Library, or straight into an issue

Put a link straight into a draft when you know which issue it belongs in. Save it to the library when you do not, or when you are reading further ahead than you are writing.

What saving to the library settles, and what it leaves open

A library item holds an address, a title and your note, and nothing else. No section, no position, no issue.

That is the appeal: you can save something on Tuesday without deciding whether it is a lead item or a footnote. It sits in your library inbox until you insert it, and inserting is where you choose the section it goes in. The cost is that the pile is yours to clear. Nothing takes an item out of the inbox except inserting it, and the count on the Library button includes the links you have quietly gone off.

What going straight into a draft settles

A link in a draft is in the running order from that moment. It has a section and a position, it shows up in previews and test sends, and it counts towards how finished the issue looks.

That is worth having earlier than most people think. An issue with four links in it attracts a fifth, whereas an issue that is empty because everything is in the library is a job you have to start. Nothing about the decision is final either: links drag between sections, and deleting one is a single click in the composer.

How the choice reaches you in the extension

The issue picker is the choice. Your draft and scheduled issues are at the top of it, newest first, and below a rule sit “New issue…” and “Save to library”.

Choosing Save to library hides the category picker, which is the same fact in a different form: a library item has no section, so there is nothing to file it under yet. Choosing an issue keeps the category picker, and it remembers the category you used last for that newsletter, so a run of links into the same section takes one click each. “New issue…” creates a draft named for the next issue number without opening the app, which is why an unwritten next issue is not a reason to fall back on the library.

The composer only puts links in the issue you are editing

Pasting an address into the composer always adds the link to the issue in front of you. There is no save-for-later option on the add link form.

So parking something is the extension’s job, or your readers’ when they use the submit page. If you are in the composer and the link belongs in a later issue, the other honest answer is to create that issue as a draft now and put the link in it.

Two habits that work

Both of these are about matching where links land to how you write.

If you publish weekly and keep a standing draft open, put everything straight into it and treat the draft as the pile. The library then stays almost empty, which makes the count on the button mean something when it is not zero, and reader submissions are the only things in there.

If you publish less often, or you collect all month and write in one sitting, park everything in the library and do the sorting in one pass when you sit down. Sections, running order and the shape of the issue are easier to see when the whole set is in front of you rather than accumulated in the order you happened to read things.

Your note comes with it either way

Whichever you pick, the sentence you wrote while the page was still in front of you is carried through.

The extension saves your note with the item, and inserting from the library copies the address, the title and the note into the issue. Nothing is rewritten or summarised on the way, which matters because that note, written while you still remembered why the link was good, is usually better than the one you would write a fortnight later from the headline alone.