A newsletter that people open and read is not primarily a design challenge. It is a promise and positioning challenge. The open rate reflects whether the subscriber believes, based on the subject line, that opening the email is worth the next few minutes of their attention. The click rate reflects whether the content justified that belief. Both of these are shaped by decisions made long before any individual email is sent.
Positioning matters most. A newsletter that attempts to cover everything a creator does: their latest content, their business updates, their opinions, their promotional offers: competes for attention against every other email in the inbox and wins none of them decisively. A newsletter with a specific, clearly stated reason to exist: "every Thursday, one insight about building a creator business that actually pays you": creates a reason to open that goes beyond curiosity.
Subject line strategy is the most studied and least applied skill in email marketing. The subject lines that consistently generate high open rates are specific, create a clear expectation, and often contain tension or contrast. "Why I stopped posting daily" outperforms "This week's newsletter." The first creates a question the reader wants answered. The second creates no question at all.
The relationship between sending frequency and list health is counterintuitive. Sending less frequently but more valuably tends to improve open rates over time, because subscribers develop the habit of opening when they see your name: because it is worth it. Sending frequently with variable quality trains subscribers to triage rather than open. Consistency of quality is more important than consistency of frequency.