Writing a welcome post for new readers

Somebody finds one of your posts, likes it, and clicks your name. What they see next decides whether they stay. A welcome post is the page you write for that moment: a short, friendly piece that tells a new reader who you are, what you write about, how often you publish and where to begin.

It is one of the most useful things a writer can publish and one of the most often skipped, usually because it feels awkward to write about yourself. It need not be awkward. A good welcome post is less about you than about what the reader will get.

A welcome post answers the questions a stranger has in the first minute:

• What is this, in one sentence?
• Is it for someone like me?
• How often will there be something new?
• What should I read first?
• How do I keep up?

Your profile bio answers the first question in a line or two, and that is all a bio has room for. The welcome post has room for the rest. Mention it in your bio, link to it from your first few issues, or put it in a category of its own so it is easy to find from your blog's front page.

Open with what readers will get

Begin with the subject and the promise, not your life story. Compare these two openings:

I have always loved writing, ever since I was small, and after many years of thinking about it I finally decided to start a newsletter.

Every other Sunday I write about cooking for one on a small budget: one recipe I actually make, what went wrong the first time, and what I would buy again.

The second tells the reader the topic, the format, the rhythm and the angle in two lines. The history can come later, briefly, if it helps the reader trust you.

Be specific about the audience too. "For people who are new to houseplants and have already killed one" is more welcoming than "for everyone", because the right reader recognises themselves in it.

Say a little about who is writing

After the promise, give readers a short reason to listen to you. This is not a CV. Two or three sentences are enough:

• What you do or have done that bears on the subject.
• Where you are writing from, if place matters to the topic.
• What you are still learning. Honesty about limits makes the rest more believable.

If you have a website or another place where your work lives, link to it here. Links in posts on MossPaper are ordinary links, so readers can follow you wherever your other work is.

Avoid claims you cannot back up. "I have tested every budget knife on the market" invites doubt; "I have owned four cheap knives and I will tell you which one I still use" invites trust.

Set expectations you can keep

Tell readers how often you publish, and choose a promise you can keep in a bad month, not only a good one. "Most weeks, usually on Thursday" is a promise; "daily insights" is a trap. If your rhythm changes later, edit the welcome post. It should always describe what you actually do now. We have more on picking that rhythm in choosing a publishing rhythm you can keep.

It also helps to describe what an issue looks like. "Each issue has one longer piece and three short notes" tells readers what they are signing up for in a way that "regular updates" never will.

Point to three good places to start

New readers rarely start at your newest post and work backwards. Give them a short reading list instead:

1. The piece that best shows what you do.
2. The piece readers have responded to most warmly, in comments or in person.
3. Something recent, so they can see you are still writing.

Three is enough. Ten links is a table of contents, and a new reader will open none of them. Add a sentence for each saying why it is a good first read.

Revisit the list every few months. Your best introduction a year from now will probably be something you have not written yet.

Show how to follow along

End by telling readers how to keep up. On MossPaper, reading is free and needs no account, and every writer's blog has its own RSS feed at /your-handle/feed.xml. Say so plainly, give the full address, and add a sentence on what a feed reader is for anyone who has not used one. Our post on following writers with RSS explains it in more detail, and you are welcome to link to it.

You can also invite readers to say hello in the comments. Readers can comment without an account, and comments appear once moderators have approved them, so tell people not to worry if theirs does not show up straight away. The guidelines describe what kind of conversation the site is for.

A simple outline to borrow

If you want a starting point, this outline fits most writers:

1. One or two sentences: what you write about, for whom, and how often.
2. A short paragraph on who you are and why this subject.
3. What a typical issue contains.
4. Three places to start, with a line on each.
5. How to follow: your feed address and an invitation to comment.

Keep the whole thing under five hundred words if you can. Read it aloud before publishing; if any sentence sounds like a press release, rewrite it as you would say it to someone across a table. Then give it a plain title, such as "Start here" or "Welcome", so nobody has to guess what it is.