Write With Every

TLDR: We’re looking for four new writers to join our writer collective! We’re accepting writers as part of a batch, and the deadline to be part of it is September 3, 2021 at midnight. The first space in the new batch has been filled by Adam Davidson of the New Yorker and the Planet Money podcast. Apply here.

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Hey! Dan, Nathan, and Rachel here.

It’s now been five months since we announced this experiment in publishing we’re calling a “writer collective,” where we try to balance the benefits of self-publishing with the editorial support and distribution that traditional publications offer. We’re pleased to report that since we started Every has generated over $700K in revenue and now reaches nearly 40K readers both free and paid.

Our writers have received raises, job offers, investment solicitations, interview requests, and Twitter followers. They report tired fingers and overall increases in the number of times per month they say to themselves, “Damn, I wrote something great.” Tyler Cowen and Anne-Helen Peterson have praised their work; Every posts have been shared in Vox, The Hustle and Morning Brew, hit the front page of Hacker News, and been collected in best-of-week lists across the internet. Importantly, Every newsletters are growing—on average each active publication in the collective is growing by 500 new subscribers per month. And we expect that to only get better over time. So far, so good!

So good, in fact, that we’re ready to expand. We’re opening up applications to join us. So we wrote you this letter to tell you all about it. It’s for anyone with a sparkle in their eye for a topic in the startup world, who is passionate about its future, who understands the durable power of the written word, and believes that writing together is better than writing alone. 

If you’re looking for an audience, a coach, and a team to write with—as well as a share in the upside—we’re here, and looking for you. 

More details below, but here’s the quick gist:

1. We’re opening up applications to join our new batch.
2. We have 4 slots available for new writers looking to lead newsletters or write pop-ups (a limited-run series of posts with a beginning, middle, and end).
3. We already have the first member of the new batch: Adam Davidson: New Yorker writer, co-founder of the Planet Money podcast, and author of The Passion Economy. We're doing a newsletter and a course with him on storytelling.
4. We’re asking you to submit a completed draft of the first post you’d send out if you ran your own newsletter or pop-up.
5. If we like your submission, we’ll invite you to publish the post with us as a first step!
6. Deadline to submit is September 3rd, 2021 at midnight 🌚  

What kind of writing does Every publish?

We love writing that helps startup leaders and builders see their work and the world in a new way—that says things that are new, that are true, and that are useful. We like to strike a balance between writing that is entertaining and informative. We love to create a compelling narrative, and leave the reader feeling nourished by new ideas. 

We publish essays, interviews, and investigations on business strategy, productivity, the creator economy, the tech and startup scene, and more. Basically, we cover topics that are valuable and important for startup operators—actionable writing that helps you solve a problem at work, and exploratory writing that reveals something new about the larger tech ecosystem. We blend advice and analysis from the operator’s perspective with journalism that deeply explores industries, people, and products. 

At Every we’re obsessed with quality writing. We care about words. We think there’s too much content in the startup and tech space that is rushed out without much editing or review, and we want to take our time to create work that’s high quality: truthful, intelligent, compassionate, respectful, and inclusive. We care about craft as much as content. 

But that’s just what we like. We believe that the most important ingredient in developing a newsletter is your perspective and experiences. When we work with you, you’ll be able to create and define an original vision for your newsletter that reflects who you are and what you’re most interested in. 

The Every collective is built up of former and current founders, engineers, marketers, and old fashioned full-time writers.  We are optimistic operators and internet enthusiasts. We have different tastes and different worldviews, come from different parts of the world and different backgrounds. But at the end of the day, we all love Ted Lasso. 

Here are a few of the types of posts we publish, with examples:

Explainer

Unpack big ideas.

• Revenue: It’s Simple, Until It Isn’t (Napkin Math, Evan Armstrong)
• The Mind-Bending Magic of Self-Paying Loans (Almanack, Nat Eliason)
• Finding Power: An introduction to Clay Christensen’s most underrated idea, “The Conservation of Modularity” (Divinations, Nathan Baschez (paid)) 

Interview

Inspiring industry leaders tell it like it is. 

• Albrey Brown hopes we never have to have this conversation again: Airtable's head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is ready for tech culture to change (Free Radicals, Sherrell Dorsey and Annaliese Griffin)
• The CEO of No: How entrepreneur Andrew Wilkinson turns emails into opportunities (Superorganizers, Dan Shipper)

Analysis

Examining an important aspect or totality of a business or business strategy.

• Assessing Clubhouse’s Post-Pandemic Future (Means of Creation, Li Jin, Nathan Baschez, and Yash Bagal)
• Roam’s road ahead: How the tool for networked thought can grow into its $200M valuation (Divinations, Nathan Baschez)

How-to

Helping people do something they want to do in work, business, finance, etc.

• How I Spend 5 Minutes Per Day on Email: You, too, can be free (Almanack, Nat Eliason (paid))
• How to find your writing voice (The Long Conversation, Rachel Jepsen, free post)

Investigation

What’s going on with that thing?

• Caught in the Study Web: Exploring Gen Z’s Ambitious and Anxiety-Fuelled Pursuit of Straight A’s Across YouTube, TikTok, Discord, and Twitter (Cybernaut, Fadeke Adegbuyi, free post)
• The Dark Side of Noom: Untangling the Weigh Loss App’s Many Promises (Glassy, Taylor Majewski, free post)
• Oatly: The New Coke, (Almanack, Nat Eliason, free post)

What does Every do for writers?

Every is a writer collective, which means the way we work with writers and the things we do for writers are a little different than a traditional or typical publication. Here’s some of the things you can expect when working with us:

• Editorial support. We'll provide you with a dedicated editor who can engage with your piece on every level: from sharpening the ideas to shaping the narrative, to ensuring the writing is compelling and clear.
• Distribution to our audience. We have a nearly 40K-person audience full of some of the smartest people in startups. We'll make sure they see your work.
• A custom software platform. Every has its own CMS built specifically for writers in the collectivate to help you reach your audience.
• Profit upside. We'll give you 50% of the profit that your newsletter generates—forever.
• Your own list. We'll let you download and keep a copy of your email list whenever you want. We won't lock you in.
• I.P. You keep the I.P. to what you write.
• Financing. We'll pay you some money up front to make sure that you can spend the time to make your newsletter amazing.
• A community of other writers. We have an active Discord where the collective discusses story ideas, the writing process, resources, struggles, and successes.
• A community of readers. The Every Discord is also home to vibrant conversation between writers and paid subscribers, where you can engage with your audience directly and a series of events bring the community together.

Want to write together with us? Below are some submission guidelines.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions are open for two types of projects: 

1. Newsletters—consistent writing on a purposeful theme. 
2. Pop-up newsletters—a limited run series of 5-10 editions that teaches something specific. 

...on the following topics: 

1. productivity
2. business strategy
3. developments and trends in the world of startups
4. internet culture
5. crypto / decentralized finance
6. the creator economy / passion economy
7. mental health in modern work

In the Typeform linked below, you’ll be asked to explain your vision for either a long-term newsletter or a limited-run pop-up, why you want to write about the topic, and the experiences that qualify you to write about it. We’re looking for perspectives that are new, under-acknowledged, and challenging. We’re looking for people who aren’t just interested in how businesses can be run, but where they’re running to.

In addition to your pitch for a newsletter or pop-up, we’re also asking for a completed draft  (of any length, preferably 1,500-3,500 words) of the first post you’d send out if you were selected. This should give us a really good sense of how you write about the topic you’ve chosen, what you have to say, and what your voice can tell us.

If you have an idea but you’re not sure whether to apply to write a newsletter or pop-up, or have any other questions, Tweet at us @every, or email Rachel directly at [email protected] 

We can't wait to meet you!

Dan, Nathan, Rachel