Lifting one another/Coffee Challenge/Newsletters/Substack/friendships
And the Winner of the Coffee Challenge 3 Is…?
No Winston, this does not mean you do not have to hand out the 💲💲
The actual winner of the newsletter challenge has yet to be chosen. Winston was kind enough to extend the deadline for contestants to Jan 15th. But while you are here —
I believe the winners have been found.
What is this all about?
First, here is a little back story for those of you living under a rock the past two weeks.
Winston and Coffee Times put together a detailed and multi-faceted competition for writers to start a newsletter. Eighteen writers took up the gauntlet and started the race.
Phase 1: Set up a newsletter on Substack and send out three newsletters.
Phase 2: Write a story for the Coffee Times Newsletter explaining why you love writing and linking your three articles.
Phase 3: Write a promotional story on Medium about your newsletter with links and inspire at least 100 people to review your story on Coffee Times Newsletter and give it a 🤍. The Substack equivalent of a like.
My newsletter is called Mud Puddles, and you can read/like 💓 it at this link.
The following article has a link to each of the articles for the contest.
Sounds easy? Well, it has proven to be a daunting task for many of us, and many of us are groveling for those pesky little hearts.
Fortunately, many publications have been very gracious in allowing our shameless self-promo’s to grace their esteemed pages. Illumination, Flint and Steel, The Coffee Times, and others I may have missed.
How can there be a winner already?
Over the past week, contestants have been submitting the required self-promotional articles to attract the required 100 likes for our initial story about our newsletters.
Winston further challenged us by encouraging our interaction with the fellow writers in the contest by reading, liking, and signing up for the newsletters which resonated with us most.
But what started as self-promo pieces has turned into each of us rallying for one another.
As a participant, I have been favorably mentioned in numerous articles by the other contestants.
This little contest has given me, and I believe the others, an opportunity to build a community among us. Each one is lifting the other in various promotional ways. Tamil, Sally Prag, Marilyn Flower, Zaha Hyatt, Yan Huang, Drashti Shroff have all written stories promoting all the contestants, and I am sure more will follow. We have until Feb 15th to get our 100 likes.
Each time we read, comment and show our support with each 🤍, our little group of newsletter mogul wannabees have grown closer. There is a strong sense of community and goodwill among each of us.
I have felt an outpouring of support from those I compete with; they get it. They know what it takes to put a part of your soul out into the world and then have to get others to respond favorably. It’s hard, but writing is hard. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be worth it.
I believe each of us has won in a way that stretches long past a prize. We have gained those things money can’t buy: encouragement, kindness, and respect from one another. We are not just competitors, but I think we are becoming friends. I will be ecstatic for whoever wins the contest. It will be for a job well done! I wouldn’t trade that for any amount of money.
But I could use both!😉
A personal thank you to Rosy Gee and her newsletter Rosy’s Ramblings. When I first came across this, I felt like I was sitting down to have coffee with a friend, inspiring me to start my newsletter.
Please consider supporting these writers with a 💗 on their promotional piece. Then take a look at a newsletter or two. You might be surprised by what you find.
Jean Elizabeth Glass, I Write Things
Yan Huang, 3 Minutes Is All You Need and The Importance Of Writing To Bust Through Struggles Of Life
Drashti Shroff, A Golden Ticket Towards Destiny
Ida Johannesen, Welcome To “Word for Woman” — Letters on Sexuality, Shadow Work and Conscious Relating
Ellie Jacobson, Come On In & Write Awhile
Libby Walkup, FinYou’ren Introduction, Self-Discovery, and Becoming the Writer I Always Dreamed I Could be.
Ashley, How Reading A Book Inspired Me To Start My Newsletter
Marilyn Flower, From Melancholy Malarkey to Sacred Foolishness
Karen Schwartz, Sugar, and Spice, it’s free — there’s no price.
Zaha Hyatt, Mind+Craft: Grow Your Mind and Improve Your Writing Craft
Tamil, Your soul, can lead you to happiness
Rhea Anglesey, How To Hack Your Writer Life
Sharing Randomly, Tired of Not Knowing What to Write?
Kathryn Eriksen, Undo Your Learning and Live from Knowing Instead
Robert Shaneyfelt, The Passion I follow
Rosa de Saron C., This Newsletter is Going On An Adventure and You’re Invited
TMann, “Read All About It!” Writer Throws Hat in the Ring With the Big Guns!
