you’ll be saving yourself the cognitive load of unwanted emails.
Consolidate What’s Left
You will still receive some emails that you don’t always want to receive. Such is life. Newsletters from people you really like and want to support. Deals you sometimes, occasionally use and still want to know about.
I actually had several newsletters that I was receiving in multiple inboxes, which is totally unnecessary.
For anything like this, consolidate:
Create a filter so that these emails automatically go into a folder you can check at your leisure but don’t have to look at every day.
See if you have the option to manage the settings on your subscription and decrease the frequency of the emails you’re getting. Some shops or influencers will let you decrease the subscription to just once a month, or just one type of email.
For duplicate subscriptions, decide which email inbox you want to receive the subscription and unsubscribe from the other one.
For Substack subscriptions, you can download the Substack app and turn off email notifications for Substacks you subscribe to. This has been HUGE for me, as I subscribe to a ton of Substacks and was inundated with newsletters everyday. Now, I read them when I want to on my phone.
Use an app like Unroll.Me to let it consolidate your subscriptions for you. This app makes it SO easy to 1) see all of the things you’re subscribed to that you didn’t even realize, and 2) delete or consolidate.
What other ideas do you have for clearing email clutter?
Next week, we’ll continue our detox with other digital baggage. In the meantime, good luck this week getting your inbox under control. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know how it goes!
WriterFest Write-Up
Two weeks ago, I attended WriterFest in Nashville. It was my first time at the intimate conference, and it will not be my last! I was so impressed by the speakers and the attendees—all knowledgeable, passionate about writing and publishing, and fun. I had great conversations about hybrid publishing, the state of Spanish language book acquisitions in the U.S., and the challenges for aspiring authors who want to break into new genres. Safe to say I’ll be going back next year, and you can expect some fascinating guests for Season 3 on the Hungry Authors podcast!
In the meantime, I wanted to highlight some of the more interesting takeaways from two of the sessions I attended while I was there. Enjoy!
What’s Ahead for AI
One of the panelists shared an interesting story about how he used AI recently: His wife’s father was dying, so he had her father speak into an AI voice clone through Descript. Then he used the AI to create an audiobook of her father’s voice reading her favorite book. Now she can listen to her favorite book whenever she wants—in her beloved father’s voice, even after he’s gone.
Similarly, there are DEAD musicians who will soon start putting out new albums using the same AI voice replicator technology. This was agreed to by the musicians before their passing and is done with their blessing. There is a badge that will be used to show when something is AI-generated with the original artist’s permission.
Imagine that when you download and start listening to an audiobook, it greets you personally: “Hey, Ariel, thanks for buying this audiobook!” This is possible with AI voices, and it’s already happening.
In the future, the only way to truly verify whether something is an original human creation will be through the blockchain.
Human authorship will become more valuable in the future, because AI will be so commonplace.
The use of AI is already ubiquitous, even if you don’t know it. But if you do want to educate yourself on the more interesting uses of AI and consider its ethical implications, one good piece of advice I was given was to create a TikTok account just for staying up-to-date on AI and following a bunch of accounts like @ai.explains.ai for news!
Advice from keynote speaker Julia Whelan, award-winning audiobook narrator
How to read like a writer: Figure out how books are made. Take them apart. Put them back together. “You’re a medical examiner—do an autopsy.”
(Hint: this is what we practice in book mapping! Julia will also be a guest on the Hungry Authors pod in Season 3, and )
Advice on Acquisitions from Big 5 Editors & Agent
Panelists: Ginny Younce from PRH, Becky Monds from HarperCollins, and Margaret Riley King, literary agent
Comps are SO IMPORTANT for helping editors create profit & loss statements (i.e. financial expectations) for books and for pitching books to sales teams. Know your comps and pick the right comps.
The ideal author:
Has a partnership mindset
Is willing to do the work of promoting their book
Wants a long-term career writing
Reads widely, knows their comps
(this should sound familiar, Hungry Authors!!)
Knowing your why helps you find the right publishing partner and can give your agent extra fuel in representing your interests!
The best memoirs have beautiful writing and an extraordinary story. (they actually used the word “extraordinary”! See my post “A Stories & B Stories” for more.)
Your network can be a major selling point for publishers. Include early testimonials and a strong list of connections/endorsers in your proposal.
Whatever genre you write in, build a strong network and community of other authors in that genre. They’re not your competitors; they’re your champions.
More for You
Find the Story in Every Day
There are stories everywhere, if you know where to look. And finding them is a skill that all of us who love to write should develop. I love this post from writing coach Ann Kroeker with some practical ways to find the story in every day.
The Dollar Analogy is Helping Me Budget My Energy
I don’t have a lot of spare energy right now. And I always think that I’ll have more time in December to relax, and, well, that doesn’t happen. Plus, our daycare is short staffed and I keep needing to take care of a baby at the last minute. Needless to say, energy is a precious commodity. This advice from Melissa Urban is helpful, though:
“Writing a book may be solitary pursuit… but publishing is ‘a collaborative endeavor.’” - Yahdon Israel
Publishing is notoriously slow and old-fashioned, and yet, there are innovators within who are committed to the craft and want to find ways to help unknown, incredible voices break in. Yahdon Israel is one of those editors innovating from the inside. Read this profile in Publishers Weekly.
How Do You Know Your Writing Style?
I sometimes work with the amazing folks at Forbes Books, and one of those is Kristin Hackler! She’s written this super helpful article on finding your writing style that every aspiring writer needs to read.
Jane Friedman Launches New Bestseller Lists with BookStat
The traditional bestseller lists like The New York Times and USA Today just aren’t accurate depictions of what is actually selling well. So Jane Friedman decided to tackle this problem and create the Hot Sheet Bestseller lists in collaboration with BookStat. You can check these anytime to find out what people are really buying -and the truth is fascinating!
What’s Bringing Me Joy
The end of the year is in sight. I’m pushing hard in the next three weeks—ghostwriting two chapters, finishing up a personal essay, making edits on another ghostwriting project. I’m coming in for a crash landing on December 22, and then I’ll be OOO for two whole blessed weeks!
Liz and I are also getting ready for Season 3 of the Hungry Authors podcast, which launches in January, and we are lining up some incredible guests. We have industry experts like an award-winning audiobook narrator, a Big 5 publicist, one of NY’s top literary agents, and, of course, some Hungry Authors like yourselves! I truly cannot wait to share all we’re planning.
Cheers, friends,
Ariel
Any tips to stop getting alllll those emails about Substack newsletters?! I can’t figure out how to stop them (other than mass delete). So many great suggestions here!