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Has the Apocalyptiktok Era arrived? Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-213-hold-up-is-the-age-of-reading-actually-over The Atlantic's title page declaring the end of the age of reading https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-213-hold-up-is-the-age-of-reading-actually-over Welcome to Issue 213 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. If this email was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-213-hold-up-is-the-age-of-reading-actually-over . Hi, friend. And anyway 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=tmtHPyFdeWlM3FSDdL6M2Q ," 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. EVENTS B2B Forum double discount https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=lA27rpvi0NTcReAAKc5p7Q MarketingProfs B2B Forum. Your discount just got a discount. Code SUMMER gets you another bunch of clams off. See how many, here https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=lA27rpvi0NTcReAAKc5p7Q . 📆 Sept 8-10 Drive 2026 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=0XtcNWyMOhhA7TfLjgDMsQ , Stowe, VT 📆 Sept 23-24 Digital Summit Philly https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=W3Q5cCI5oyd1M3TZKDqRRw , Philadelphia, PA 📆 Sept 25 American Bankers Association https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=Q0f3QOw0KxOd92Mkioc9hA , Austin, TX 📆 Oct 12-13 Ahrefs Evolve https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=YCve8kQzvoQVHH4BDocQ_w , San Diego, CA DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS This meeting could have been an email... or it could have been this https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=_gfQzkBetHd__aEO5T4csw . Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity. 🫡 See you on July 26! P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=ul814_wE_ktCH94f70.XqQ . Or Justice for Em Dash merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=4H272F57xH880Edc0Kk79w . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-213-hold-up-is-the-age-of-reading-actually-over . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-213-hold-up-is-the-age-of-reading-actually-over (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=D2g2AoGyMpElxNbEnuuJJw Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=j95x1J4fDLLTbAcj_80vcg YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=xI_Y2tRGbRJu2V32ETxQbg Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3enbY0wcDSUyQvK&b=Qi39uj_S1mrxc7zBbR_2ug SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bIyM7CycbCw=

Long live the em dash! Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-212-why-care-about-the-stupid-em-dash-anyway cute little mail truck gif https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-212-why-care-about-the-stupid-em-dash-anyway Image: @Caoculator https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&b=LYSzIwQzp5uDJwB0UBliTg Welcome to Issue 212 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. If this email was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-212-why-care-about-the-stupid-em-dash-anyway . Hello morning muffin! 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 2-Second Em Dash Test: Is it doing anything? Want an interruption, an important aside, a dramatic turn, or a little extra oomph? Use an em dash. 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&b=QLumdOPEwY.sHF30Ei.PvQ ? Why is this the SECOND newsletter I've dedicated to the em dash? Here is the first https://annhandley.com/em-dash/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-212-why-care-about-the-stupid-em-dash-anyway . 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. 'JUSTICE FOR EM DASHES' MERCH All proceeds to animal rescue. Justice For Em Dashes merch store https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&b=QLumdOPEwY.sHF30Ei.PvQ DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS Why printers always jam https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&b=.fwYUdAqcI8k2p.pKMhugw . Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity. 🫡 See you on July 12! P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&b=hlZ83InxcyIe4svu_tkClQ . Or Justice for Em Dash merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&b=QLumdOPEwY.sHF30Ei.PvQ . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-212-why-care-about-the-stupid-em-dash-anyway . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-212-why-care-about-the-stupid-em-dash-anyway (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&b=2o5.kmmQh9fglKhfWoU8Dg Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&b=oRjrSt6SH5EskDtAgbh0nw YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&b=jEYpL5se05XoZ3JMyeUbBg Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ha0wf1jsSUyQvK&b=qSlB7zQduQDlS_99Z51WZA SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bIyMTOysDMw=

The first 2 make great grad gifts, btw. Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-211-7-new-ish-books-i-love-including-2-special-ones Ann in her Tiny House office https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-211-7-new-ish-books-i-love-including-2-special-ones Welcome to Issue 211 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. If this email was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-211-7-new-ish-books-i-love-including-2-special-ones . Hello, Reading Friend. I spent the weekend disturbing the spider ecosystems thriving in the corners of my Tiny House Studio—a small, square office, roughly 12x12, 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=Vupm7HZ9KTRwVcj6yyyvSw 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=o8SILRkGk1XiX1cAGA0Rqg for cancer research! WHAT DO YOU DO WITH AN IDEA? https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=vFrsjhvxm7TqIOOukrNd0A 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=opPB2VGSJkuAbg8PyTDmvg 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=e0Tk0MQSycRh8A42vzwSyA 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=miQD33CxadG.WFeppnisbA 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=iklpALdKJdHTjBSmbV5Lfw 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=Ap_Wl5khgWzQr7tal9sMDQ 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. https://annhandley.com/where-ive-been-new-book/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-211-7-new-ish-books-i-love-including-2-special-ones <<< 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. COME TO THE B2B FORUM!!! B2B Forum, Boston. Code for $150 off. https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=kTZLm4T5sFpvMRo.Pejknw BE IN THE ROOM WITH ME AND...: • 60 incredible speakers + sessions (update: Program NOW OUT https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=4JFX0ZZZmxuvZBlE0KKawQ ) • A whole program around Shenanigans • Rory Sutherland https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=DeEnT5GdxwRE0o6fek3YkA • 750 smart & fun & curious people just like you and • MOST IMPORTANT: The rare and necessary feeling that you are not doing this work alone. No matter what happens in the world, in work, or in life, or if/when The Robots take over... we have each other. That counts for A LOT in marketing in 2026. In truth, it might be the whole deal. JOIN ME. JOIN US. >>> CLICK ON MY FACE OR HERE TO REG https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=BAEa_FJmuRGM4e.alt.9_Q <<< P.S. Code SEEMESPEAK will get you $150 off. DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS You and I need much, much better words for qualitative and quantitative. Here's my vote https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=TIC.8iK5XRhdhJDDIpGRJQ . P.S. If you're reading this on Sunday, I've just landed in the UK. (There were zero live bees in any airport on the way.) I'm here for Atomicon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=U3SWCsqA34fq90mBDlbr7w . If you're here too... can't wait to see you this week! Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity. 🫡 See you on June 28! P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=lNa.m7G6Zj_HlNOLWFcB9g . Or Justice for Em Dash merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=iFEldQYQXul3NpJfLubXzA . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-211-7-new-ish-books-i-love-including-2-special-ones . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-211-7-new-ish-books-i-love-including-2-special-ones (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=DcTRmsn.hJguMBu8TU3gRg Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=q46YOfCJp3yLLbTwDb5yNQ YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=meUcUXswZ81REsPb5EZoVw Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3bcIeEuH2CUyQvK&b=FMf4HJD88P.S5OuMb4YM7Q SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bIwM7JzszGw=

Open for BIG NEWS! Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-210-sorry-for-ghosting-where-i-ve-been What Ann has been up to... https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-210-sorry-for-ghosting-where-i-ve-been Welcome to Issue 210 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. If this email was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-210-sorry-for-ghosting-where-i-ve-been . Hi, glorious human. 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=19MK2z6YX8dEy0EFmrKI.Q !) 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. WHAT AI LITERACY ACTUALLY MEANS (spoiler: not what you think) AI literacy is not prompt literacy. It is judgment literacy. https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=4hpbQkIxqGhRAl3nR6gsfQ This week on LinkedIn, I made the case that education around AI can't just mean teaching people how to use it. It has to mean teaching people when not to use it. We have an entire industry built around AI skills training: prompt engineering bootcamps, certification programs, tool tutorials, one million LinkedIn posts about the perfect prompts you need to do this or that or else you are falling behind. <CUE EDVARD MUNCH SCREAM> What we don't have nearly enough of is anything that asks: When should you put the tool down? When does using it cost you something you didn't mean to give up? After I wrote about that gap, I had further thoughts. Wait. Do we need another course? Judgment isn't a curriculum. It's a practice. It develops through experience, reflection, failure, mentorship, consequences, and the occasional face-plant into your own wrong move. You can't certify your way to it. You have to build it. Like a muscle: through reps, resistance, and the useful discomfort of doing the work yourself. Maybe what we need instead is better modeling. Less "Here's the prompt." More "Here's the choice." Leaders who visibly choose the long road in a shortcut world. Managers who say, out loud: "I'm not using AI for this, and here's why." Teachers who help students understand not just how to get the answer faster, but what gets lost when they never wrestle with the question. Shout-out to my new friend Jane Rosenzweig https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=6l44tHMxVCCLUxJutHt_lQ , who is doing that at Harvard. People like you and me showing our work, naming our choices, choosing the slower path when it matters most. Culture, not just coursework. Ethan Mollick made a related point in his newsletter https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=cqkZQ4px_HD3g6MVLYB_Ig : The defaults are being set right now for what kinds of work we hand to AI—by the companies designing the tools, by employers defining "good AI use," and by training companies selling "AI literacy." That matters because defaults become habits. And habits become very hard to reverse once a generation of workers, students, creators, and leaders has learned to treat "use AI first" as the responsible, modern, efficient thing to do. Which is why judgment matters so much now. Not judgment as in AI bad/humans good. Judgment as in discernment: knowing what to hand over, what to keep, what to struggle through, what to make by hand, what to approach slowly because the process is the point. Because the most important AI question may not be: What can this tool do for me? It's: What should I not let it do for me? And I don't think we should expect the platforms, the bosses, the bootcamps—or the AI itself—to answer that for us. THIS IS MY FACE TODAY Mind. Blown. 30% off?! https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=BSi_ZAY1M7gijmEbapD0zA ...because today (Sunday, May 31) is the last, last, last call to save 30% of your hard-earned clams on your MarketingProfs https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=hBvkOVRKxZIfTmf0_B2B3Q B2B Forum ticket. WHY COME: • 60 incredible speakers + sessions (update: Program NOW OUT) • A whole program around Shenanigans • Rory Sutherland https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=V9U2p3cmi.g7sOrqgf68tg • My ridiculous face • A fabulous suit, probably • Really good food because we love food, too and • MOST IMPORTANT: The rare and necessary feeling that you are not doing this work alone. No matter what happens in the world, in work, or in life, or if/when The Robots take over... we have each other. That counts for A LOT in marketing in 2026. Actually, it might be the whole deal. JOIN ME. JOIN US. >>> CLICK ON MY FACE OR HERE TO REG https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=BSi_ZAY1M7gijmEbapD0zA <<< P.S. Code SEEMESPEAK will get you another $150 off. Seriously, your ticket is practically paying for itself. ICYMI >> Email is dead, long live email https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=UI.W6HqM_wa1gEFBkJNVvw . How AI is changing the inbox. Includes an update on Dot. If you missed it, it's here https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=UI.W6HqM_wa1gEFBkJNVvw . >> What AI Would Delete from Great Writing https://annhandley.com/what-ai-would-delete-from-great-writing/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-210-sorry-for-ghosting-where-i-ve-been . Why our judgment matters, literally. >> Something Messy Is Happening https://annhandley.com/ai-panic-asking-better-questions/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-210-sorry-for-ghosting-where-i-ve-been : On AI, Panic, and Asking Better Questions. Should we panic about the loss of jobs? DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS Sent from my LG smart fridge https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=HQBV0KuzLL7SsPCYCq.fGw . EVENTS 📆 June 4-5 EVENTASTIC https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=OflwqsupDLHTQJbS8uxdMw [free; online] The world's largest event about events! It's ridiculously awesome.) >> I might be there dancing with Taylor Swift; you have to join to find out! 📆 June 15-16 ATOMICON https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=P4pcXrpLfQgGO2MzMfOghQ , Newcastle, UK (I was there in 2021. I'm BAAACK!) 📆 Sept 8-10 Drive 2026 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=Ve8OlZ850O7ESyuAhnTWFg , Stowe, VT 📆 Sept 23-24 Digital Summit Philly https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=XIXi5TomWmpiz2mAzvd2.A , Philadelphia, PA 📆 Oct 12-13 Ahrefs Evolve https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=KFGbeiQhoJIZ.6Axgb5U.g , San Diego Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity. 🫡 See you on June 14! (Promise!) P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=hZcLPhmiOXGRnHM2pafJew . Or Justice for Em Dash merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=19MK2z6YX8dEy0EFmrKI.Q . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-210-sorry-for-ghosting-where-i-ve-been . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&utm_source=aweber&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ta-210-sorry-for-ghosting-where-i-ve-been (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=6XhZKwYionYoT4eNRIOO3A Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=5yggZtQfXht3v0KFodeHQw YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=dMHgzJLGZx_3gQ10gpkF9w Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kz6oYpngCUyQvK&b=cQG7SAnJ3uYWwZZZ4DonIw SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bIwMzExMTIw=

Plus: Dot is no longer with us. Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK Welcome to Issue 209 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. Was this email forwarded to you? You can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK . Hello, Spring Tulip! 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: When AI manages your inbox https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK 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: Email: old vs. new way https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK 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 https://annhandley.com/linkedin-newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK .) • 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=NTczrrLcrAlQvp6Kwl3ePw 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. RORY SUTHERLAND AT MARKETINGPROFS! Ogilvy UK's Rory Sutherland https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=Vg5kwr3QNG38C.xnioV2HA The absolute legend Rory Sutherland is keynoting the MarketingProfs B2B Forum https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=bhKz0AdmvHQ4rVM1N98VAw —I am not being remotely chill about it. Rory is vice-chairman at Ogilvy UK and one of the sharpest thinkers in behavioral science and marketing. He's a true icon: rare wisdom, real depth, and a restless, curious mind that can make you see the world differently in about two minutes flat. Also, he's hilarious. I've been trying to get Rory to Boston for 3 years. But travel, timing, and assorted blah blah blah kept getting in the way—so the fact that he's finally joining us feels like a personal victory, and I am deeply, sincerely, slightly irrationally amped about it. So please: come, register, be in the room with me. This is a bona fide MarketingProfs Moment (iykyk)... and you do not want to miss it! REGISTER HERE OR LIVE WITH CRUSHING REGRET. https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=Vg5kwr3QNG38C.xnioV2HA SPECIAL EVENT I'm keynoting Canto's annual Content Innovation Summit https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=g4_z4nJLUK1O.Qf44MmOzw for the very first time! This year's free, virtual event is all about how AI + creativity are shaping the future of marketing... and I'll be there talking about all that (plus more) in a fireside chat that has no actual fire, but hopefully some metaphorical fire. It's free. It's virtual. Wait I said that already. Save your seat here: You can't afford not to be there https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=g4_z4nJLUK1O.Qf44MmOzw . Canto's Content Innovation Summit https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=g4_z4nJLUK1O.Qf44MmOzw DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS You could spend millions on marketing. Or you could do this https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=bLqA0e51YEsryHM39o6D5w . EVENTS 📆 April 28 Content Innovation Summit https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=g4_z4nJLUK1O.Qf44MmOzw [free; online] 📆 May 27-28 ASAE https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=i6MF.MaiL2YU5e6_REXYdw , Washington, DC 📆 June 4-5 EVENTASTIC https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=3hq_cSMfh.T_MuM8LZZ0ng [free; online] The world's largest event about events! It's ridiculously awesome.) 📆 June 15-16 ATOMICON https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=NBPLeQ0ARtLTB32r9sSnrQ , Newcastle, UK (I was there in 2021. I'm BAAACK!) 📆 Sept 8-10 Drive 2026 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=0.JwjY_Z8FDg5wSfzVUgXQ , Stowe, VT 📆 Oct 12-13 Ahrefs Evolve https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=72V0h.CtLzZ8_Ma2BnLI3A , San Diego Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity. 🫡 See you on May 3! P.S. 🐞 Update on Dot: Dot is no longer with us. Dot is a ladybug who spent the winter in a sunny windowsill in my upstairs bathroom. Back story here https://annhandley.com/a-ladybug-in-winter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK . A few weeks ago, she had a party with four other friends who appeared out of nowhere (Dash, Pip, Nib, and F. Spot Fitzgerald). Only F. Spot stuck around post-party. And on a warm spring day a few weeks ago, I raised the screen and the two flew off together. Were they actually together? Who's to say. But they lifted off on the same warm breeze, and that feels like fitting enough closure for me. Anyone who made it through this New England winter would have to agree. P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=hhTZUj5jWFeBudueuByijw . Or Justice for Em Dash merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=olrhNRzksr3gGFjccXfL8A . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=WdQX9qG05wdV9fDDYzV4lQ Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=JbwYoKg1kpECQHEeqTWm4Q YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=pdY3.mkEdtCErDxBjGmowA Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3VhRNRffdGUyQvK&b=3AJAafTYUDQi8CWLMdsucQ SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bAwcHKxsbJw=

A federal judge's 18 exclamation points + what we lose. Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK Exclamation Marks! https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK Welcome to Issue 208 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. Was this email forwarded to you? You can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK . Hello, Darling Weirdo. 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. EVENTS 📆 Nov 2-4 MarketingProfs B2B Forum https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=HKsdJz3wNF7A.ooCN0fz9w [Boston, MA] Do you like to save dollars? I have a deal for you: B2B Forum is 30% off https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=TED1IS6l5.SBM5VmqRuj4A 📆 April 15-17 National Agri-Marketing Association https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=UDWMYcuQg1hXtNC8KIDBPQ , St. Louis, MO 📆 May 27-28 ASAE https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=oE3SFqPrbfgid.GHJ5UHbw , Washington, DC 📆 June 15-16 ATOMICON https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=v8DxS22hRGJjw.WSpASTDw , Newcastle, UK (I was there in 2021. I'm BACK!) 📆 Sept 8-10 Drive 2026 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=o1WfwpQylw6WuOBmRygDHA , Stowe, VT 📆 Oct 12-13 Ahrefs Evolve https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=lqRWbhfzo.D_EMsU7ZJTOQ , San Diego DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS Reality vs. social media https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=aC1Alnq.csVuK0rTcqWGsg . Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity. 🫡 See you on April 19! P.S. Update on Dot: She's getting restless. I can sense it's time for her to go. (Here's the backstory https://annhandley.com/a-ladybug-in-winter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK .) P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=1xuGNKrwK6y3RyQSLBMh4g . Or Justice for Em Dash merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=1EYcgrQfNGlgo.avr51Ztw . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=xyiHToGLwYy8cvariaJ2FQ Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=hF_8QgnSwFG9onq9TCg2DA YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=v1UecqNi0A4Z2hXojb.sOQ Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3ltDqHJsyGUyQvK&b=Qo9OoefmdW6jbKgCXGZa3g SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bAwczOxMHAw=

Plus an update on Dot Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK Image depicting the parable of blind men trying to describe an elephant. https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK Modern Marketing. Welcome to Issue 207 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. Was this email forwarded to you? You can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK . Hi, Noodlebean. Three things bouncing around my noggin this week: 1. An on-point question from a reader about whether content is "working" if it's not delivering obvious leads—and how to manage that tension with that one sales guy. 2. The unexpected creative lesson Conan O'Brien gave me. We aren't actually friends, but I like to think we might be. 3. And finally: True crime. (P.S. And an update on Dot.) * * * I run our LinkedIn newsletter of roughly 3K readers for a financial technology company. Our Sales Manager worries it's not pulling in enough leads, especially enterprise ones, and wants to ditch it in favor of bottom-funnel content. I see value in building long-term trust and our own list through the newsletter. I could use your perspective: What should I focus on if I want a newsletter to resonate with the right audience? —Kate 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 https://annhandley.com/linkedin-or-traditional-newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK ? Or both? MORE THIS WEEK Insights From Conan https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK&b=p2v_jtDqrkYxTnlwwEG_tA . We're all told to write for the audience. But what if that's only half the story? I've been thinking about that ever since a Conan O'Brien joke at the Oscars—and it leads to somewhere interesting about AI and first drafts. True crime: Did you get this email? https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK&b=ehNq43k6JjYp1pHThmCUug Someone is pretending to be me, but getting it all wrong. The biggest tell: the sign-off... and ZERO em dashes?! DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS Font choice matters, people https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK&b=RO4U0v4QL3Zf26Mak4_bIg . Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity. 🫡 See you on April 5! P.S. Update on Dot: Dot is a ladybug spending the winter in my upstairs bathroom. Here's the backstory https://annhandley.com/a-ladybug-in-winter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK . One rare 60-degree day recently, Dot threw a party. Two more ladybugs showed up (Pip and Nib). From where...? I had no idea. Then two more (Dash and F. Spot Fitzgerald). By night the temperature dropped again; the celebration was over. The other four disappeared as mysteriously as they'd materialized, and Dot went back to being a solo traveler. P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK&b=T9Cte7TzyUNIQGlw.Ii8rg . Or Justice for Em Dash merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK&b=5gqhFy9kKVg7Ks6whB__Eg . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK&b=vYkhkFSIiCsREIK5ahnx6w Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK&b=.s_BeozK_rzw9wX9XfWC2g YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK&b=i.CyUWEpKmhrN6rO2oyvGg Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3gNgcaWIm0UyQvK&b=6lyWqU83WIOzhv2cM1arZg SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bAzsHOzMHMw=

You ask, I answer. Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK Ann as Bridgerton's Lady Whistledown https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK Image hand-generated by Annalog Intelligence Welcome to Issue 206 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. Was this email forwarded to you? You can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK . 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=YzVsCu2Qo3pRO0E70kZn.A 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 https://annhandley.com/everybodywrites/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK , 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 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=5lNcR_.X.qz9VRp7tSYx.Q . 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 https://annhandley.com/ai-panic-asking-better-questions/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK 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. NEW! META MARKETING SUMMIT [SPONSORED] Meta Marketing Summit Online 2026 https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=B6KOWrrBh1M3WgF_ch34Dg I've partnered with Meta Marketing Summit Online https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=B6KOWrrBh1M3WgF_ch34Dg , happening March 11—and it's free to attend. If you want to know where marketing is heading in an AI-enabled era (and how to actually use that shift instead of just worrying about it), this virtual event is stacked with smart people and practical ideas. (And one international football star.) The lineup includes leaders from some of the world's biggest brands—including Meta's CMO Alex Schultz—covering things like: • The future of marketing in the age of AI • Measurement in the new "incrementality" era • Creator partnerships & branding in the attention economy • Cross-border growth strategies • Meta's product road map for 2026 And more! Special guest: Real Madrid and France football star Eduardo Camavinga will close out the day with ideas on how creators build meaningful audience connections—and how brands can participate credibly and authentically. It's in just 3 days, so don't dawdle. 👉 Register here https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=B6KOWrrBh1M3WgF_ch34Dg (did I mention it's free?) And feel free to pass the link along to a colleague. See you there! B2B FORUM SPECIAL PRICING ENDS SOON! Before I go, an important note for my fellow B2B marketers: The 40% early discount https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=eNtLHsxQ0Q5Uxo99AzNFGg for MarketingProfs B2B Forum is about to vanish forever... like the lady in silver. This year's event is shaping up to be a special one. We just announced the workshop speakers. (Have a look here https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=GGCA4FE9rpPEBjHt5kyEpg .) And we're teeing up so many surprises and speakers that I'm ridiculously excited! If smart people, big ideas, questionable karaoke decisions, and marketing conversations light you up like a scandalous secret—now's the moment. The 40% rate disappears soon. After that, the price returns to its usual, far less charming self. 👉 REGISTER HERE https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=eNtLHsxQ0Q5Uxo99AzNFGg and spare future-you the regret. DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS Life goals https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=Z4zuz6yZla5VxhVD4ubTSQ . Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity. 🫡 See you on March 22! P.S. Dot https://annhandley.com/a-ladybug-in-winter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK is thriving! P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=.S6tACODrzlgE5TaobE_nw . Or Justice for Em Dash merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=5XfbSLp2xK68X2Fy2lyd6g . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=Fb93PY1FMkvE7fu5ySQSHg Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=vKniSVJ8tVJdS4hJ3wUeGA YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=lqojF46NCVvoEfhCAF.6yA Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3kWMRkOLz0UyQvK&b=XhiikfAHjiuhr8PMKQKkpQ SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bAzszOyMrIw=

plus an update on Dot Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK Hand-drawn image of hand untangling a ball of thread https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK Welcome to Issue 205 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. Was this email forwarded to you? You can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK . Good morning, Starshine. Maybe you, like me, read Matt Shumer's mega-viral piece about AI eliminating 50% of white-collar jobs in the next 1-5 years, and maybe you, like me, thought... Oh. Isht. It's well-crafted, detailed, and structured to make you feel like you're getting the inside scoop from someone who knows. And everyone else is sleepwalking into disaster. It's also designed to trigger panic. I did panic at first. And then I didn't. So I wrote this in case it helps you, too. Something Messy Is Happening: On AI, Panic, and Asking Better Questions https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=FRJqTBsIsUMHrxGmh96ocw * * * I published that ^^ last week on LinkedIn. My rebuttal went a little bananas, with 2,200 reactions and 500+ comments. If you haven't seen it, please go read it. https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=jLY1BMn.yFp7uDaPz_W6Xw It's important—not because I wrote it, but because it runs counter to the @dApT oR dIe!!! narrative that is literally everywhere right now. The heart of my rebuttal to the panic-driven pandemonium is this: When speed becomes cheap, judgment carries a premium. AI is making speed cheap—but the best response is not to move faster. The better, saner response is to slow down enough to ask better questions: What am I actually trying to make or do? What's worth protecting because it compounds over time? Where does friction create value instead of destroying it? What work do I love doing, regardless of whether AI could do it faster? That's the gist of my rebuttal to Matt's argument, among other nuances. And for no reason at all, I'll mention here that Matt has an AI technology to sell, and I do not. * * * But what if "slow down" feels like advice you can't afford? After I wrote that, conversations elsewhere made me question myself: Is that even fair advice? Is slowing down itself a privilege? I wondered. What if you don't have runway—a decade of work behind you, people to vouch for you, relationships you can rely on, a financial cushion to be deliberate? For some people being disrupted right now, the timeline isn't a mindset choice. It's an economic reality they're already living inside. So... is that fair advice? Yes. It is. (I thought about this for days and days. Not just for three paragraphs.) Here's the deal: Those with the least margin for error are the ones who can least afford panic... I'd argue it's more important then to take a beat. When pressure spikes and stakes feel high, we tend to make reactive moves. We grab whatever feels safe right now. We abandon what we've already built or are building—skills, reputation, relationships, domain expertise—because the noise around us is so loud that staying the course feels like you're swimming in a Swamp of Denial. The "move faster or die" message does something sinister: It makes every pause feel like falling behind. And when you're scared, that feeling is almost unbearable. Inaction feels like error. Here's the truth, in marketing and in life: Reactive pivots are expensive. Bets made under pressure are often costly—in time, money, and the compounding cost of starting over. The people with the most runway can absorb a wrong move. The people without it... can't. * * * When I say in my original post "don't let someone else's timeline determine how you spend your life," I'm not saying slow down as a luxury. I'm saying: "Be deliberate, especially when you can't afford not to be. This is important. Your next move counts." Here's what I've seen work—not just for senior folks, but for people at every level navigating the disruption. • Own something that gets better the more you do it. Not a title. Not a tool. Own a capability that compounds—one AI can assist but not originate. You don't need decades. You already have context, taste, pattern recognition. Develop that deliberately. Make it unmistakably yours. If you're not sure what that is, that's the question worth slowing down to answer. • If you use AI, use it in service of your expertise—not as a substitute for it. (And if you decide it doesn't belong in a piece of work right now... well, that's a choice, too.) The most resilient people I'm seeing aren't the ones who've mastered the most tools or the Perfect Prompt™. They're the ones who've figured out how AI makes their particular expertise more valuable—more scalable, more accessible, more fun to work in. Tools should extend your judgment. Not replace it. • And for the love of Matt... resist the urgency! I don't think the AI Apocalypse is imminent. (I explain why in my LinkedIn post.) And yetttttt... there's a whole economy built on making you feel behind: courses; certifications; "experts" who popped up like mushrooms overnight, pivoting from selling Metaverse real estate to AI "consulting." LinkedIn posts that implicitly suggest if you're not moving fast enough, you're already losing; guys on social media who say things like COMMENT I WANT IN to get their Agentic AI guide. Some of it is helpful. Much of it is not. Much of it is noise that benefits the people selling the urgency... not the people feeling it. * * * I know slowing down to ask "what am I actually good at" and "how do I own a thing in this new world?" when you're under real financial pressure feels... like not enough? But it is. Even a short, intentional pause—a few days of honest assessment moving through a situation before the next move—is always worth it. It's a way to invest in yourself. Not slowness for its own sake. But for the sake of deliberate speed: knowing what you're running toward, and why, before you start running. * * * When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the Little House on the Prairie books. I rode my bike around my suburban neighborhood, pretending it was a horse and the banana-seat a saddle. I started calling my parents "Ma" and "Pa." Laura Ingalls Wilder tells a story, in a later book, about a neighbor who spent hours every day hauling water to his homestead. Back and forth he went with his horse-drawn wagon, hauling water barrels from the creek. Someone asked why he didn't just dig a well on his property instead of spending all that time hauling water. "I would," he said. "But I can't find the time." I think Matt and the panic folks are telling you to keep hauling water—except now they're telling you to swap your wagon for a monster truck. I'm saying: It's time to dig your well. UPDATE ON DOT 🐞 I received MANY emails about Dot, the tiny ladybug who declared my upstairs bathroom her Bug Boca Raton this winter. You met her in the last issue https://annhandley.com/a-ladybug-in-winter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK . She's THRIVING. Still unbothered by the weather. Or the algorithm. She hydrates. She takes slow strolls in the sun. She enjoys a bite of dried apricot, sawing with her minuscule mouth. Or sucking. I can't really tell. She lounges beneath a single avocado leaf—I added that complimentary upgrade this week. The leaf serves as a poolside umbrella at her plastic-container-on-the-windowsill resort. The pool, you might remember, is a paper towel soaked with water. Objectively, this is the worst resort imaginable—the open-air plastic container, the paper-towel pool. Not to mention it has (and I say this respectfully) bugs. Doesn't matter. I'm certain Dot would rate it a solid five stars on TripAdvisor. Bug Tax below. Image of Dot, the ladybug, in her new Tupperware habitat https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK FEATURED EVENT 📆 MarketingProfs B2B Forum https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=WoZHT48TmKhKx4bSY7RMeA super-crazy-early-bird pricing is actually insanely... well, cheep. (Get it? Early birds? Cheep/cheap?) We've already sold more than 110 tickets... and the event isn't until November. We will sell out, so get in while you can https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=WoZHT48TmKhKx4bSY7RMeA . DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS When copyeditors think about pizza https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=bCWT_EQPK3GAS.7xwuOC.w . Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity. 🫡 See you on March 8! P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=meun0.eWHib1TYY.Vyw66w . Or Justice for Em Dash merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=ww9oAcJVAdb9vgpTHm3dEw . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=3KneAkgDvqlnVII1Ctgp5A Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=vcfCb9CRdkrKv3An7Y9Q_w YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=38xWI3.YeMqTq34Uk1P5ow Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3mV6eShKOmUyQvK&b=s8g_t3XxyCaSKF4ksoUm1A SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bAxsHKyMLAw=

Bug Boca Raton, judgment, and choosing pause on purpose. Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK Image of daffodils and ladybugs https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK Welcome to Issue 204 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. Was this email forwarded to you? You can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK . Hi, sunshine. A few weeks ago, a ladybug magically appeared in the upstairs bathroom. I noticed it (her?) on a cold January day, the kind of New England day when the outside air slaps you straight across the face. A few days later, I saw the ladybug again—still in the bathroom, now loitering on the sunny windowsill. The ladybug is motionless—maybe dead—but then suddenly on the move, taking itself for a walk around the window screen. I watched it (him?) for a few minutes. It's an incongruous scene: a ladybug—classic symbol of summer—strolling in the sun while just beyond it's deep winter: 16 degrees with two feet of snow on the ground. This ladybug has decided my bathroom is Bug Boca Raton. And she (I've decided she's a she) is wintering here. Where did you come from? How are you going to survive the winter? I ask her, interrogating her like a homeowners association compliance officer who's just noticed an unauthorized guest at the pool. * * * Things feel unsettled lately. In business, algorithms are shifting. AI is flooding the internet. The old playbooks don’t really work anymore, and it’s harder to break through with a clear signal—especially in a world wired to reward speed: fast responses, fast output, fast growth. For many of us, personally: It's hard to know what to trust. What is real? What is not? Signals are harder to hear. Focus feels fragile. I read that 2026 is the Chinese Year of the Fire Horse, which I misread as "Year of the Fire Hose." And I think... yeah, "fire hose" sounds about right. It makes me a little jumpy and panicky. How do we weather this storm? I don't think the solution is about better hacks and crushing my To-Do List or the secrets of The Perfect AI Prompt™. I don't think it's about this efficiency with this tool or that framework you need to have to thrive in this new climate. The pressure is to move faster or fall behind. But that's exactly backward: When speed becomes cheap, judgment carries a premium. * * * I learn that ladybugs move indoors when the outside world becomes inhospitable. They're not confused or lost, exactly, and they're not really hunkering down, either. They're adapting. The ladybug doesn't know there's two feet of snow on the ground. The ladybug doesn't know it's just winter; she doesn't know spring will eventually come. All she knows is that conditions have changed. In that way, she's not so different from us. * * * When speed is cheap and volume is easy, generative AI can burp out 100 versions of a Facebook post. It can optimize the email subject line within an inch of its life. Everyone can make more things, faster. Speed alone is no longer an advantage. So what's left? It's judgment. Taste. Context. Connection. Care for the long term. It's remembering why we're here at all. * * * Reddit tells me to leave out water on a soaked paper towel with a bit of dried fruit. I put them both inside a small plastic container and place it on the windowsill. I've named her Dot. I hope you like raisins, I whisper to Dot. * * * Why are we here? Our work has never just been about "output." Instead, good writing—and good marketing—is how ideas travel, how trust is built, how people decide what to pay attention to and what to believe. It's about connecting with one person at one time, even if you're speaking to millions. That work doesn't disappear just because technology gets faster and signals get louder. It becomes more important. And in this season, it's strangely a little radical to pause the relentless push forward long enough to ask better questions. That pause is how judgment re-enters the room: Is this worth doing? Is this actually helping someone? Would I approach this differently if the platform/algorithm changed tomorrow? * * * Dot has made the little container her home. When the sun disappears below the horizon, she wedges herself into the groove in the plastic cover—she almost gave me a heart attack when I once adjusted the cover and nearly squished her. I tell the housekeeper about Dot so she doesn't accidentally vacuum her up. I'm a little embarrassed to tell her—I see how crazy this probably looks. But whatever. A few minutes later she comes downstairs. "So," she says. "I notice you put out food? For a bug?" * * * So where does this leave us? How do we do work we're proud of? How do we prioritize health and well-being in the Year of the Fire Hose? Here are three places I'm choosing to pause on purpose: What's one thing worth protecting right now because it actually compounds over time? One relationship. One audience. One practice. One project. For me, that's my daily analog-writing practice. It's also a more-recent weightlifting practice. Both are on my calendar every morning—non-negotiable, like a court date. Where can technology remove drag—but (important but!) without eroding taste and judgment? I'm not anti-AI. Tools are fine. But they are tools—they aren't YOU. Choose deliberately where to let them in. Saying no is a choice, too. Where could a small pause deliver an outsized outcome? Five minutes before hitting send. A breath before saying yes. A day before shipping the final. An analog rough draft instead of one typed on a laptop. I've realized how reactive I am. I'm trying to change that. Anyway... those are mine. I don't know what your pause is. But I suspect you already do. * * * I watch Dot perch on a plump raisin that's 3 times her size. Is this insane? What am I doing? Why do I care as much as I do? I don't really know. But maybe it's this: Caring about small things is how we care about bigger things. Maybe this has occurred to you already... but suddenly I think... WAIT. Is this a feature? Or is it... a bug? * * * This winter gives us a mental shift, a way of clarifying what matters. Conditions always change. What doesn't change is the choice we have of where we put our attention. Maybe that's a feature. Maybe it's a bug. Maybe it's both. * * * Every morning I do a wellness check on Dot. Every evening I notice how she's climbed into a crevice. It's silly. It's routine now. I make sure she's hydrated. I make sure she doesn't get vacuumed up. I'm getting her through the winter. She has no idea how good what's coming next will be. THE GREAT OATLY DEBATE OF 2026 In the last issue, we interrogated the copy on the side of the Oatly oat milk carton. It's here, if you missed it https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=I1e4uULPNRWr0HneSwwK5w . It read: "We only know oats," I argued that it should read: "We know only oats." Many, many of you (200!) wrote to say that I was wrong. That "only know" sounds better than "only oats." Some of you were extremely hilarious about it. My friend David Berkowitz wondered: "Maybe Oatly meant the biblical know?" A number of poets said I was cosplaying as a strict grammarian, not acting like a writer. I briefly wondered if they were right. Mostly, I wondered: Who knew there are so many poets on this list? Wow. So who wins the Great Oatly Debate of 2026? No one and everyone. I still think only oats is better marketing copy than only know. But what's wonderful about language is that it's playful and interpretative and what stirs my soul one way stirs your soul completely counter-clockwise. There are a few things we can all agree on though: First: The repetition and music of the long O in Only/Oatly/Oats is lovely—no matter the order. Second: A gratitude that all of us care about words as much as we do. Third: I was about to say that we can agree that this only know/only oats hill is the most ridiculous hill I have ever chosen to die on... But I just wrote 800 words on how I'm taking care of a bug. So... maybe it's not. EVENTS Select events I'm speaking at. Ann to speak at Litmus Live https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=68ETrjUtpaFFxCydZShPuQ 📆 Litmus Live 2026: Free Virtual Conference https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=68ETrjUtpaFFxCydZShPuQ Feb. 11-12. Learn how to put human-centric marketing at the heart of your 2026 email strategy. Me. Jay Schwedelson. GaryVee. Free reg https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=68ETrjUtpaFFxCydZShPuQ . 📆 MarketingProfs B2B Forum https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=SE6LmfjHyyo0MZX05Kc5zw super-crazy-early-bird pricing is actually insanely... well, cheep. (Get it? Early birds? Cheep/cheap?) We've already sold more than 110 tickets... and the event isn't until November. We will sell out, so get in while you can https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=SE6LmfjHyyo0MZX05Kc5zw . ▶️ REPLAY Authentic marketing vs. AI: https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=T1E81nGCUTfsxpfk1yEwfg Fun conversation with Katie O'Leary of Dotdigital's London office. We talked successful content, AI hype vs. reality, when to use/not use it. BONUS: I shared my latest hand-drawn analog slide. DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS The ultimate team player https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=XvKK_8tmYdMfwNg5HIL_pA . Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity. 🫡 See you on February 22! P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=WdwwWkjw6hFqfgUh7szvcw . Or Justice for Em Dash merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=WPbRI6wGclwHgTEquHoWYw . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=7_h4.RGeijFkiDpJttnsEw Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=d28oi4HH7WUyVTq.z9RzgA YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=jFREUUjckeR4YOHrQhuxIQ Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3etvVgIyjmUyQvK&b=f33jTnUs70UqQKgVQSJRAQ SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bAxszOyMbCw=

Also: Where I've been. Ann Handley's Total Annarchy https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK Oatly container that reads "we only know oats" https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK Welcome to Issue 203 of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. Was this email forwarded to you? You can subscribe here http://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK . Salutations! Me again—after a bit of an absence. (See why below, under Where I've Been.) A fun, playful one today. Tell me you're a writer without telling me you're a writer. I'll go first. I'm standing in the thin light of the fridge this morning, reading the copy on the side of an Oatly milk container. I am interrogating the word order. The copy reads: "We only know oats." Oatly copy is wild and wildly entertaining; I've written about it before in Milking Brand Voice https://annhandley.com/brand-voice/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK . I also really, really like Oatly's oat milk. But that morning by the fridge light I look at the Oatly carton and I think: "This phrase feels off." Then I realize why: Instead of: "We only know oats," It should read: "We know only oats." Why exactly though? And why does such a tiny thing as word order matter—especially now, in the age of AI? (We'll get to that in a bit.) The Nerdy Why In English, the word only modifies whatever immediately follows it. Move it, and you change the meaning of the sentence entirely: • "I only called her" = I called; I didn't email or text. • "I called only her" = She's the only person I called. • "Only I called her" = I was the only one who called. Only is wandering around inside that sentence like the last person standing in musical chairs—desperately searching for meaning. See? Same words. Completely different meanings. Back to Oatly Here's what the phrase on the Oatly carton actually says: • "We only know oats" = The only thing we do with oats is know them. We don't grow them, process them, master them, or turn them into a delicious dairy alternative with a snarky tone of voice. We just... know about them. That suggests limitation—as if Oatly is apologizing for its lack of expertise. It has a sheepish, deficient quality when you think about it. (And, yes, we are thinking about it. Because honestly I'm in this deep so let's keep going.) Now swap the order: • "We know only oats" = Oats are the exclusive focus. Oatly knows oats inside and out. Oatly loves them. Celebrates them. Oatly knows diddly about wheat, quinoa, or flax. We know only oats is a declaration of specialization. It's confident and intentional. It says: "We at Oatly have chosen to master oats exclusively! We are OAT PEOPLE." There's brain science behind this, too. Our brains give extra weight to the end of a sentence—linguists call it, well, end-weight. The last words—"only oats"—stick with us and shape our overall impression. It's subtle. Most people would never consciously register it. (Fewer still would write a few hundred words about it lol.) But still their subconscious has already formed an opinion about Oatly's expertise before they've even finished reading. So What, Eh? Why does this matter? Let's experiment and apply this rule more broadly: I only write with pencils = limitation; you don't do anything else with pencils (like rewind cassette tapes 😉) I write only with pencils = passionate devotion to the pencil cause! We only buy from startups = we don't sell to them, for example We buy only from startups = you confidently state your preference Word order isn't just cosmetic. This isn't just me being obsessive about tiny details on a sub-zero morning in Boston and having a little fun (although those things are true). The bigger truth that goes beyond milk cartons: Word order can fundamentally change meaning. One word-order change transforms a sentence. One word change declares identity. If you're trying to position your brand as expert specialists rather than accidental amateurs... well: maybe you know only oats. Which Brings Us Back to AI Generative AI is very good at generating language that sounds right and seems right. What it's not great at is judgment: choosing one word order over another because of what you want to signal. I have no idea who wrote Oatly's carton copy. This isn't about them. But it is about a tool that will confidently plop out onto its conveyor belt, "We only write with pencils." It won't pause to consider whether you mean limitation... or devotion. It won't stand in front of your fridge in the weak light and feel a low-grade existential itch about word order. That itch is judgment. It's taste. AI knows alllll the words. Only you and I decide what they mean. WHERE I'VE BEEN August on a rug https://annhandley.com?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK Thanks to everyone who wondered where I disappeared to after the holidays. Just before Christmas, my beloved little dog Augie needed emergency spinal surgery. If you follow me on Instagram, https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=gpE_eh8_UJ8KhfpINDXnFQ you already know this part: One day he was chasing a wild rabbit at top speed in the garden, as fierce as an apex predator. The next—out of nowhere—he couldn't walk or control his lower body. If you've ever dealt with a health emergency, you know the drill. Caring for a post-op patient is no joke—whether full-sized human or 14 pounds of Beanie Baby. Your world shrinks to medication schedules, trying not to miss a doctor call, and an absurd amount of googling that starts with, "Is it normal if...?" A crisis is clarifying. You learn how much of the stuff that usually occupies your brain is absolute nonsense. You learn how fiercely you'll show up for someone you love. You also learn that time is fake, priorities are fluid, and email newsletters can wait. I also learned far more than I ever wanted to know about canine catheters. Which is knowledge I would never otherwise seek out and now cannot unknow. But that's a story for another day. (Or maybe a never-day.) Augie's neurology team gave him an 80% chance of walking again and a 50% chance of being able to go to the bathroom on his own. I know they weren't trying to scare me. But I have never been more emotionally invested in someone else's ability to pee and poop. Today, I'm happy to report that he's doing both. Praise modern medicine! And acupuncture! And PT! And Augie's fierce attitude. He'll have some limitations—but we can deal with them. That's what family does. QUICKIES 👉 What's Behind the Sunday Scaries? https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=3D7sluzv6igBuCrqntZOgg [SPONSORED] 👉 Litmus Live 2026: Free Virtual Conference https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=U5oQXC_WCprecSl6e_rLlw , Feb. 11-12. Learn how to put human-centric marketing at the heart of your 2026 email strategy. Me. Jay Schwedelson. GaryVee. Free reg https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=U5oQXC_WCprecSl6e_rLlw . 👉 MarketingProfs B2B Forum https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=l_4lZQ8TXGa3WiAv04Htuw super-crazy-early-bird pricing is actually insanely... well, cheep. (Get it? Early birds? Cheep/cheap? Tell me you're a writer without telling me... and OK I'm done.) DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS "On a gravestone I am the entire life lived between birth and death. https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=gvkMZ_twj6JFL5pgxj7OFA Who are you?" (via Melissa Suzuno) Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness & generosity this year. 🫡 See you on February 8! P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, there are 4 WAYS THIS WEEK! PICK ONE right now before you forget: 1) Buy a book https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=XxT2FCBjIU7sgdpGS4blPQ . Or merch https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=NI9ZfhZSYNxwQyd3o2qnTw . 2) Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: annhandley.com/newsletter https://annhandley.com/newsletter/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK . 3) Hit reply and say hello. 4) Bring me into your company to speak https://annhandley.com/speaking/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK (either in person or virtually). Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books. LinkedIn Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=cCbCih.wObv7rv5T7ylZ.w Instagram Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=TASoY91Z9zOuyzH4Oekxhg YouTube Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=YsIOrqhzI27xPRKMfbMnWw Threads Icon https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=3lq0cgJRDWUyQvK&b=B3w9ddTAzVQAviC5fIqxCw SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy.  If you are looking to up your email game, I highly recommend. Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtEa0bAysHGxsHAw=

Ann Handley https://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=da6Nvn&m=lROB7WZNxZUyQvK&b=15z.f3WD_U5tmqnu5uqJfA Hi Friend! Congrats on being Total Annarchy's newest subscriber! Thank you! 🗓️ Every other Sunday (every two weeks), you’ll get new writing, useful ideas, fresh links, and high-spirited shenanigans—direct from me to you. In the meantime, I'd love to hear your answer to these questions: Why did you subscribe to my newsletter? What do you hope to learn here? Your answer will help me to know you a little better, so that I can offer you real value in return. Let me know by hitting reply. Or you can email me directly: ann@annhandley.com . Thank you again. And welcome! Ann P.S. Gmail users: You might find that this newsletter gets routed to your Promotions tab. (Rude.) You can re-route it by dragging the newsletter over to your Primary tab. After you do, Gmail will ask you if you wish to make the change permanent. At which point you pump your fist in the air and shout, "HECK YEAH GOOGLE GODS." Apple mail users: Tap on the email address at the top of this email and "Add to VIPs." This ensures delivery. P.P.S. Below are my top five posts of all time. I hope you enjoy. My Top 5 Posts of All Time 9 Qualities of Good Writing https://annhandley.com/9-qualities-of-good-writing/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=lROB7WZNxZUyQvK 5 Keys to Developing a Strong Tone of Voice in Your Content Marketing https://annhandley.com/5-keys-to-developing-a-strong-tone-of-voice/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=lROB7WZNxZUyQvK A Writing GPS: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Your Next Piece of Content https://annhandley.com/writing-gps-step-by-step-guide-to-creating-content-infographic/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=lROB7WZNxZUyQvK I Should Hate This LinkedIn Post, But It's Actually the Greatest https://annhandley.com/greatest-linkedin-post/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=lROB7WZNxZUyQvK 13 Writing Rules https://annhandley.com/13-writing-rules/?awt_a=8LvK&awt_l=da6Nvn&awt_m=lROB7WZNxZUyQvK Ann Handley 9 Bartlett St., #313, Andover, MA 01810 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: https://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TJysrKwsDLRMjCzsDAysTJzMtGa0jIws7CwMzGys

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