FAQ: Why does your Substack newsletter have so many typos? And do you need a copyeditor?

A simple question with a deep answer

I recently received this question (and offer) from a paid subscriber, and I loved it! The fact that this person was not afraid to ask or to offer indicates that I come across as a real person who is open to real questions, and actual criticism—all of which is true.

Before I share the answer, let’s acknowledge that YES there are typos in this newsletter. I am well aware of this reality and I accept and even embrace it.

The reason there are typos is that I write this newsletter ‘in real time.” I write about what I am thinking about, what I am seeing in my book coach community, what I read, and what I see in the world. It is not planned out in advance or done in batches, the way every content creation expert says you should do for efficiency.

Sometimes I finish the newsletter moments before it goes out. Other times, I finish really late at night after a long day. Every so often, a newsletter I think is going to be something very short and/or easy to write turns out to be quite long and difficult; it’s hard to predict. I always run what I write through AI to catch the most egregious mistakes, but that is an imperfect process for sure.

Being spontaneous makes the writing feel alive for me. It feels like something I do because it brings me joy to teach, to share, and to inspire.

If I don’t do it like this, it feels like a chore—one more thing on my “to do” list.

I know, because for many years I had a copy editor and a proofreader. I would have to get the newsletter done days in advance in order to give them time to work on it. I would have to alert them that it was ready (or more often, that it was late.) If I had a new thought I wanted to insert or delete at the last minute, I couldn’t do it, because it was already in someone else’s workflow. If I wanted to swap in a totally different topic at the 11th hour, I was out of luck.

It was stressful and I didn’t like it.

So I got rid of the layers of oversight. I made the decision that my newsletter would be a spontaneous offering and I accepted that it is going to have mistakes.

I figure that if the typos grate on my readers, or they dismiss my content because it is not perfectly polished, they can unsubscribe.

One of the core tenets of the business framework I teach book coaches is that your business has to be sustainable. You have to make sure you not expending too much energy or time, because that will inevitably lead to burnout and resentment.

That’s the deeper lesson here. You have to do things in ways that works for you as well as the people you wish to serve.