Adrian Leeds Nouvellettre®
Your taste of life in France!

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Newsletter = Nouvellettre® (AKA Blog)

The Eiffel Tower in Paris

In 1998, when my partner from Berlitz and I started the Parler Parlor French-English Conversation Group (that no longer exists, sadly), I purchased two domain names: ParlerParlor.com and ParlerParis.com. At the time, I wasn’t sure what we were going to do with ParlerParis.com, but it was available and I bought it. It was logical to begin a “communiqué” for the members of the Conversation Group, and so the Nouvellettre® “Parler Paris” was born. We have since dropped that name, but a rose by any other name would smell as sweet…so the Nouvellettres® live on (you’re getting this one, aren’t you!?).

Logo for the French/English conversation group Parler Parlor

At the time I was one of only about five Americans writing about France online. The Internet was in its infancy and our small group was the new window into French life. This was a main reason I was able to score a job with International Living to open their Paris Office in 2001. I was already writing the newsletters, building an audience and doing what they wanted to achieve. That’s when Parler Paris went way beyond the conversation group. Distribution opened up to their entire mailing list, which at the time was enormous, all things considered…about 80,000 readers.

Meme for the original Parler Paris newsletterWe didn’t call them “blogs” then. That word didn’t exist. They were “newsletters,” hence my own made-up term, “Nouvellettre®”—a French word coined by a friend that I trademarked. It may never make the French dictionary, or be accepted by the Académie Française, but who cares? We Anglophones get it, right?

There’s no telling now how many blogs, podcasts or videos are devoted to France now, but likely as many as 5,000 times the five in 1998! According to Small Biz Genius, there are over 600 million blogs in the world. In 2020, there were 31.7 million bloggers in the United States (Statista), which includes those about France, and from 2014 to 2020, the number of bloggers in the US increased by 4.3 million, or 15.7%. Covid-19 must have been the catalyst for such an explosion.

Here’s what Small Biz Genius reported:

“Bloggers publish over 7.5 million posts daily, or more than 2.5 billion annually. The top three blog niches are food, lifestyle, and travel. Food bloggers have four times as many followers as any other blogging topic. Thirty-three percent of bloggers don’t earn any money at all. Posts published by those who make $50K+/per year are 2,424 words long on average. Ninety percent of bloggers promote their posts via social media, while influencer collaboration accounts for 10%. Seventy-three percent of readers admit to skimming blog posts.”

I feel really lucky and privileged to have been at the beginning of the blogging craze, but for years I resisted even calling the missives “blogs.” (So old school!) In today’s world, keeping the audience we have and watching it grow, is a feather in our caps, considering all of the competition out there now. You likely subscribe to at least 10 yourself, so keeping up with the reading of them all is tough. We have a very high “open rate,” meaning that a very high portion of subscribers actually read our Nouvellettres®, or at least glance at them. It’s another thing of which we’re quite proud.

Logo meme for Adrian Leeds Nouvellettres

For example, I was interviewed this past Monday by Louise Prichard of Loulabelle’s FrancoFiles for her podcast. She’s an Australian Francophile who started her blog and podcasts during the Covid-19 pandemic to “connect with her inner Frenchy!”

We talked about a lot of things related to living and investing in France, property purchasing, etc., and we discussed the differences and similarities in our own cultures—North American to Australian. Yes, we are culturally so similar! There are lots of reasons why we see France and the French the same and much differently than our British counterparts.

Louise Prichard

Louise Prichard

In a nutshell, we (Americans and Aussies) both have Caucasian/Anglo-Saxon ancestry as British colonies; we both share English heritage and language; we are both relatively young cultures (adolescent, really) that grew through liberal immigration policies; we both inhabited what I call “great big islands” ( continents, really), we both conquered rough and unfriendly terrain and infringed on the indigenous and we both come from rather roguish backgrounds. So, working with Aussies, even though we tout our mission as “French Property the American Way,” is basically the same.

Our talk of over an hour was fun and fast-paced, filled with information and advice for would-be investors. It will likely post in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for an announcement, but meanwhile, you can hear her past podcasts just by visiting this website.

Bloggers and YouTubers KJ and Tony just posted a new video titled, “10 Things You Need to Know BEFORE Going to FRANCE.” This is the couple I wrote about, first on April 17th and then again in follow up on April 24th. Turnabout is fair play as KJ and Tony have given us a nice mention toward the end of this new video.

KJ and Tony

Watch it here.

It may be hard to believe, but we publish our Nouvellettres® three times a week. I’m the only person who writes and edits them. Lots of journalists have asked to be considered for us to post their articles, but these missives are our primary and important communication tools, so we keep them all to ourselves…and to you readers, of course.

The reason we publish so often comes from my International Living training. They taught me that the more often you communicate with your reader, the more response/success you achieve. And as it turns out, I have a lot to say, so it’s easy!

Someone recently asked what inspires me for each Nouvellettre®—how is it that I can pump out so many every week filled with so much information? It’s really not all that difficult to find inspiration. I’m living in France. Something new and interesting happens almost daily. There is always more to do and more to say than there is time in the day.

Writing time is the hardest to find, but one must be disciplined. It’s like daily exercise. In order to keep the old writing muscles in shape, one must keep writing! If I don’t get my daily exercise, I quickly miss it. Even when on vacation, writing what I experienced at the end of the day is one of the greatest pleasures of the travel experience. Without it, the memories might quickly fade, but with the imagery put to “paper,” it lasts forever! And imagine how much information we can put forth about life in France! It’s endless!

If you are a good student of our Nouvellettres®, then you might have already noticed that Monday’s Nouvellettres® are devoted to lifestyle and are usually pretty long since I’ve had all week plus a weekend to gather research. Monday tends to be over-the-top with photos and information that help you fully enjoy France. I trust you find them fun, if not informative.

Wednesdays, like today, are normally devoted to a particular message—an idea or a product or a service of which we want to inform you. In the case of today, can you guess what our message is?

Subscribing to our Nouvellettres®, of course!

Adrian Leeds Group logo for French Property InsiderAnd on Thursdays, “French Property Insider” is devoted to providing information specifically about property in France. Its mailing list is a bit smaller than the others since not everyone cares about property in France…but if you do want to learn more about property in France and aren’t receiving it, then be sure to subscribe. It’s a world of important information if you are considering making a property purchase in France.

Obviously, by reading this, it’s clear you are already subscribed to the Monday and Wednesday mailings, but you can now subscribe to French Property Insider or you can encourage your friends to join our mailing list. All you need to do is click here or send the link to your friends.

It’s as easy as that. Then, read or don’t read them. Keep them or toss them. Unsubscribe if you like, but do let us know what you think!

We cherish you, our devoted readers, new and seasoned alike!

A la prochaine…

Adrian Leeds, writing from vacation on the River Nile, circa November 2009Adrian Leeds
The Adrian Leeds Group®

Adrian, writing from vacation on the River Nile, circa November 2009

P.S. You can always read past issues. We made a special effort to archive ALL of our past Nouvellettres® going back as far as the year 2000!

Alka Joshi, Adrian Leeds, Cara Black at May's Apres-MidiP.P.S. At yesterday’s Après-Midi, it was the first time we’ve ever had two speakers at the same time. They hadn’t met each other before, nor had I met Alka Joshi before this. The synergy between them turned into a very exciting and fun event—two very accomplished and illustrious authors, both women, both writing fiction and experiencing the same publishing world that makes it difficult to be a successful author. Be sure to read the report about Cara Black and Alka Joshi and watch the video.

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