***

I see a social media post by someone that calls out “AI Slop identifiers.” It includes:

– the best part is…
– “it’s not X it’s Y”
– the word “honestly”
– the word “quietly”
– “that’s just x and y dressed up as Z”
– a medium-length sentence followed by short sentences like “An X. A Y. A Z.”
– the em dash
– A short question? Followed by a rhetorical question that it answers.
– “As if it…”
– “Here’s a thing no one talks about…”

PEOPLE. Come on. None of these, by themselves, are “AI slop identifiers.” They may appear in AI writing. But that does not mean they should be entered as evidence in a public trial. 

That’s because all that above is simply language. AI lifted it from us, not the other way round. It’s how we speak and how we write, using everyday words and constructions. They are not gotchas. Honestly, people!

And hey. I know I get touchy about the em dash. But it’s only because I’m bone-weary of the witchy false accusations. I’m reading Ann Patchett’s new book right now (love!); she uses em dashes. Is Ann Patchett using AI? Is The Ann Patchett—one of our most celebrated artists, the winner of the 2026 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction—secretly using Claude? Oh for God’s sake. OF COURSE NOT. Honestly, people!

AI learned all it knows from hoovering up what we all have written for generations, in books both good and bad, in both beautiful prose and the clunky text riddled with cliches and crutches. AI sucked it all up without discernment, because AI cannot discern. It mashed The Odyssey with How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety with a Reddit post about fixing your dishwasher and then let it gurgle in its gut a bit before it burped it back out as “models” we can use to “write.”

Except it’s not “writing.” It’s just data. That’s not pejorative. It just is.

And by the way, “hoovering” is actually a nice way of describing what actually happened. The process itself was at times violent. Anthropic spent millions of dollars buying physical books in bulk, then used industrial hydraulic cutting machines to slice off the bindings and spines, fed the loose pages into high-speed scanners, converted the images into machine-readable text files, and then threw the paper remains straight into the garbage. Some of those books stripped for parts were reportedly rare.

If that’s not a metaphor for what’s actually going on with writing today, I don’t know what is.

* * *

I’ve been sick all week with a respiratory something so maybe that’s why my patience is about to snap. But the post about the gotcha words (before I threw my phone down in pure exasperation) is only part of it.

>>> On Substack, a machine tells you if your writing seems human enough. In July, the newsletter-slash-social platform launched an AI detection feature, via an integration with AI-detection software Pangram. People are now able to scan posts, replies, and comments on Substack to see how much of it was written by a human or with AI assistance. Pangram is often wildly wrong, in case you’re thinking there’s any upside to this whatsoever.

>>> LinkedIn just introduced an AI Slop button. Humans can push the button to snitch on other humans they suspect are using bots to pretend to sound human. Who are they snitching to? AI, of course.

>>> New tools/software features like Quillbot AI Humanizer and Grammarly AI Humanizer make AI writing seem like human writing. A robot helping another robot fake human at the request of the actual human. What a tangled web we weave.

>>> Actual writers are dropping typos and offbeat punctuation into their prose in a desperate attempt to make their own work look and feel undeniably human-crafted. Some writers are also abandoning a well-known writing construct called the Rule of 3. The Rule of 3 is a writing pattern that our brains find pleasing, which is why writers use it. But it’s a pattern. So of course AI has adopted it; pattern-recognition/replication is what machines do best. (See more on reclaiming the Rule of 3 below.)

It sounds dramatic to say that writers are increasingly in a surveillance state. But I don’t know any other way to describe it. “We’re getting to a point where people who can’t write see a bit of writing and accuse it of being AI because they can’t fathom how else that writing could have come to be,” novelist Dani Price says.

Let’s zoom out…

Tools trained on writers’ stolen writing are now being used to police whether writers are “real” enough. AI tools are prompting us to snitch on each other. We scan text for “gotcha” words and phrases merely because someone in 2026 puts them on a page. We have tools that help disguise robot-writing to sound like people-writing. Writers are adding mistakes on purpose. Legitimate writing constructs are being called to the witness stand to defend themselves by a jury that has already decided they’re guilty. I have a fever of 100.1.

Everything is just so stupid.

* * *

So what do we do.

I think we are coming at this entire issue from the wrong angle. We are locating the problem in the wrong place, like taking the batteries out of a chirping smoke alarm instead of looking for the fire.

We are trying to surveil each other and sniff out or disguise the AI instead of asking more important questions of ourselves, and what our endgame actually is.

I’m an idealist with writing, I know I am. But I’m also a pragmatist.

I know people are going to use AI to write. For all kinds of reasons, in all kinds of situations. 

If you’re tempted to hand the writing over to AI, pause and consider these two questions about what this moment right now is asking of you:

1. Would doing this myself help me to grow or to make something that matters?
2. Is the process itself something I value and love?

These two questions can reframe “but it’s faster” and “but it’s easier” into something that has a true cost attached to it. 

It’s a simple way to invite clarity, right? But it can be so hard to do.

Right away you can see this approach isn’t just about using or not using AI. It applies to any choice you can make. It’s about protecting the parts that you love and shoring up the parts that help you grow as a human being. It’s about honing your judgment and abilities in ways that matter in a thousand ways to who you are and who you want to become. It’s about choosing when not to take the shortcut.

Writing is one of the clearest choices for many of us here. But instead of writing it might be design, or code, or music—any skill where the process matters as much as the product to the person doing it. Or maybe it’s an important conversation, a relationship, a moment asking a bit more of you. Or maybe it’s something you do for no reason other than you simply love it.

That’s what I mean when I say that if you skip the struggle, you miss the growth. Sometimes the struggle is all that really matters.

* * *

My fever breaks. Everything is still stupid… but for you and me, I don’t think it has to stay that way forever.

Most of us should spend less energy trying to detect AI or not. Develop the judgment to know what not to hand over to the robots.

Choose when not to take the shortcut. Protect the parts of yourself that deserve more of you. The parts where the struggle helps you…

• Think more clearly
• Develop taste
• Make something distinctive
• Feel deep joy, or
• Grow

That’s the resistance. It’s the only way through.

That… and for pete’s sake use em dashes. They are blameless.

The post AI Slop, Accusations, And A Better Way appeared first on Ann Handley.

***

This week I’ve been obsessed with Jimothy, the short-spined raccoon that the entire internet is rooting for. I also stopped eating salad unless it comes from my local farmer’s market. Bonus: I discovered there is a local farmer’s market. Thanks, Cyclospora!

Also this week, as a final check before publishing something I’d written, I ran it through Claude.

Whenever I do this, I expressly tell the tool: DO NOT EDIT MY WRITING. I also tell it to SHOW ME exactly what changes it makes on the page itself. I use all caps so it knows I mean business.

This is what Claude said (and I quote directly):

Here are the changes I made:

• added a comma in “hey, this is for you”
• changed the quotes around “Yo…” to curly quotes for polish
• kept your weirdness level intact

That last one is just delightful, isn’t it?

I shared that bit of feedback on LinkedIn, where it went a little bananas. A few people were confused by my instruction to Claude to NOT edit me… What’s the point of asking a writing tool not to write for you? they wondered. What’s it “changing”?

I use AI for copy editing and proofreading help. Sometimes I ask it: Is this clear? But I don’t let it write for me; I don’t want it to. I will not train it on my voice because I don’t need AI to know my voice. Because… well, I already know my voice.

I enjoy writing; it’s how I think. It’s how I feel close to the work. You can use AI without handing it the work you love doing, or the work that means something to you. Saying no to AI is a choice, too. The process of the work is the joy of the work.

Which brings me back to Claude’s unintended counsel: Keep your weirdness level intact.

It’s great advice for all of us struggling with standing out in the age of AI slop, isn’t it? In writing, marketing, life.

* * *

Mailbag question from Judy S. this week:

One of my clients wants to secure more speaking engagements. Do you have any recommendations for speaker agents/representatives? Or any advice on launching a speaking career?

Dear Judy:

So many thoughts. But I’m gonna rein myself in to 7 tidy bullet points.

I am listed with a few bureaus and agents, but none exclusively. Most of my engagements come inbound: Someone hears me speak and hires me afterward or someone who heard me refers me.

Which is why the secret to getting more speaking opportunities is to become highly referable.

The event-planning world—like most industries—is surprisingly insular. Everyone talks to everyone. Everyone knows who is good, who is not, who is down-to-earth, who is a diva, who is literally so much of a pain in the patootie that only those forced into a corner will hire them. (Or you are Oprah so you can act however you want.) (Which is not a slam on Oprah; I have no idea what she is like to work with.)

So rather than starting with looking for an agent or a bureau, anyone who wants to speak more (or coach someone who does) should begin at the beginning.

1. Start with the audience.

Who are the ideal two or three audiences a speaker wants to reach? Maybe entrepreneurs? Enterprise behemoths? HR leaders? AI apologists who need to finally hear how to use AI in a way that doesn’t rot their brains? People who love short-spined raccoons?

Not: “I am an author who speaks.” (No one cares, sorry.)

Instead: I help [this audience] solve [this problem] through [this distinctive point of view].

2. List 10 dream “reach” events.

Then list another 20 more easily attainable events.

Look at the next 12-18 months, because many larger conferences book speakers well in advance—even further ahead than you’d expect. This morning, I was in CVS and noticed a display for Halloween candy. Reader, let me remind you: It is July. Anyway, conference organizers book even further out than CVS’s candy buyer, which is objectively way too early.

Find out who programs each event. Then reach out to them individually, with a strong speaking idea tailored to that audience. Follow up via email once or twice. Do not DM them repeatedly on LinkedIn. That is both stalker behavior and annoying. (Speaking from experience.)

Not: “Hi I have a new book coming out” (See the “no one cares, sorry” again.)

Instead: “Here’s what your audience is probably feeling; here’s how I help with that.”

Help your talk feel compelling to the organizer first… so it feels like a no-brainer to tap you.

3. Why now?

Preemptively answer the 3 questions already bouncing around the organizer’s noggin:

1. Why this person?
2. What is their distinctive point of view?
3. Why will this matter to our audience right now?

That last one bullet is key: WHY RIGHT NOW will differentiate you. Tie it to the current zeitgeist. Help it feel fresh and relevant in 2026… not 2016.

But I talk about fundamentals, you say. Those things don’t change. Mmm OK. Maybe not. But what does change is what’s swirling around us. Conditions change. Acknowledge that.

This doesn’t mean you need to work in references to Jimothy or Poop Salad. It does mean you need to acknowledge the atmospheric changes that influence all of us day-to-day, like weather.

4. Get video of you speaking, even if you initially have to stage and record something yourself.

But isn’t that nonprofessional? you wonder. No! It’s great! It’s perfectly OK! One time I hired someone to speak for the MarketingProfs B2B Forum based on the strength of a talk they shot in their kitchen.

5. You need ONE really good signature talk.

Not 7 mediocre talks. Range isn’t your strength here. Double-down.

I never accept a speaking invitation from someone who dictates what they want me to talk about, instead of what I actually talk about. I got this invite not too long ago: “We want someone to present about revenue ops, ideally a woman.”

Could I fake it? Maybe. (The rev ops part, not the female part—I’m pretty solid there.) But why would I? If I’m not passionate about something… I won’t serve your audience well. We’ll both end up feeling depressed. (Plus it’s weird to mention gender at all, but this happens more often than you’d think.)

In the same way, I never hire a speaker who asks me: What are you looking for speakers to talk about right now? Because I want to hear what YOU, my brilliant speaker friend, can’t NOT talk about.

6. You need a kick-peach, strong description that creates a curiosity gap for the audience. What does that mean? A curiosity gap is the space between what people know and what they suddenly feel they need to know. The description should feel so intriguing that they WANT answers even before anyone has boarded a plane and ridden the Uber to the venue.

Pro tip: Learn how to write kick-peach speech descriptions in here: Everybody Writes 2.

7. Treat every speaking engagement as a step to earn the next one. 

Get footage, collect testimonials, photographs, audience feedback, and maybe express a willingness to speak at their other events.

Wait—one more:

8. What about speaking for free?

Yes, maybe, when it makes sense for you.

I still do when the opportunity is strategically valuable: Because it’s the right audience, a cool venue so I’ll get strong footage, a meaningful opportunity, good referral potential, someone I like and want to help… that kind of thing.

And at the beginning, free is how you build your reputation. Free is how you ultimately get paid.

An excellent book on public speaking is The Referable Speaker by Andrew Davis and Michael Port. They cover all those points… and lots, lots more.

The post How To Secure More Speaking Gigs appeared first on Ann Handley.

***

I’m at the gym, where the conversation turns to what everyone is reading this summer.

Normally conversation there is fragmented (kids, work schedules, how loud our thigh muscles are screaming from Bulgarian split squats). But this day we talk authors and stories. It was animated. People have Opinions. So someone starts a text thread, and now I have a group text with book-loving friends and a list of new recs. It’s like an asynchronous book club.

Maybe you saw The Atlantic‘s August cover story that cannonballed right into the middle of summer beach-reading season in the US: “The End of Reading Is Here,” the magazine declared. We’re past any literary “crisis”; we’re now at a new stage of complete disaster the magazine calls “postliterate.”

It’s not that we can’t read words. (Which—you’re not wrong—is how I initially interpreted “postliterate,” too.) But what’s slipping beneath the water are the deeper cognitive capacities that long-form reading builds in our brains, like Bulgarians build my quads.

We’re losing sustained attention and focus: the ability to sit quietly with a book for a period of time, and then to both comprehend and internalize what we’ve read.

Bulgarians, by the way, are single-leg, rear-foot elevated lunges. They are actually the worst/best… I love when I see them scrawled on the day’s class whiteboard. They strengthen the larger muscles of your quads and glutes like no one’s business.

The Atlantic article is long (5,500 words arguing that no one reads lol). There’s a LOT to unpack.

Some of it we might nod vigorously along with. Like short-form video DOES train us for passive viewing. Our jumpy attention DOES bounce away when we aren’t immediately dopa-delighted. And AI DOES tempt us to outsource our thinking at alarming rates. (SHOUTY-CAPS for emphasis, so you know how spot-on I believe those things are.)

BUT (here’s where I stopped nodding): The conclusion is waaaay overstated. Things seem just so black and white. So certain, in part because the piece treats all this as something happening to us, when a lot of it is something we’re choosing. And (this is the part I keep coming back to), we can choose differently. A lot of us already are.

So I want to talk about 2 major points, because I think they have relevance to the future of you and me as readers, writers, creatives.

#1: Reading “is becoming a kind of niche hobby, like stamp collecting or growing orchids.”

MmMmm, okay. Let’s look at the data:

• Print-book sales are higher than a decade ago.
• Barnes & Noble opened 60+ new stores last year.
• Nearly 400 independent bookstores opened in 2025.
• Substack subscriptions for long-form content have surged.
• Readers spend more time reading per day than they did two decades ago.
• Celebrity book clubs are a thing (Dua Lipa, Reese Witherspoon, John Mulaney, Jenna Bush Hager, and (of course) Oprah) that actually do drive sales.

The Atlantic acknowledges all those bullets. But then waves them away as “niche” like stamp collecting and orchid-growing.

There’s plenty of evidence that reading is declining. There’s also plenty of evidence it is deepening. Only one of those gets called data in The Atlantic piece; the other gets lumped in with orchid growing. (No disrespect to the orchid growers; you’re great.)

Said another way… the piece acknowledges evidence that complicates the End of Reading thesis, then interprets it in the most apocalyptic, dire direction. It doesn’t exactly cherry-pick… but it does move the harvesting machinery in that direction.

#2: “Americans are probably reading more words than ever before. What has changed is what they read, and how.”

Right now, you’re reading this on your phone or your computer. Between online news, social feeds, captions, articles, inboxes, texts…. we are reading more words than ever. Our days are literally STUFFED with words.

But the piece then treats the short-form stuff as evidence of diminished capacity. And sure, capacities we don’t practice can weaken: I took a few weeks off from the gym and wow I felt it. But the piece reads as if reading more non-book text proves people can no longer think deeply. Those are two different claims, and as I read it I think: Does the evidence for one automatically prove the other?

We could look at it another way, supported in part by the article’s own numbers I bulleted above. Look at that data point about how readers are spending more time with books daily than they did 20 years ago. Is that really what collapse looks like? Or is that what a more intentional and concentrated habit looks like? Is this a verdict… or an opportunity?

I see long-form reading as more selective and intentional. But not “over” and not even niche. (I’m pretty sure it’s bigger than orchid growers, anyway.)

So: yes to “we read differently now…” No to “…therefore books are dead.” A format shift does not equal utter cognitive collapse.

Not automatically, anyway.

* * *

Together, those points show something more nuanced than The End of Reading: Faster formats don’t automatically destroy reading. They change it.

But here’s the deal: You and I can change, too. We can choose differently. We can choose what we want to strengthen.

Maybe another way to look at the data is that some readers are being more intentional with what they read; and that writers and creatives need to up their game and create truly exceptional reading experiences.

Those of us reading aren’t holdouts; we’re deliberately choosing to read long-form, on purpose. We recognize what it does for us that social scrolling does not. We are choosing Bulgarian Brain Squats, because they build large muscles like no one’s business.

Ah, of course, you say… you are a writer publishing a new book in February 2027. Of course you’d say that.

Fair enough. I don’t want my book to enter a postliterate apocalyptic world populated by stumbling zombies locked in on TikTok (Apocalyptiktok?). I don’t want any of us living there, either.

But what drives me bananas about articles like The Atlantic‘s is that they predict a future they insist is so (waving spritzer toward exposed aerial roots of non-existent orchids) inevitable.

It’s not. The future never is.

When everything else gets faster and cheaper, the stuff that requires real-time and attention becomes more important, more valuable. It becomes a choice—that (the data shows) many of us are already making.

Reading is not dead. Not dying. But we do have to consciously build the habit.

Once you get into the routine of it, your muscles feel so good.

* * *

At the gym, a woman named Elle is talking about a book she’s been loving—”devouring” was the word she used. She’s reading it on her Kindle app, because, she said, she can read it on her phone while she’s standing in line at Market Basket or waiting in the carpool line for camp pickup.

So do with that what you will. But to me, Elle is like a lot of us: a little tired of the social scroll and very aware of how regularly consuming it feels like a diet of Cheez Doodles. We aren’t abandoning our phones entirely. But we also know that there’s another way. We deliberately choose that way when it matters. Or we can.

That conversation at the gym was truly a delight. People love recommending books. People love talking about them. And a lot of us love reading them.

I left the gym feeling stronger, in every way: The larger muscles were on fire—glutes, quads, AND brain.

The post Is the Age of Reading Actually Over? appeared first on Ann Handley.

***

Liza asks:

“This is a bit of a long shot, but I am desperate. I’m repeatedly getting asked to remove the em dash from email copy. By the CEO. To avoid looking like copy is written by AI.

“Its purpose and use is defined in writing guidelines. But I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle here. I refuse to stop using it entirely. Because it genuinely adds so much value to written copy. ARGH!

“How would you approach this? Education? Stubbornness? Or just cave? 😞”

* * *

OK… <cracks knuckles>… I’m here for you.

You don’t have to have a nit-picking CEO to question your em dash choices. Maybe you’ve seen this sentiment:

“As soon as I see an em dash, I stop reading.”

A line in the sand drawn because AI loves em dashes. Ergo, anything with an em dash must be AI. 

That’s like saying Batman wears a cape, so anyone in a bath towel is Batman.

* * *

This CEO’s real concern probably isn’t the em dash itself. It’s a worry that OTHERS might glimpse an em dash and—aha!—accuse you with hot self-righteousness of AI slop. (That last sentence contains an em dash, by the way. Actually, two. Lovingly placed there by me.)

Em dash panic has created a strange new form of reputational self-surveillance. We are treating a normal punctuation mark like contraband, and asking good writers to pre-defend normal writing choices from imaginary accusations. WHAT ARE WE EVEN DOING.

Anyway. I could really get annoyed about this. (And I will, in a second.) But I’m also practical and I want to help Liza: What do we do?

A few thoughts:

>>> Lead with nodding agreement, then reframe. (Good advice for life, not just em dashes.) Something like:

“Listen, boss. You’re right that AI often overuses the em dash. And I understand the concern that people may now associate it with AI. But AI also overuses bullet points, punchy one-liners, raccoons-in-trench-coat metaphors, goblins, and words like quietly and delve and it’s not-x-it’s-y.

“So the fix isn’t singling out punctuation and executing it at dawn. The long-term fix is using our tools with enough judgment that the copy is unmistakably ours.”

That shifts the conversation…

From: “Ban the em dash!”
To: “How do we make our writing feel intentional, specific, human, warm, and only ours?”

And it signals something important: You do think about this. You are not using punctuation by accident.

>>> Show, not tell. (Also good advice for life; are you writing these down?) Pull a few examples where your em dash is doing its job. Ones you love, where it’s creating pace, emphasis, contrast, surprise, a human little turn of thought.

Then pull a few examples of AI-sloppified em dash installations, where the dash feels lazy or overdone. Line them up, side by side. Help your CEO see the difference.

Don’t point out merely that a sentence has an em dash. Point out why the em dash earns its place, and how and why you can’t imagine any other punctuation there without completely ruining the flow, meaning, or drama of a sentence.

An em dash doing its rightful job:

“There are many em dashes in this book—too many to count, although you’re welcome to try—each one handcrafted and tenderly set in place.”

The two dashes create a quick, self-contained aside—a little wink to the reader before the sentence resumes. It has pace. It sounds like a person having a thought in real-time.

P.S. That sentence may be part of the dedication of my new book. Should I actually dedicate it to the em dash? Hit reply and let me know.

An em dash doing someone else’s job:

“There are many em dashes in this book—each one serving as a powerful tool for emphasis, clarity, and flat-out drama.”

Here, the em dash is just a runway straight into the ocean. Nothing turns. Nothing interrupts. Nothing is revealed. The words after the dash simply continue in the same-same direction. A comma would do the same job:

“There are many em dashes in this book, each one serving as a powerful tool for emphasis, clarity, and emotional resonance.”

The differences are subtle but real. Here’s the two-second test I use:

The difference is not dash vs. no dash.

The difference is whether the dash creates a meaningful pause, a turn of thought, contrast, surprise, a human aside, or emphasis that the sentence has actually earned.

A useful em dash is a hinge. It turns the sentence.

A lazy em dash is a fog machine. It makes things feel dramatic without making them clearer.

That is the conversation worth having.

Not: “Does this punctuation look like AI?”

But: “Is this punctuation doing real work?”

Finally…

>>> Offer a usage guideline instead of a ban. Like: “How about we set a standard instead? One or two em dashes per email, max. Never as a lazy trailing thought. Always when another punctuation mark (a comma, a hard stop in a sentence) won’t do.”

It’s funny that Liza asked this question now, by the way, because the editor of my new book just this morning observed that I use a lot of em dashes. She knows my book is all me (she’s got the receipts for every painful draft!), but others who don’t know me might see the em dash and act like Liza’s CEO. So I’ll be taking my own advice here, on all these points.

* * *

Why do I care so much about this issue? Why not just cancel the stupid em dash forever? Why do I care so much that I launched an Em Dash Store?

Why is this the SECOND newsletter I’ve dedicated to the em dash? Here is the first.

I thought the whole Em Dash Persecution would be over by now. But… well, it’s not. Not even close. Liza and so many other writers are now living proof that this issue is STILL an issue. 

So here’s why I still care. And will always care:

I refuse to let us be bullied by AI. I refuse to let anyone—machine or individual—tell me what’s human and what’s not.

The way we take care of small things is how we take care of big things. The em dash is a small thing. But it’s one important way writers can claw back what’s ours from a technology that has—let’s be honest—already taken quite a bit from us.

We can’t push AI back into a box. But we can reclaim what’s ours.

If you’ve always used the em dash: Please continue!

If you haven’t, learn how—and why it matters. It’s not about being “correct” with grammar and language. It’s about using the tools we have to express emotion, drama, insights on the page.

AI uses em dashes. Humans use em dashes.

That does not make an em dash an AI fingerprint any more than Batman’s cape makes everyone in a bath towel Batman.

The em dash is not a tell. It is punctuation. And, used well, it does real work.

Is this a hill I want to die on?

Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.

The post Why Care About The Stupid Em Dash Anyway? appeared first on Ann Handley.

***

I spent the weekend disturbing the spider ecosystems thriving in the corners of my Tiny House Studio—a small, square office, roughly 12×12, tucked into a corner of the yard.

I’d been meaning to take care of the spider situation for a few weeks. But I was avoiding it, to be honest.

Ignoring the growing number of feathery webs, looking past the small piles of spider trash on the floor: the chewier parts of a fly, the undigested husk of a… beetle?

Gross. Spiders can be real pigs.

Then I started noticing more and more spider egg sacs—tiny cement-colored balls that look rolled out of boiled wool and dirt. Sepia-tone models of that spiky coronavirus ball we remember from 2020.

Pretty soon there would be a population explosion. Ugh. Time to sweep.

* * *

You know how you have a plan to handle one small thing (spider webs) and so you take care of that one thing and then you stop?

Me, neither.

Next thing I knew, I had all the desk squeezed to one side of the studio. Sweeping led to swabbing the floor like a dogged deckhand. Then I pulled every book off the shelves, the ones that sit behind me on Zoom calls. There are hundreds. Many by friends, many I’m quoted in. I started leafing through a few; it was like re-meeting old friends.

After three minutes I look up and I’m shocked to see that three hours has passed.

Here are some gems I rediscovered, all new or new-ish. The first two make great graduation presents!

STUPIDER PEOPLE HAVE DONE IT

Marketing Truths, Career Moves, and Life Advice for Doers

Jay Schwedelson

Why I like it: First, because it’s by Jay. I love him. I love his generosity and his fun, funny, irreverent, off-the-charts energy.

Jay and I are sometimes collaborators; he makes me a better version of myself. His book will do the same for you—because it grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you until your bones rattle around inside your skin: Hey you—stop waiting to feel qualified, this book says. Try the thing. Test the weird subject line. Make the offer.

You have one life. Laugh at yourself more, for Pete’s sake.

A passage I love: “You want to be average? Best practices will take you there. You want to be invisible? Best practices will carry you gently into the arms of mediocrity and tuck you in with a blanket labeled ‘Industry Standard.'”

P.S. Jay is donating anything he makes from the book to the V Foundation for cancer research!

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH AN IDEA? 
10th Anniversary Edition

Kobi Yamada, Mae Besom

Why I like it: I love this story of an idea and the child who helps bring it into the world. 

My friend Andrew gave me this book just a week or so ago. Unbeknownst to him, it came at the weird in-between time after I’d finished writing my new book but before anyone had read it yet. I was starting to feel the demons of doubt creep in; the fear of getting things wrong. This idea is too big. Is it dumb? Will people laugh at me?

Don’t think of it as a children’s picture book. It’s a story for anyone has ever had an idea that felt too much, too weird, or too out-there. It’s for anyone who needs encouragement to embrace the impossible. That includes me. And maybe it includes you, too.

A passage I love: “What do you do with an idea? Especially if it’s an idea that’s different, or daring, or just a little wild? Do you hide it? Walk away from it? Do you pretend it isn’t yours?”

CONTENT FOUNDATIONS

Scale your content with AI without losing your voice

Erika Heald

Why I like it: Erika’s book is for the content leader who doesn’t want generative AI to get its slick, oily hands all over their marketing.

You get frameworks, templates, and workflows up the wazoo. But it also feels like a breath of fresh air because her advice on AI adoption at scale is grounded in a sensible foundation that too many of us skip.

A sentence I love: “Most brands don’t have a brand voice problem—they have a brand voice documentation problem.”

EXCEPTIONAL EXPERIENCES

Five Luxury Levers to Elevate Every Aspect of Your Business

Neen James

Why I like it: Neen takes the principles of luxury and strips away the exclusivity and snobbery.

One time I was in the Turkish Airlines first-class airport lounge (I wasn’t paying for the flight; I’m not made of money) and as part of the lush hectare of fruit and cheese was a honey station with a live bee colony. (Live. Bees.)

THIS, I thought. THIS… is luxury.

Neen James says… uh… no, babe. That’s not quite it. Luxury is not live bees making honey in an Istanbul airport. Luxury is about making people feel seen and considered. Luxury is about being obsessed with experience.

Most “experience” advice gets fuzzy fast. Neen makes the idea practical and elegant, whether you run a car wash or a consultancy or an airport lounge.

A sentence I love: “Luxury is about experiences, not things.”

* * *

And a few honorable mentions:

HUMAN-CENTERED MARKETING

Ashley Faus

Ashley argues for marketing that meets people as people—with context, curiosity, room for complexity. She asks us to think less like funnel managers and more like playground designers: people can move up, down, sideways, around, and back again; they can use the content “wrong.”

PERSONAL BRANDING FOR INTROVERTS

Goldie Chan

You don’t have to be the jazz-hands clowniest or loudest person in the room to be easy to connect with.

DON’T CALL IT ART

Austin Kleon

Unlearn what you’ve learned. Give yourself permission to be terrible, and treat yourself with the care of a loving parent so the wild 4-year-old in you will come out and play.

* * *

Back at my Tiny House Studio, things are clean and spider-free. It makes me happy every morning, when I throw open the windows, to be truly alone and with no creepy cement balls lurking in the corner, waiting to explode like grotesque little undulating time bombs.

It was only later that I thought of the obvious metaphor: cleaning out the cobwebs. Reclaiming a space.

The satisfaction of doing the clearing yourself. Of finishing your own unfinished business. Of giving yourself a fresh perspective.

A good book does that, too.

A good book sweeps a corner of your brain. Clears out a stale assumption. Disturbs the ecosystem of old ideas you’ve been letting accumulate rent-free.

Truly a gift.

SPEAKING OF NEW BOOKS!

I was blown away by all the love for my new book, ASAP: As SLOW As Possible, coming February 2027.

If you missed the announcement, get on board, babe:

>>> New book announcement here. <<<

More details are coming in the next few weeks: the cover, the pre-pub giveaways, whatever ridiculous shenanigans I can think of between now and then.

But for now, mostly I just want to say Thank You.

It’s scary to share your ideas with the world. (Is this dumb? Will people laugh? Did I get it wrong? Will anyone care?)

Even after three books, I still feel that nervousness. Actually, especially after three books.

Thank you for meeting this one with such kindness. You give me courage.

The post 7 New-ish Books I Love (Including 2 Special Ones) appeared first on Ann Handley.

***

My left eyelid has been twitching for the past month or so.

It’s a quick, intermittent fluttering, like my eyelid is trying to send me distress signals in Morse code.

“We haven’t been getting enough sleep,” my eyelid taps out.

“ABORT. We are sTreSS*d,” it taps.

“You are currently 97% coffee,” it warns. “R U ok?”

Which is my way of explaining my absence here these past few weeks: I have been heads down and frantically grasping every moment I have to finish up the final draft of this infuriating my delightful new book.

A few weeks ago I found out that its deadline was not—”I repeat NOT,” Eye Twitch shouts—the end of June, as sweet, clueless me had been thinking back in April when I was happy and young and innocent.

Instead, the deadline was cold-splash-of-water-May 15. A full 40 days and 40 nights earlier than I expected.

You can do a lot in 40 days and 40 nights.

You can survive a flood in Noah’s Ark. Wait for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai. Endure a quarantine. Procrastinate doing actual work by researching how the word quarantine comes from the Italian quaranta giorni—literally 40 days—the isolation period for ships during plague-era Venice. Should I rabbit-hole research a Venice trip…?

For me, the 40 days/40 nights was a hyper-frantic, self-quarantined final push to the deadline. At the end, I died fully dead. I did not rise again three days later. It took a few weeks.

But I buried the lead—the deadline! I hit it! Please clap!

The draft is done. Eyelid Twitch lingers. It’s called eyelid myokymia, by the way: a mild, involuntary spasm of the upper eyelid muscle. It typically resolves on its own, unlike the brain aneurysm I had naturally presumed it was.

* * *

My new book is called ASAP (As SLOW As Possible): When to Take the Long Road in a Shortcut World.

What’s it about?

It’s about you and me, living in a hyper-optimized time that keeps mistaking faster for better.

It’s about knowing when speed serves us—and when slowing down is the smarter, stronger move.

It rebels against the false urgency baked into modern work and life. It asks: When is speed useful? And when does the shortcut undermine us… and cost us our judgment, creativity, relationships, work, or lives?

Because when everyone has access to the same shortcuts, the real edge is knowing when not to take them.

It’s got brain science. Storytelling. Real people who’ve chosen the long road when it matters—with astounding results. Six Slowments. One framework. A way to know when a moment deserves more of you.

And (because it’s from me) humor and wit and the occasional em dash. (Because JUSTICE FOR EM DASHES!)

It’s not boring. It’s not moralistic: I don’t want us to do less, opt out, or become the kind of people who ferment things in sheds.

Instead, I’m inviting us to get better at knowing when speed helps—and when it hollows out the very things that make us feel alive.

The new book is from Penguin Random House, a new publisher for me. It’s out February 2027, because that’s how Big Five publishing works. (More on this later, maybe, if you’re interested.)

So that’s what I’ve been up to. And that’s why I’ve been absent from writing to you.

Many of you reached out—in unknowing solidarity with Eye Twitch—asking some version of: R U OK?

Where you been? you asked. Some of you actually resubscribed with a different email address—thinking the problem was them… not me. 🫣

I appreciate you. I’ve missed writing to you. I’ve missed you.

I’m glad to be back.

* * *

The marketer in me wonders whether I should introduce the book by name at all.

Maybe I should keep it vague, I think. Say I’ve been “busy.” Blame “Maycember.” Make some hand-wavy references to “a big project.” Yadda yadda.

Maybe I shouldn’t say anything until I have an actual call to action: a book landing page, a cover, a preorder link, a backstage pass to the writing process, intel on what it’s like to publish with Penguin Random House after doing things so differently in the past.

Maybe I should wait until I could offer you fun book-launch treats or preorder bonuses or a form to invite me to speak at a special discount book-promotion rate. Or, or, or.

Marketing, you know. That’s how it works.

Eye Twitch talked sense into me.

“Listen up,” Eye Twitch said. “You owe your newsletter readers—the people who show up for this letter, week after week—a real and honest explanation.”

“You are being silly,” Eye Twitch continued. “You do not have to Jazz Hands this book with your own people.

“This book is your best work. It’s fun. It’s funny. It’s YOU. It’s a fresh take on a modern problem: We already know how to go fast. What nobody taught us is when not to.”

That Eye Twitch may be only a month old, but dayum… it’s wise for its age.

At some point, I will ask for your help: to join a prelaunch team, to preorder, to share, to tell a friend, to invite me to speak to your group, to send a cold eye mask to soothe Eye Twitch.

At some point, I’ll need your support.

For now, I just wanted to say: I’m back. Thank you for still being here.

The post Sorry for Ghosting: Where I’ve Been (Pssst New Book!) appeared first on Ann Handley.

***

This week I was at the National Agri-Marketing Association in St. Louis, Missouri, where I gave a brand-new speech on how we prove the power of a slower, lasting marketing move. (Waves to new NAMA friends!)

The night before the speech, I was in my hotel room. I had just drifted off to sleep when suddenly the WOOP-WOOP-WOOP of a police siren went off a foot from my head. Like my bed was being pulled over for speeding.

Which was confusing. Until I realized the siren was actually an emergency alert alarm sounding on my phone:

TORNADO WARNING!!!
TAKE SHELTER NOW IN A BASEMENT OR INTERIOR ROOM!!!
PROTECT YOURSELF FROM FLYING DEBRIS!!!

Up until this week, my entire knowledge of tornadoes was through my annual viewing as a child of The Wizard of Oz. So in my dumb, sleepy stupor I thought: How bad could it be…? No hotel alarms sounding. No knock on the door.

And: Would it really be so bad to be transported somewhere wild and colorful and cinematic—like Munchkinland?

Anyone who has actual lived experience with tornadoes would not be so cavalier. But here I was… a rookie weighing the pros (take shelter) and cons (stay put).

PRO: THAT SIREN
CON: But I’m in my pajamas.

PRO: YOU ARE ON THE 19th FLOOR
CON: But I’m tucked under the covers with my glasses off.

PRO: YOU COULD DIE
CON: But… it’s a steel and reinforced-concrete building?

I put it to an internal vote of my (sleepy) brain and (snug) body: We decided we were comfortable. We voted to stay put. We voted Munchkinland.

Also, you should know that in a fight-or-flight emergency, my nervous system chooses a secret third path: duvet.

Which obviously leads us to email marketing.

The power of email hasn’t changed. But the weather around it has.

The New Email Climate

Quick history lesson (because facts are important. Did you know that it’s a myth that tornadoes usually bypass cities because of city heat?):

A lifetime ago—27 years!—Seth Godin published his seminal book Permission Marketing. That same year, my company, ClickZ—among the first serious digital marketing publications—held one of the first email marketing conferences ever.

Seth defined permission marketing as the privilege of delivering “anticipated, personal and relevant” messages to people who actually want them.

It sounds basic now. But in 1999, it was a siren going off on the nightstand of every marketer.

Permission used to be enough. If someone subscribed, that itself was valuable because it gave you direct access to their attention. Especially in a world where an inbox got roughly four emails a day.

That’s no longer true. Today, most of us live in our inboxes. 

When AI Manages the Inbox

Stroll with me into the very near future… a world where inboxes have a new AI robot in charge.

In this new land—a kind of Automaton Munchkinland—we don’t live in the inbox anymore. Maybe we barely check the inbox at all.

Instead, messages are filtered, summarized, collapsed, prioritized, pasteurized, pulverized, and possibly purified. All before a human ever sees them. A human is summoned only according to certain set parameters.

The path looks like this:

For marketing, that means permission doesn’t guarantee visibility anymore.

Deliverability does not guarantee it, either. It’s not enough to make sure all your T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted so you land in the primary inbox, high-fiving all the other emails who’ve dropped in alongside you. YOU MADE IT is no longer the goal.

And that raises an uncomfortable—but important—question:

So what happens to email marketing? Are we dead in the path of this storm?

No. St. Louis hasn’t been hit with a tornado in years, right?

But the sirens are going off.

The Sirens Are Sounding

The new goal is neither access nor deliverability. It’s being consciously and expressly chosen.

It’s a person manually selecting your shiny, fresh email and telling the robot: Yo. Save those for me.

Your relationship with the recipient is the difference between being seen… and being skipped.

For years, we optimized for deliverability—how to get in. Now we need to optimize for selection—how to be chosen.

The old way vs. the new way:

Visibility is now based solely on value. They choose to read you.

Email is still the GOAT—but the advantage is no longer email itself. It’s what email enables when it’s chosen.

And that asks us to shift our thinking:

From messaging → making meaning
From broadcasting messages → corresponding with people
From scale first → story first

Marketing needs to show up differently:

• Individual personality over brand. People choose people, not logos. Your quirks are the signal through the noise.
• The From line matters more than the Subject line, because the storyteller is the new correspondent. Make your newsletter from a person. More than that: Make it sound like it is.
• Humanity over polish. The perfectly crisp email sans fingerprints is forgettable.
• Fewer messages with clearer intent. Every send should have a reason to exist. If you can’t name it, neither can your reader. (We talked specifics on that here.)
• Work that earns selection—not just work that clears the hurdle of the spam filter.

Pro tip: Pull up your last three email sends. Look yourself square in the eye and answer this question with unflinching honesty: If an AI assistant were triage-reading these emails in an inbox, would it flag this for my reader? Would the reader think… Nay, nay. This one is for me? Is the work genuinely worth their time? That, my friend, is our new bar.

• A voice your readers would genuinely miss. Would they miss your emails if you stopped sending them? (Try it.)
• Specificity that feels unmistakably you. Anyone can write about the storm. Only the person who lived it can write about choosing Munchkinland from under a hotel duvet.
• A perspective no summary bot could give. If an AI could have written it, an AI will summarize it and your reader will never see it.

It’s weird to realize that the inbox you’re delivering to isn’t the inbox your reader actually reads. There’s a layer between you and them. And that layer is making ***decisions.***

But that’s the world we now live in.

The Storm Is 5 Miles Away

In St. Louis, the storm passed 5 miles outside the city. Right now, the storm is 5 miles away for email, too. 

You still have time to act. Do not pull the covers over your head. Do not be sleepy me in my bed.

What changed isn’t really email; it’s actually attention. Attention has always been scarce, and now it’s also curated. The algorithm that rules your social feeds is also in the inbox.

I’ve heard smart folks like Dan Oshinsky at Inbox Collective and the team at Litmus talking about this for a while now. It’s getting more urgent.

The only email strategy that actually works from here on out is being someone your reader would genuinely miss if you stopped showing up.

That’s a relationship problem, a writing challenge, and—if you’re willing to invest the time—an opportunity.

When speed becomes cheap, judgment carries a premium. That’s true in marketing strategy. It’s true in content. And it is especially true in email.

Also it’s true of tornadoes.

It turns out St. Louis was hit with a tornado less than a year ago, in May of 2025. Yikes.

This week, it might’ve bypassed the city completely. I was able to pretend it wasn’t happening. 

Next time, I might not be so lucky.

The post Email Is Dead, Long Live Email  appeared first on Ann Handley.

***

How do I write in a more engaging tone? How do I develop a voice? How do I stand out when AI can produce competent prose faster than it takes for you to get to the end of this sentence?

I got versions of all of these questions in my inbox over the past few weeks. To find out, we’re visiting a federal courthouse in Washington, DC.

Let’s belly up to the bar.

* * *

Exhibit A:

“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” —US District Judge Richard Leon, ruling this week to halt construction of Trump’s White House ballroom

Right away, what do you notice? The exclamation point, right?

There are 18 of them in a single ruling. EIGHTEEN!!!

Judge Leon—a George W. Bush appointee, let the record show—is famous in legal circles for his punctuation. He used 26 exclamation points in an opinion last year blocking an executive order targeting the law firm WilmerHale. That ruling also included a gumbo recipe in a footnote. (It seems like I’m making up this recipe thing. I am not making it up.)

I saw his punctuation proclivity mentioned in a few places this week. But nobody interrogated it.

Court is now in session.

* * *

Legal writing is one of the most ruthlessly shackled genres in existence. The passive voice, the bloodless construction, the deliberately neutralized tone. It is hereby ordered. The court finds.

Wide, jaw-cracking yawn. Legal writing veers into dullness like someone falling asleep at the wheel.

And yet I present as counter-evidence: Judge Leon, clearly feeling things and seeing no reason to pretend otherwise.

So. How do we write funnier? Develop a voice? Stand out?

The court calls its next witness… Generative AI, please take the stand!

The robot glides forward like a literate Roomba, bumping noisily up the stairs and into the witness box.

(There’s a brief procedural snag when the bailiff holds out a Bible for the oath and realizes there are no hands.)

AI clears its nonexistent throat:

“I would edit Leon’s rulings into oblivion,” it confesses. “I would sand off the exclamation points. Cut the gumbo recipe.” A nervous glance at the jury.

“I would produce something perfectly serviceable, utterly professional, and completely forgettable.”

Low murmurs ripple through the gallery. A few boos rise from the back row.

Sustained.

* * *

The very things that make Judge Leon’s writing memorable are exactly what a large language model would flag as unprofessional and scrub them out. AI prose can’t violate expectation because it is expectation. It’s the average of everything. There’s nothing to bump up against.

Humor that makes a reader snort at their desk requires a self. A consistent enough presence that the reader can feel when you depart from it.

That’s why Judge Leon’s exclamation points are funny: You expect a black-robed judge in a dead-serious tone like he’s peering over his half-glasses at you. Instead, you get a guy who’s absolutely had it.

The violation of that protocol has to feel intentional, not accidental. Unintentional weirdness is just confusing. Intentional weirdness is earned. It signals a mind at work—which is what makes it delightful rather than disorienting.

Judge Leon doesn’t accidentally deploy 18 exclamation points and a stew recipe. He knows exactly what he’s doing. The exasperation is real, but the performance of it is deliberate—a wink at the reader, a sense of the person writing the words connecting with the person reading them.

The court calls it: That’s judgment.

* * *

When speed becomes cheap, judgment carries a premium.

AI can produce competent prose in seconds.

What it cannot do is read a situation, weigh it, feel it, and leave evidence of that process on the page.

It cannot be the exclamation point in Judge Leon’s literal judgment that says: I assessed this! I found it worthy of indignation! Here is my ruling! Try the gumbo!

That’s the whole job for writers now. Not information. Not even personality, exactly. Something greater:

Evidence of a mind behind the work.

So the path to standing out has never been more clear:

Stop editing yourself into acceptability. Stop covering up how your mind works.

* * *

So where does that leave us?

 VERDICT 1: Punctuation is a voice choice, not a grammar rule.

Most of us were trained to distrust the exclamation point—at worst, to hate its cheery, unhinged energy. The writer Elmore Leonard famously said never use one. Or else. (Elmore didn’t even add one exclamation point to that subtle threat. Bold.)

Judge Leon says pfft to Elmore and all that.

The lesson isn’t “use more exclamation points.” It’s that every punctuation choice is a voice choice. (Rejoice!) (Sorry, couldn’t help it.)

 VERDICT 2: Feel the feels.

Professional writing norms push a neutral, balanced, measured tone. But readers feel something when a writer clearly feels something.

 VERDICT 3: Constraints are powerful.

Leon operates inside one of the most formal, formatted genres in existence. His exclamation points pop because of the surrounding formality. Know the conventions of your genre so you can break them.

 VERDICT 4: A consistent quirk becomes a signature.

One exclamation point is a blip. Eighteen is a style. Commit fully to your weirdness. Do not lock yourself inside the prison of acceptability!

One more thing:

 VERDICT 5: AI can extend your voice. It can’t invent it.

AI can help you build on what’s there. It can’t discover what makes you, you.

And honestly: would you want it to discover your weird for you? The fun is finding it yourself.

* * *

THE DISSENTING OPINION

A voice from the gallery pipes up: “But a judge can’t get fired!”

The court acknowledges the outburst. Bailiff, let them speak.

I hear you. Judge Leon has a job for life.

No performance review. No brand guidelines. No VP of Marketing who has Opinions and Thoughts about exclamation points or puns or whatever. Judge Leon can afford to be flamboyant in a way some of us can’t.

But here’s where I’d push back.

You don’t need to be Judge Leon, out there burning through legal-speak with a flaming punctuation mark.

You need to find the smallest version of that impulse your context will allow—and then commit to it consistently until it becomes the thing people recognize as yours.

A word you choose. A punctuation tic. A structural habit. Oddball metaphors. Some quirk that, over time, becomes a signature.

Judge Leon didn’t start with 18 exclamation points. He started with one. Over time, it became his signature.

* * *

What is yours? And where is that line for you?

You know what I’m going to say, don’t you…

You be the judge.

The post What AI Would Delete From Great Writing appeared first on Ann Handley.

The tension you’re describing isn’t really about the newsletter. It’s about two wildly different definitions of what’s “working” in your marketing.

The Sales Manager is measuring with leads as the metric.

You’re measuring with trust as the metric.

Neither of you is wrong. But you’re not having the same conversation. It’s the old blind-men-and-the-elephant problem: One of you has hold of the trunk, the other the tail, another an ear… and so on. Each is adamant they’ve got the whole story.

A few thoughts for you and the Sales Manager, who in my head I’ve now named Steve. (For no reason other than he seems like a Steve.)

Start with the newsletter’s actual job. A newsletter is like a border collie: It needs a job or it’s just racing around your strategy deck, barking at random metrics.

Its job is not to say, “We cover fintech.” Its job is to help one specific reader think through a specific kind of problem.

So in financial services technology, step away from the broad topic bucket:

NOT THIS: payments, platforms, the magic and wonders of fintech

YES THIS: feelings—meaning the anxiety, decision, or ambition your reader carries into work on a regular Tuesday

Maybe that’s:

• What keeps them up the night before a board meeting
• What decision they’re worried about getting wrong
• What pressure lands on their shoulders every quarter

Step into their shoes. Slip on their skin. Feel what they feel. (You toss the border collie a biscuit. He spins with joy.)

The goal is that tiny electric moment when a reader pumps their fist in the air and screams inside their head: YES. This is exactly how it feels for me.

And the more precisely you write to someone, the more the wrong someones opt out. Godspeed, Wrong-someones. Self-selection is good in B2B Marketing.

(Quick aside on unsubscribes, because marketers can get weirdly tender about them—and I used to, too: Let them leave. It’s better they leave than linger on your list like zombies—dead-eyed, shambling around, clicking nothing, wanting nothing. Not everyone is your person. That’s perfectly fine.)

Back to Steve.

Steve wants enterprise buyers. Fair enough, Steve.

But here’s the secret about the magical and elusive unicorn called the enterprise buyer: They rarely convert cold from bottom-funnel content.

They research slowly. They trust slowly. They buy slowly. A newsletter that builds familiarity over six months is doing work that a cold demo offer simply won’t get the chance to do.

So what’s missing here isn’t the newsletter. It’s the explicit connection between what the newsletter builds—trust, familiarity, credibility—and what the business eventually wants: pipeline.

Which means that if you want the newsletter to pull real strategic weight as it herds prospects like a border collie all over the internet… you need two things:

1. A clearer editorial through-line—a point of view readers come to associate with your brand
2. A better picture of who is reading—not just how many

Because 3,000 readers who are CFOs at mid-market companies is an entirely different asset than 30,000 random LinkedIn subscribers.

The newsletter isn’t the problem.

You and Steve both need the patience to let that connection materialize.

Related: Should You Publish a LinkedIn Newsletter or a Traditional Newsletter? Or both?

The post Is content ‘working’ if it’s not delivering obvious leads? appeared first on Ann Handley.

***

Dearest Gentle Reader:

It has come to this author’s attention that certain members of our industrious professional class have questions.

So this week, I will answer your letters—dispensing counsel on writing, dealing with nincompoops & nincom-bots, and sharing a tale as old as a dowager: the tension between humanity and AI.

In other words, I’ve just finished the new season of Bridgerton. You likely sensed this already, did you not?

I’ll resist the urge to write this entire newsletter in the tone of a Regency-era scandal sheet.

But kindly imagine me writing this with quill scratching across parchment, seated at a too-small desk while wearing a dress engineered to restrict both oxygen and female ambition.

Without further ado…

* * *

With so much AI-assisted content out there now, what do you think is the one human element in writing that still makes someone stop scrolling and actually feel something? —Amanda

Not sure there’s only one thing. But for me it’s probably this: specificity of observation.

A detail that’s yours—neither generic nor general. One particular person paying close attention in one particular moment—then holding it out like an outstretched hand: This is how it feels for me. You too? (To paraphrase the great Kazuo Ishiguro.)

The goal of everything we write is to make someone think: So it’s not just me.

Specific enough to be true. True enough to be universal.

I talk about this a lot in Everybody Writes 2, BTW.

* * *

I’ve been using AI tools more and more at work, and at first it felt kind of fun, or like a superpower. But lately I just feel buried. Like I’m doing more than ever but somehow never caught up. Is this just me adjusting, or what? —Simone

A short and declarative sentence: It’s not just you.

We’ve seen this before. Every time a tool promises relief, it somehow ends up raising the bar.

Email was supposed to streamline communication—and ended up being our whole job.

Smartphones were supposed to untether us from the desk—but now we are never untethered at all.

Slack was supposed to lift the burden of email—and now we are (ping!) immediately (ping!) accessible (ping!) all day long.

Even outside of work:

Streaming was supposed to free us from rigid TV schedules—and now we spend 20 minutes deciding what to watch.

Each one delivered on its promise—and then hot-glued a larger obligation to it.

Now in waltzes AI, promising to give us time back. But what’s actually happening is that AI seems to be intensifying work.

Last week I saw some new research that tracked how generative AI changed work habits at a real company over eight months. (Pause to underscore: Actual people. An actual workplace. Not vibes. But lived experience.) It was published in Harvard Business Review.

The researchers found something remarkable. Or maybe striking is a better word:

AI didn’t reduce work. It intensified it.

People moved faster. Took on a broader scope of work. Let that work seep into hours that used to be off-limits. They multitasked like crazy.

Product managers and designers writing code. Researchers taking on engineering tasks. Individuals across the org doing work they would have previously outsourced, deferred, or avoided entirely.

All because AI made “doing more” feel possible—enjoyable, even. And empowering! Right up until… suddenly, it wasn’t.

That “workload creep” is the oldest story in the productivity playbook—now wearing a new gown from the modiste.

It’s not just that work spilled into our off hours.

It’s that the definition of what one person can attempt expanded like Sea-Monkeys the moment you add water.

The tool is always there. Always on. Always easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy frictionless.

Yet frictionless, it turns out, is not the same thing as easier. It’s not the same as relief.

Which is why I suggested a few weeks ago that AI might benefit from slower, more considered adoption. Not to resist the technology—but to give ourselves time to decide what work is actually worth expanding.

Efficient is not the same as effective.

So no, Simone: you’re not merely adjusting. I think we are all experiencing something profound and structural.

The question isn’t whether AI is useful. It clearly is.

The question is whether you are shaping how you use it—or whether it’s shaping you instead.

Something tells me that may become the defining workplace question of this decade.

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