Survey says, newsletters are the best way to sell books. A study released in 2014 revealed that email is 40 times (FORTY? FORTY!) better than all social media combined at acquiring customers. Today we’ve invited author Maya Rodale to share her advice for newsletter set-up. Maya will take it from here…
A good newsletter can be one of the most valuable marketing tools at an author’s disposal—it can directly sell more books than other social media outlets (ahem, Facebook and Twitter). This also gives you direct access to a reader’s inbox, where you are far more likely to get their attention than on social media. Here are some tips to creating a good list and great content.
Use a proper platform
Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and Vertical Response are all excellent and reputable services to help you manage your newsletter enterprise so you do things legally and prettily. Sending a regular ol’ email to all your contacts or whatever emails you pilfered from the web (even if you BCC them) is NOT okay. Please stop.
When should an author start building a newsletter list?
Yesterday. You don’t have to do anything right away with the information, but doesn’t hurt to have the email addresses of people interested in your work.
How often you should send a newsletter?
Some authors do this only when they have a book out, others whenever they have news, and some, like yours truly or Eloisa James, send one monthly. The correct answer is: whatever works for you and your subscribers. Another perk of using a proper newsletter platform: people have the option of discretely unsubscribing and politely telling you that you send way too many emails.
How to build a newsletter list
Include a sign up box on your website. Heck, on every page of your website! Post a link to your subscribe page on all your social media accounts and your email signature. Offer a free download to all subscribers. Run contests and give free stuff away in exchange for an email address. Have a sign up sheet at events.
How to build a good list
Not all subscribers are good ones—they might not open your offering (thus bringing down your open rate), they might mark your email spam (potentially sending your email to the spam folders of people who want it), and they might just end up costing you money. Make sure people opt in to your newsletter because they want your newsletter, not because they want something else and have to pony up their email address to get it (ahem, contests). Occasionally clean up your list, too, and clear out old emails and people that never read it.
What content should an author include?
Cat pictures! (JK. Sort of.) This is your chance to connect with readers and promote your books, so definitely share some personal tidbits and info about your newest release, like the cover and buy links. You can also go deeper and share behind the scenes stories or go wider and share cool things your readers might find interesting. Providing exclusive content incentivizes subscribing and reading.
Judge your performance with these metrics:
If you use a good e-newsletter service, this information will be easily accessible.
Open rate: The percentage of people who opened your newsletter. The industry average, according to Mailchimp, is 22-27%.
Click rate: The number of people who clicked on a link in your newsletter. The industry average, according to Mailchimp, is 2-5%.
Unsubscribe rate: Under 2% is considered the norm. Higher than that, and you should make some changes.
Further resources
If you really wanted to get into crafting killer subject lines, A/B testing, segmenting your list or reducing your unsubscribe rate, I recommend the guides available at Mailchimp.