The rarest sighting in the world?

The Ivory Billed Woodpecker would be a good guess, since it may have been glimpsed a few years ago, long after it was declared extinct. But no.

The rarest of all is … volume 1, number 3 of your newsletter.

Issue #1 was created with enthusiasm, #2 with a skeleton crew, and #3? Crickets. Tumbleweed.

The death spiral is understandable: producing it is hard work with little reward, sent to an indifferent audience.

Printed newsletters induce yawns on their momentary transit to the Round File. Most emailed newsletters fail to move the needle even if they evade the spam filter. Are blog posts the answer? Maybe. After all, original content really helps your search engine ranking – IF it’s written well, designed strategically, and produced on schedule. This rules out participation by the negligent parties who starved the newsletter. So, in a word, outsource.