Roundup emails: picking five recipes that belong together

The roundup is the workhorse issue: five to seven recipes, one reason. Most of the difference between a roundup that gets clicked and one that gets skimmed is in which five, and in what order.

Rule 1: one real thing in common

The thing has to be nameable in a word or two and true of every recipe in a way the reader would recognize. Cranberry. Soup. Slow cooker. Potluck. Thirty minutes.

The test for "real": would a reader looking at the recipe agree it is a cranberry recipe, or does it merely contain cranberries? A cranberry sauce, a cranberry orange bread and a cranberry pie are a roundup. A salad with a few dried cranberries in it is padding. If you have to squint, leave it out.

Broad categories are the trap. "Pasta" is a course, not a theme; fifteen pasta recipes do not belong together any more than fifteen dinners do. "Baked pasta for a cold night" is a theme.

Rule 2: lead with the one in season

The first recipe is the one the reader sees in the preview and the one most likely to be clicked. It should be the one that fits the month, has the best photo, and is most recognizably the theme. A cranberry roundup in October leads with the sauce or the bread, not the summer cranberry lemonade.

If the obvious lead went out recently, lead with the next one. The order after the lead matters less; vary the course or the method so the list does not read as five of the same thing.

Rule 3: do not repeat a star

Two recipes whose main ingredient is the same thing, beyond the theme, make the issue narrower than it looks. A cranberry roundup with three cranberry-orange recipes is an orange roundup wearing a hat. Pick the five that are most different from each other inside the theme: a sauce, a bread, a pie, a salad, a drink.

Rule 4: nothing from the last month

A recipe that went out three weeks ago is not fresh to the list, however well it fits. Keep a record of what was sent when. A month is the floor for the same recipe; the same theme wants longer, a season at least. The exception is a holiday: the Thanksgiving sides issue can repeat last year's sides, because last year's list has turned over and this year's reader is a different person.

When only four fit

Add one that belongs beside them, not inside the theme. A bread beside four jams. A green salad beside four grilled mains. Rice beside four curries. The reader does not count the theme; she reads the issue as a plan, and a plan has sides. Four jams and a scone is a better issue than four jams.

What not to do is widen the theme to find a fifth. "Cranberry" becomes "fall fruit" becomes "fall", and now the roundup has no reason.

Six or seven

Up to seven when the theme is rich and the recipes are genuinely different. Past seven the reader stops scrolling and the later recipes get no clicks. If you have twelve good cranberry recipes, that is two roundups, a season apart.

The mistakes that make a list

• Same photo angle five times. Vary the photos if you can; a roundup of five overhead shots of brown food reads as one recipe.
• The newest recipe first because it is newest. It leads if it fits the theme and the season; otherwise it waits for its own issue.
• Links to the post with no picture. Every recipe gets its photo. The photo is what gets clicked.
• A theme the reader would not search for. "Recipes with brown sugar" is true of half the blog and interesting to nobody. "Sticky buns and everything like them" is a roundup.

Check the card

Before the issue goes, open each recipe on the live post and look at the card. A title that changed, a photo that was replaced, a recipe that was merged into another one: all of these happen on a blog of a few hundred posts, and the roundup is where they show. Thirty seconds per recipe, five recipes, and the issue goes out clean.