Introduction

VeryGoodCopy is a newsletter about copywriting and creativity, written by Eddie Shleyner and published since 2013. This analysis covers 144 issues spanning November 2022 through February 2026. In that window, the newsletter more than doubled its subscriber base — from around 52,000 to over 80,000 — won HackerNoon’s “Email Newsletter of the Year” award for the second consecutive year, launched a successful video course that changed the shape of Eddie’s business, and released a physical book compiling a decade of the newsletter’s best work.

What makes VeryGoodCopy worth studying is not the volume of content but the precision. Each issue is deliberately short — most run between 200 and 600 words — yet each lands with the full weight of a long-form essay. The craft is the point: a newsletter about great writing that is itself great writing.

This document is organized in two equal parts. Part One deconstructs the writing craft: the structural formula, the voice, the techniques that make individual essays work. Part Two examines the editorial and business strategy: how the newsletter is positioned, monetized, and grown over time. Both halves are equally important. Neither fully explains the newsletter without the other.

PART ONE

The Writing Craft

1. The Master Structure: Story → Pivot → Lesson

The overwhelming majority of VeryGoodCopy newsletters follow the same three-part arc. It opens with a scene from real life — a dinner party, a podcast playing in the background, a conversation with Eddie’s wife Kelsey, a memory from childhood. The scene is not announced or framed. It simply begins, in medias res, as if the reader just walked into the room.

After one or two paragraphs of scene, a pivot sentence appears. It connects the story to the copywriting principle. Sometimes it is explicit: “And this is my point.” More often it is subtle — a tonal shift, a sudden zoom out, a sentence that begins “And this got me thinking…” The pivot is the hinge. On one side: life. On the other: craft.

The lesson that follows is direct and actionable. It does not hedge. It does not say “it depends.” It delivers a clean, portable principle the reader can apply immediately.

Example: “You against the writing machines” (Feb 7, 2023)

Scene: Eddie challenges an AI writing engine to describe meeting a first-born child. The AI produces 88 generic words. Eddie writes his own 88-word version — specific, masked-nurses-during-COVID, the nurse saying “he’s looking right at you.” Pivot: “AI can be a remarkable productivity tool.” Lesson: AI can give writers dots, but humans connect them. The Human Condition — its nuances and specifics --- belongs to us.

Example: “When a single word speaks volumes” (Mar 8, 2023)

Scene: A school teacher correcting the misuse of “awesome.” Then: Justin Schmidt’s Sting Pain Index and the word “lonely” used to describe a wasp sting. Pivot: a well-placed adjective speaks volumes. Lesson: most adjectives are unnecessary — but the right one, in the right place, creates emotional resonance that bridges writer and reader.

This structure is not an accident. It reflects a deep understanding of how human attention works. A story earns trust and creates emotional context. The pivot redirects that emotion toward something useful. The lesson converts feeling into knowledge. The reader finishes the newsletter not just informed, but moved.

2. The Rule of One Idea

Every issue of VeryGoodCopy contains exactly one idea. Not a list of five. Not a roundup. Not a “this week in copywriting.” One idea, examined from a single angle, arrived at through a single story.

This constraint is deliberate and produces several effects. It respects the reader’s time. It forces the writer to be precise rather than comprehensive. And it creates memorability — readers may forget the newsletter but they remember the idea. “Fix the game.” “Write slow.” “Zoom in on a specific moment.” “Sonder.”

The discipline required to follow this rule for hundreds of issues is remarkable. The temptation to pad, to add a second point, to include one more example, must be resisted every time. Eddie resists it consistently. The result is a newsletter that feels like a well-cut gemstone: small, dense, clear.

3. Specificity as the Primary Technique

If VeryGoodCopy has a single overriding technical principle, it is this: specificity creates connection where generality creates distance. Eddie does not demonstrate this principle by explaining it — he demonstrates it by practicing it relentlessly.

When he writes about writing slow, he does not say “slow down.” He writes that Obama uses longhand because “computer word processors give the first draft too much polish.” He writes that he himself types on his phone with one finger, “peck-peck-peck,” because the physical restriction forces intentionality.

When he writes about love, he does not describe love. He describes one morning: rolling to Kelsey’s side of the bed, hugging her pillow because it is “cold and comfortable and smells like her shampoo.” This specificity does not narrow the lesson — it universalizes it. Readers who have never met Kelsey understand exactly what he means.

The pattern appears across hundreds of issues. Abstract principle → specific example → universal feeling. It is the formula within the formula.

“Next time you need to efficiently articulate a huge concept --- whether it’s about love or business or anything else — zoom in. Focus on a specific moment tied to that concept. If the reader can relate, the moment will carry weight.”

Eddie does not merely advise zooming in. He zooms in constantly, in every issue, proving the technique works by using it.

4. Voice: Conversational, Warm, and Deliberately Unpolished

The voice of VeryGoodCopy is carefully constructed to feel unconstructed. Eddie writes in the first person with unguarded honesty. He admits to confusion, bad habits, insecurity. He reports exactly what his editor once said to him: “You write like a firehose. You need to be a nail gun.” He shares that he contributed little to his Ulysses seminar in college and that the book mostly confused him.

This vulnerability is strategic. A writer who admits his weaknesses is credible when he identifies his strengths. A teacher who shows you his scar tissue earns the right to give advice.

The writing uses short sentences and frequent fragments. It deploys dialogue liberally — not just quotations from famous writers, but verbatim exchanges with his wife, his friends, strangers at parties, Uber drivers. The dialogue is formatted without attribution tags when possible: he doesn’t write “Kelsey said” — he writes “‘What are you listening to?’ she said.”

Signature vocal elements that appear across hundreds of issues include: “xa-xa” as the transcription of laughter; “he-he” for a quieter chuckle; Kelsey consistently referred to as “Kels.” These recurring touches build familiarity over time. Regular readers feel they know these people.

5. Borrowed Authority, Subordinated to the Lesson

Eddie uses famous names and classic texts extensively — Gary Bencivenga, Eugene Schwartz, David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach, Hemingway, Kahneman, Blake Snyder. But the use is precise. The authority figure appears to validate a principle, not to demonstrate Eddie’s reading list.

The structure is typically: specific story → surprising principle → “and this is actually what [famous person] called…” The famous name arrives after the principle is already in motion. It confirms rather than introduces. This order matters: if the famous name came first, the issue would feel like a lecture or a book summary. Coming second, it feels like corroboration — as if Eddie discovered the principle independently and then found that the greats agreed.

This technique also creates a useful frame: Eddie positions himself not as a student summarizing wisdom, but as a fellow practitioner who has independently arrived at the same insights as the masters.

6. The Subject Line Formula

VeryGoodCopy subject lines follow a consistent pattern that is worth analyzing as a craft element in its own right. The vast majority end with a colon. This is not a house style quirk — it is a deliberate structural choice.

The colon signals incompleteness. “Primal copywriting:” implies that something follows. It creates mild syntactic tension — the reader’s brain registers an incomplete thought and wants to resolve it. Combined with the subject matter (a single sharp idea), this produces a click-inducing effect without resorting to clickbait.

Examples from the archive: “Writing, slow:” — “Fix the game:” --- “When a single word speaks volumes:” — “Browse these photos before writing copy:” — “To be a good copywriter:” — “All compelling stories have these things in common:” — “The odds of creative success:”

The subjects are also notable for their variety: some are commands, some are questions, some are fragments, some are complete sentences. But the colon unifies them. It is a visual and syntactic signature of the newsletter.

7. Emotional Architecture: The Sonder Principle

One of the most interesting essays in the archive is about Sonder --- John Koenig’s word for the sudden realization that every stranger has a life as vivid and complex as your own. Eddie argues that copywriters must feel this to write well, because copy addresses strangers.

The argument applies equally to the newsletter itself. Every issue is written for an audience of strangers, yet each feels personal and intimate. The secret is what Eddie calls the “emotional warmup” --- the practice of deliberately inducing empathy before writing.

Across the archive, the emotional architecture of each issue follows a similar pattern: an opening scene that creates warmth or recognition, a pivot that creates tension or curiosity, a lesson that creates satisfaction or resolve. The reader moves through an emotional journey, not just an informational one. This is what makes the newsletters re-readable. The information can be summarized in a sentence. The experience cannot.

8. Word Economy and Constraint as Craft

VeryGoodCopy issues are short. The standard length is 200—500 words. Some are shorter. Almost none exceed 700 words. This is a design choice, not a limitation.

The newsletter is called “micro-articles” in its own boilerplate. The constraint is part of the brand promise: you can read the whole thing in the time it takes to drink a glass of water. This creates permission for brevity as a form of respect.

But brevity is also a craft challenge. To say something meaningful in 300 words requires ruthless editing. Every sentence must carry weight. Every paragraph must earn its place. The constraint forces excellence in the same way the 88-word limit in the AI comparison essay forced clarity.

This philosophy is consistent with the newsletter’s core content. VeryGoodCopy frequently advocates for the nail gun over the firehose, for the single precise word over five approximate ones, for zooming in rather than panning wide. The form enacts the content.

PART TWO

The Editorial and Business Strategy

9. The Content-as-Credential Model

VeryGoodCopy is not a vanity newsletter. It is a business asset. Every issue simultaneously builds Eddie’s brand as a copywriter and demonstrates his ability. The newsletters are the portfolio. Readers who enjoy the writing are the most qualified leads for his paid services.

This creates a powerful loop: the better the newsletter, the more it builds reputation; the stronger the reputation, the easier it is to sell “Hire Eddie” and “CopyEdits.” The newsletter functions as a free sample of the paid product. If someone reads 50 issues and thinks “this person writes well and thinks clearly,” they have already formed the buying conviction. The conversion from reader to client requires almost no additional persuasion.

This model is underutilized by most service providers, who keep their newsletter and their portfolio separate. Eddie fuses them. Every newsletter is an ad for himself that does not feel like an ad.

10. Platform Strategy: Email First, LinkedIn Second

The newsletter is published by email, but the content life extends across platforms. Each issue ends with three recent LinkedIn posts --- not summaries or teasers, but different, standalone pieces that stand on their own. This creates a feedback loop: LinkedIn readers discover the newsletter; newsletter readers engage with LinkedIn posts; both grow the audience.

Twitter/X is used similarly, though with lighter emphasis after 2024. The strategy is not to broadcast the same content everywhere but to produce platform-native content on each channel that shares a sensibility and sends readers toward the email list.

The email list is clearly treated as the primary asset. LinkedIn followers are borrowed; email subscribers are owned. Every platform touch-point ultimately points back to the newsletter. The calls to action are consistent: “Like and comment on this LinkedIn post” --- not “follow me on LinkedIn.” The goal is engagement, which triggers algorithmic distribution, which drives new subscribers.

11. Consistency and Publishing Cadence

Between November 2022 and February 2026, Eddie published 144 emails --- a rate of roughly two to three issues per month for most of the period, with occasional bursts of higher frequency and a notable pause in late 2022 when he was heads-down building his course.

The willingness to pause and announce the pause honestly is itself a brand decision. The December 2022 year-end email is transparent: “I’ve been focused on my video course since November. Here are the 16 best articles from this year. See you in 2023.” There is no pretending. Readers who value honesty — the newsletter’s core audience --- appreciate this more than a filler issue would have served them.

Upon returning, the newsletter announced a “new format” while keeping the soul identical. The 1-2-3 structure (main article + two archive links + three social posts) is a light organizational scaffold that creates predictability without rigidity.

12. Audience Milestones and Social Proof

The newsletter’s boilerplate evolves as the audience grows, and tracking it across three years tells its own story. In early 2023, the footer reads “join 52,000 valued email subscribers.” By mid-2023, it passes 55,000. By mid-2024, it crosses 70,000, and by early 2025, it reaches 80,000. The February 2026 archive email describes “nearly 100,000 students of copywriting and direct marketing” who have engaged with VeryGoodCopy’s free courses — a figure that blurs the line between subscriber count and cumulative reach. The word “valued” that precedes every subscriber count is not accidental — it signals that the relationship is reciprocal, not extractive.

The HackerNoon “Email Newsletter of the Year” award is cited consistently in the header: “2X Email Newsletter of the Year.” This is not bragging — it is a trust signal placed where readers expect credentials. A new subscriber who has never heard of VeryGoodCopy sees it immediately.

Social proof is woven into the structure rather than announced separately. There is no dedicated “testimonials” section. The proof is ambient: subscriber counts in the boilerplate, award badges in the header, reader questions and comments addressed in the newsletter body itself (as in the “Dimensionalization” issue, where a reader’s comment becomes the hook).

13. The Sponsorship Model

VeryGoodCopy runs single-sponsor issues. In the period analyzed, the primary sponsor is Writer.com (a generative AI platform for business), followed by Testimonial.to. The sponsorship is disclosed plainly: “VeryGoodCopy is sponsored by [Sponsor], the [category] tool for [benefit].” The language is written to feel like Eddie’s voice --- conversational, specific, honest about what the tool does.

Crucially, the sponsor occupies a defined zone (near the top, before the main content) and never bleeds into the essay itself. Readers know exactly where the ad begins and ends. This preserves trust in the editorial content.

The model works because the audience is highly qualified. A newsletter read by 55,000 copywriters, marketers, and content professionals is exactly the audience that a writing productivity tool needs to reach. Eddie sells access to a targeted, engaged, and trusting community --- something that cannot be replicated with display advertising.

14. The Product Ecosystem

The archive reveals an evolving product portfolio built on the newsletter’s audience, with each new offering extending — rather than replacing — what came before.

Transformational Landing Pages, Eddie’s flagship video course, remains the anchor product throughout the archive. Its launch followed a four-stage funnel: awareness (boilerplate mentions weeks in advance), presale (a waitlist email offering 50% off to early subscribers), launch (2—3 dedicated promotional emails in which Eddie acknowledged the break from normal content directly: “This is not your typical VGC newsletter”), and post-launch (return to editorial content, with the course living in the footer). By late 2025, the course is priced at $999 and promoted with an unprecedented Black Friday discount of 75% --- an event Eddie framed explicitly as rare and time-limited, preserving the scarcity without damaging trust.

In September 2025, Eddie announced VeryGoodCopy: The Book (Volume 1) --- a physical compendium of 207 micro-lessons drawn from ten years of the newsletter (2014—2024). The book announcement is characteristically restrained: a single email (“A note from Eddie”), no hype, no countdown, no urgency. It reads as a milestone, not a campaign. This is consistent with how Eddie handles all his major news: the event speaks for itself; the hard sell is absent.

The archive also shows quieter product lines that do not receive dedicated promotion: CopyEdits (one-on-one copy review), Hire Eddie (freelance copywriting), and a growing suite of six free micro-courses available exclusively to newsletter subscribers. By February 2026, Eddie describes this subscriber-only library as having reached “nearly 100,000 students of copywriting and direct marketing” — a number that captures cumulative reach across the newsletter’s full history.

The transparency of promotion is consistent across all products. Eddie told readers explicitly when he was running ads, that he almost never did this, and when normal content would return. This honesty is a business decision as much as an ethical one: readers who feel respected are more likely to buy; readers who feel manipulated unsubscribe.

15. Reader Relationship as Strategic Asset

The most distinctive element of VeryGoodCopy’s business strategy is the relationship Eddie builds with his readers. This is not a newsletter that addresses an anonymous “you.” It is a newsletter that feels addressed to a specific, known person.

The techniques for achieving this are numerous and consistent. First names are used when readers’ questions or comments are addressed. Personal stories include friends with names — Mike, Brandon, Katie. Wife Kelsey appears regularly, aging in real time across three years of issues. Eddie’s son Beau is born during the archive period and appears in the “writing machines” essay at 18 months.

This is not oversharing — it is calculated intimacy. Each personal detail creates a node of connection between writer and reader. The reader who learns that Eddie types on his phone with one finger, that he loves Uber drivers, that his wife calls him theatrical when he tells stories — this reader does not feel they are reading a content marketing piece. They feel they know a person.

And people buy from people they know.

Conclusion: The Unified Theory of VeryGoodCopy

VeryGoodCopy works because the craft and the strategy are the same thing expressed at different scales. At the scale of a single sentence, Eddie practices specificity. At the scale of a single issue, he practices the single-idea rule. At the scale of the entire newsletter, he practices consistency. These are not separate virtues — they are the same virtue repeated at every level of resolution.

The business strategy reflects this too. The newsletter does not chase subscribers; it earns them. It does not push products; it demonstrates them. It does not build an audience; it builds a relationship. Each of these formulations is the same principle: do the real work, and the results follow.

For anyone studying how to build a newsletter, a personal brand, or a service business through content, VeryGoodCopy is among the clearest demonstrations available. The formula is not secret. Eddie teaches it in his essays: be specific, be consistent, zoom in, write slow, fix the game. The only surprising thing is how few people apply it.

By the end of the archive — February 2026, more than three years into this snapshot — the newsletter has grown from 52,000 to over 80,000 subscribers, yielded a physical book, generated a catalog of courses, and maintained the same editorial philosophy it started with. The scale changed; the soul did not.

The key patterns that define the VeryGoodCopy method, synthesized across 144 issues:

1. One idea per issue, without exception

2. Story first, lesson second — always

3. Specificity is not a stylistic choice — it is the mechanism of connection

4. Brevity is a form of respect; constraint is a form of craft

5. Vulnerability builds credibility

6. The newsletter is the portfolio; the portfolio is the product

7. Transparency in promotion is more persuasive than salesmanship

8. Email is the owned asset; social media is the distribution channel

9. Consistent publishing over years beats any single viral moment

10. People buy from people they feel they know — build that relationship in every issue