Your first newsletter: plan it and send it well

Your first issue is not a technical test. It is the first promise you make to your readers, and it is how they decide whether to open the second one. So it deserves an hour of planning before the hour of writing.

This guide walks through what matters, in order: the idea, the setup in Mujaz, your first readers, then writing, testing and sending, and what to do once the issue is out. For the click-by-click steps, see Your first issue in the Help Center.

Start with three questions

Who is it for? Describe one specific reader: their work, what is on their mind, and why they would open your email among dozens of others. The narrower the description, the clearer it becomes what to write and what to leave out.

What is it about? Write, in one sentence, what a reader will find in every issue — for example: “The three most important stories in Arab tech this week, with a short take.” That sentence becomes your brand description, and you will come back to it whenever you are unsure about a topic.

How often? Pick a rhythm you can keep for months, not weeks. An issue every two weeks, on time, beats a weekly issue that stops after a month. Readers get used to the day; a gap breaks the habit.

Set up your identity once

What you set in Settings → Brand appears on every email and on your public page. Take your time with it: most readers judge an email from the inbox before they open it.

• “Brand Name” is the sender name readers see in their inbox. Choose a name your readers know, and keep it.
• “Your link” makes your page address mujaz.io/@handle and your default sending address [email protected]. English letters, numbers and hyphens, 3 to 30 characters.
• “Brand Description” is required, and shows in the email footer and on your public page. Put your “what is it about” sentence here.
• The logo can be PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF up to 2 MB. SVG is not accepted.

Then open Newsletter Style and choose a headline font and a body font. It is one setting for every issue, so you set it once. Choosing an Arabic font is covered in Writing Arabic for email.

Who will receive the first issue?

The “Create Newsletter” button in the sidebar stays disabled until you have at least one subscriber. So start with your list before you write, even a small one.

• If you have a list of people who asked to hear from you, import it as a CSV file. See Import subscribers.
• If you are starting from zero, share your public page with people you know are interested, and add yourself as a subscriber so you see the email the way a reader does.
• Never add anyone who did not ask. Mujaz refuses purchased or scraped lists, and, more to the point, people who never asked for your email are the first to mark it as spam.

Before you send your first issue, switch on the welcome email so everyone who joins after it gets an email that introduces you. The full story is in Welcome emails that work.

Write a good regular issue, not just a hello

Many first issues are nothing but “Hi, this is my new newsletter.” Readers subscribed to get something, so give it to them from the start. Write a short paragraph about who you are, what they will get and when — then deliver a complete issue, exactly like the ones that will follow.

• One main idea the issue is built around, not five equal topics.
• Short paragraphs and subheadings that are easy to read on a phone.
• One clear ask at the end: reply with your view, or forward the issue to a friend.

Mujaz has two ways to write. A newsletter is an email you build from blocks in the newsletter editor — good for digests and issues with sections. A post is a long article with its own web page, which you publish on its own or also send by email. When you create a newsletter you choose “Start from Blank”, “Create with AI” (it builds a first draft from your website link), or “Write an article”.

The subject line decides the open. Write it after you finish the issue, and say what the reader will actually find. The “AI Subject Line Generator” can help you compare versions; pick the most honest one, not the loudest. There is no separate preview-text field, so make the first line of your email worth reading — inbox apps often show the start of the text under the subject.

The settings step: three things people forget

• “Newsletter Title” is required, and “Untitled Newsletter” is refused. Give it a real title — it is the title of the issue’s web page.
• “Featured Image” is required too; 1200×630 is recommended. It is used on the issue’s web page and in link previews when it is shared, not inside the email. A missing featured image is the most common cause of “Some required fields are missing”.
• “Audience Segment” actually chooses the list you send to; “All Subscribers” is the default.

Test it as a reader would

Send a test to yourself before anything else, and open it on your phone, not only on a computer. You can send tests to up to five addresses per issue, and the test’s subject starts with [TEST].

• Click every link. A new button links to “#” until you change it, and the Social block comes with example links you must replace.
• Read the email aloud once; the tongue catches what the eye skips.
• Check the newsletter language: it sets whether the email reads right-to-left or left-to-right.

Send now or schedule?

If the issue is ready and your readers are awake, send it now. If you want a fixed day and time, choose “Schedule for later”. The time uses your browser’s time zone, and the issue goes out to everyone at that moment. Scheduling and cancelling are covered in Send or schedule.

After sending, the success page offers “Create Share Card”. Use it: the first issue is your best chance to tell the people who follow you elsewhere that your newsletter has started. Everything about sharing is in the Share Kit guide.

Once the issue is out

Wait a day before you judge the numbers. And remember that rates on small sends are rough: under about a hundred deliveries, two or three readers can move a percentage a lot. Early on, replies matter more than rates — read every one and answer it.

Then note down what you will change in the second issue, and set its date now. If you liked this issue’s design, duplicate it next time and start from there; there is no template gallery at the moment. To understand the numbers as your list grows, read Read your numbers.