This is the last edition of the Beach Bi-Weekly. This journey started on March 16, 2020. It’s hard to ignore the timing. It was the start of a global pandemic, and we had all been stuck at home for a couple of weeks, wondering what the coming days and years would look like.
I ultimately began writing this newsletter because I felt I was consuming so much intellectually stimulating information with no outlet. This newsletter started by spamming the 25 people in my email contacts list and it eventually grew to an organic 150+ people.
From a process stand point, it started a little rough. The first 32 editions were particularly time consuming. I had a long-running document with all of the newsletters. It would go through a few rounds of editing between my wife Jenny and I, but it still wasn’t done. I had to copy everything over to Mailchimp and a website I created kevinbeach.me. Moving between tools and changing formatting was frustrating. In search of a better solution, I switched to drafting in Notion and posting in Substack. This has streamlined the process. Plus, it has allowed me to link to previous posts. Here are all of the editions. The first 32 link to a doc and the rest to a published Substack.
Mini-topics: (Moneyball, Salt Lake City, and psychology of a name)
I collected all of the Beach-Bi-Weekly topics in Figma’s whiteboarding tool called FigJam. I organized them by topic. For the curious, you can check out the file here.
What was one of your favorite Beach Bi-Weekly’s and why? I would love to hear!
Why am I stopping?
The newsletter started as an experiment. I didn’t know how long it would go for. Around a year ago, I decided that I wanted a stopping point. Many of my favorite newsletters stopped suddenly or became inconsistent with sharing their writing. I wanted to be transparent and consistent with readers and create a buildup to an ending, rather than a cliffhanger.
If I were to do it over again?
Seek advice early from others who write newsletters. I subscribe to a ton of newsletters and simply “replying” to their email would’ve gotten me a ton of useful advice upfront. For instance, publish on Substack, creating a streamline drafting > writing > editing > publishing > marketing process.
Write one Beach Bi-Weekly ahead. I was constantly finishing my edits for a Beach Bi-Weekly the day I was publishing it. That caused headaches and pushed away other priorities. Similar to cartoonists, I could’ve gotten at least one newsletter ahead, so I would be writing with two weeks lead time. That way if something came up, I had a buffer.
Start marketing on multiple social Mmedia platforms earlier and experiment with different messages. I started posting about the Beach Bi-Weekly on my Instagram story at about the 40th edition. Even starting that late, about 20% of my total subscribers came from Instagram. I could’ve reached more people if I had posted earlier and on different social media platforms from the start.
My favorites
What’s next?
I’ll still keep falling down rabbit holes and may eventually find a new creative outlet.
It might be a podcast, long-form writing 3-4x a year, or picking up improv or public speaking.
I am so grateful that I decided to do a newsletter. Here are three takeaways from my experience.
Writing in public has helped me become a
muchbetter writer.Granted me permission to follow my interests. Why else would I spend hours researching Norilsk, Russia?
Connect with others. I have re-connected with family and friends, and met new folks through this experience.
Persistence pays. All 75 Beach Bi-Weekly’s combine for 80,000+ words, which is about the length of a novel.
Thank you for being a Beach Bi-Weekly subscriber, whether you’ve been here for 3 days, 3 months or 3 years. I appreciate all of the support. 🙏
A special thank you to my wonderful wife Jenny, who has been the editor in chief since day one.
Quote I’m pondering
“Every exhale we take is our past and every inhale we take is our future.”
Brazil fact of the day
The Northernmost part of Brazil is closer to Canada than it is to the Southernmost part of Brazil. Also, the easternmost point of Brazil is closer to Africa than its westernmost point.
What I’m re-watching
I was blessed enough to witness Maya Angelou give a talk in 2012, two years before she passed away. For someone who did not speak for five years as a child, she has one of the most beautiful voices. I’ve watched this video many times and it always moves me to tears.
Pic of the Week
It was wonderful having my parents in town. We made the most of the windy/rainy weekend. This pic was snapped at Muir Beach after a lovely meal at the Pelican Inn a few minutes up the road.
Absolutely loved the series and I learned SO much from your writing. Congrats on 75, Kevin!