Hey,

So I decided to do something a little weird.

I already run three newsletters. And now I'm starting a fourth one to write about the other three.

If that sounds like too much, you're probably right. But here's why I'm doing it anyway.

I've been building newsletter projects in parallel for a while now, and most of what I learn from them ends up in my head and nowhere else. What worked, what flopped, what I'm trying next, why I made a specific call on positioning or format or platform. None of that makes it into the newsletters themselves because those newsletters have their own audiences and their own purposes. WP More readers don't want to hear about NishIsHere metrics. NishIsHere readers aren't waiting on my thoughts about HighDegree* growth.

But somebody might want to hear all of it together. So that's what this is.

NicheNish is where I document what's actually happening across my portfolio of hobby projects. Monthly. Honest. No big lessons packaged neatly. Just what's going on.

Subscribe NicheNish, if you are interested in newsletters, hobby projects or just want to ride along with me.

I experimented heavily with Substack. Still love that platform, genuinely. But trying different platforms is part of the hobby for me.

I started one newsletter on ConvertKit at lifewithnish.kit.com where I sent my nishat.blog posts in email. That was its own experiment. And Beehiiv has been on my list for a while, mostly because I'm a fan of how they market the product.

Their growth story is hard to ignore, and I've been a reader of Tyler Denk's newsletter, which he writes on Beehiiv. He's one of the co-founders, and watching him build the company in public while running his own newsletter on the product is a good example of eating your own cooking.

So I always wanted to try the platform properly. The problem was I couldn't nail down what to write here. A fourth newsletter needs a reason to exist that's distinct from the other three. I think I've got it now. And this is just the start.

WP More (wpmore.net) is a WordPress newsletter targeting people who actually work in the WordPress space. Developers, agency owners, product builders, WP professionals. Every issue covers what's moving in the ecosystem: plugins, themes, builder news, community conversations, business angles.

It started as a small experiment. As of now it's at 316+ subscribers across 31 countries, which still surprises me when I look at the map. I've published 48 issues. The 30-day open rate is around 17%.

This one is the flagship. I'm taking it seriously in a way I'm not taking the others. I'm building out this one issue at a time. The next milestone is 500 subscribers by end of year.

The format is a specific thing I've dialed in over time: five articles per issue, each with an H2 heading, a short context paragraph, and a Read More link. Then three link sections at the end. The email title surfaces all five topics in the subject line itself because WordPress readers are busy and specific. They'll open if one of the five topics is something they care about.

I cross-publish it to Medium, and there's an audio version via NotebookLM at @WPMore.

NishIsHere (nishishere.com) is the oldest of the three. Issue 103 is recent. It's a weekly curated digest across Tech, the Creator Economy, Pop Culture, and Business. Four links per issue, a Thought of the Week, a Photo, and a Quote. 2,000+ subscribers.

This one I've been writing long enough that it runs almost on autopilot. The curation habit is baked in. But I've been rethinking the positioning this year because "curated finds for curious minds" doesn't actually tell a new reader who it's for or why they should care. The tagline describes a vibe, not a value. So I've been working on fixing the intro copy and the landing page framing without touching the newsletter content itself, which I think is solid.

There's also a Bangla version called NishNama Digest that goes out at my Bangla blog — nishnama.com. That's for a completely different reader, which makes it interesting to maintain both simultaneously.

HighDegree* Marketing (serplabseo.com/subscribe-highdegree/) is the most recent of the three. It's a weekly marketing newsletter built around three pillars: SEO, AI, and Social Media. Target audience is product marketers, marketing strategists, and SEOs.

At 28+ issues, this one is still finding its audience. The audience is smaller right now, but the goal is different here. This isn't a brand property the way WP More is. HighDegree* is more of a credibility and personal brand funnel vehicle. The writing is more opinionated, more analytical. I cross-publish it to Medium and LinkedIn Pulse, and there's an audio version via NotebookLM at @LearnWithNish.

The growth has been slow but the open rates are decent. The posting schedule I've built around issue drops is what I'm testing most actively right now.

nishat.blog is my personal hub, and I've been building it on Astro. That's been its own experience. Static site generators are not forgiving when you're used to WordPress, but the performance gains are worth the pain. I'll write more about that as the build progresses.

I also run a private weekly blog at nishcurious.wordpress.com via a Telegram bot, which is exactly as janky as it sounds, and exactly what I wanted. Some things don't need to be polished.

My day job is Senior Product Marketing Lead at WPManageNinja, where I run marketing across three products: Fluent Forms, FluentPlayer, and Ninja Tables. I manage a five-person content team on top of that.

I won't go deep into work stuff here every month, but I'll log what's active so there's a record somewhere outside my weekly reports. This month the main threads are:

Fluent Forms is the core product and the biggest workload. I'm managing the content calendar, editing and reviewing team drafts before publish, running email campaigns to the combined list of ** subscribers, and handling the Reddit strategy I started building out this quarter. The organic search analysis is ongoing.

FluentPlayer just launched. It went from waitlist in January to a free version in June to the LTD launch in July. Post-launch work is live now: BOFU content planning, comparison pages, Reddit expansion, multi-platform distribution setup. Marketing meeting cadence with the team has been weekly through this phase. I am going to crush our competitor and enjoy every bit of it.

Ninja Tables is running in parallel. The main items on my side this month are the Reddit strategy, the cross-promo newsletter send we did to *** subscribers, and team check-ins on the marketing direction.

I may write more about this work in future issues. I may not. I'll decide per issue.

Every month I'll come back here with updates from each property. Numbers, changes, experiments, decisions. What I'm thinking about, what I'm trying next.

If you run newsletters yourself, or you're thinking about starting something, I'm curious what questions you have after reading this. Hit reply.

Until next week,
— Nishat Shahriyar

p.s. If you want to actually read any of these: WP More at wpmore.net, NishIsHere at nishishere.com, HighDegree* at serplabseo.com