Sell Your Books With an Email Newsletter

When you visit bestselling author L.T. Ryan’s website, you’ll instantly see a clue to his success.

A small window pops up and invites you to submit your email so you never miss a new release.

Email list building is a growing practice among successful authors. Try this experiment. 

Google the author and title of the last 5 books you bought. If the authors are still professionally active, most of them will have a website linked to an email marketing platform.

These authors understand what you are about to learn: Conversion is high among email subscribers.

Imagine you just published a new book. You send an email campaign, and within 24 hours you sell hundreds, or even thousands, of copies.

Subscribers join your list because they want to hear from you and read your latest work. When you announce a new release, many of them will buy it immediately. Some of them will even promote your book to others. 

We’re going to share the best email marketing practices for authors. But first, let’s address the elephant in the room: 

Why not avoid email marketing and just promote your writing on social media?

What Does Email Marketing For Authors Look Like?

Email marketing is a way to communicate directly with your fans. 

You may share updates on your writing, your latest challenges, and random anecdotes from your day-to-day life. 

So how is this different from, say, X (Formerly Twitter) or Instagram?

When you post on social media, only about 2%-10% of your followers will see each post. If you have 1,000 followers, it’s possible that as few as 20 of them will see your post.

Compare that to email. According to Constant Contact, about 36% of your subscribers will read an email. Sending the same content from your social post to a list of 1,000 email subscribers should give you 360 views.

36% is the average email open rate across all industries. When it comes to email marketing for authors, the statistics look even better.

The 2024 State of Email Newsletters found that industries described as “fiction” or “writing” had open rates of 42% or higher. 

Why Does Email Marketing Matter For Book Promotion?

For most authors, writing a book is just the beginning. You have to sell and market it. Publishers want to work with authors who already have a platform for doing this. 

Without a platform, you may have to go on the road for talks and book signings. You’ll need to be available for interviews and podcasts. 

And every time you release a new book, you have to get up and do it all again.

But when you have an email list that you’re constantly building, you gain more leverage from each of these tasks. Ultimately, you may not have to do them nearly as often.

When you meet a happy fan at a book signing in Portland, you can invite her to join your email list. Now you’ll be able to contact her about your next book, even if you don’t make it back to Portland.

Over months and years, more readers will subscribe to your newsletter. The effects are cumulative. 

Instead of roaming from city to city, you travel less and write more. An email marketing platform lets you remain a writer first, and a marketer second.

One final benefit of email marketing for authors is you own your mailing list. If your favorite social media changes its algorithm or policies, you could disappear from the digital world.

But you can’t lose your email subscribers because of a technical glitch or new management. On the contrary, you can change email marketing platforms and your entire list will be with you on day one.

Let’s look at the steps you need to take to build this kind of freedom. 

Three Pillars to Start an Author Email Marketing Campaign

In a recent beehiiv podcast, E.J. White and Francis Zierer talked about how to write newsletters like a pro. 

Email marketing as an author comes down to three pillars. We won’t call these “steps,” because this is a non-linear process. You will circle back in future iterations, and you won’t always follow the same sequence. 

1. Build and grow your email list.

2. Deliver great material that makes people want to join and stay on your list.

3. Use technology to continuously improve your campaigns.

We’ll look at these pillars one at a time.

Building & Growing Your Email List

One of the first things you should do is build a sign-up page. Then share the link in social media and everywhere else you show up.

Make it easy to sign up. The sign-up page should be laser-focused and ridiculously simple. All you need is a single line asking for the signup and a field where users can enter their email. 

Enhance Your Sign Ups with a Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is an extra incentive to sign up. 

Set aside a file that readers can access through a link in your welcome email (we’ll get to that below). This is usually a PDF, but it could also be a video or audio file.

Since these are your fans, extra content is the best incentive. And it’s free.

Here are some incentives that are easy to share:

• An audio recording (or the transcript) of a recent interview or podcast. Bonus points if you revealed some juicy information.

• A sample chapter from an existing or upcoming book.

• A short checklist, cheat sheet, or other advice given in an easy-to-consume format.

Spread the Word

Tell everyone you interact with that you have a newsletter. 

Add a link to the sign-up page to your social profiles.

Post an announcement with a link to your sign-up page, and repeat the announcement periodically.

Be sure to give the link to your agent and publisher. They may be able to share it with potential new readers. Whenever you’re successful, they’re more successful too.

Mention your newsletter and the link whenever you appear in an interview or on a podcast.

Ideally, all publicity leads to your newsletter. Engaging directly with your readers through the newsletter will fuel your book sales and everything else you do.

By the way, the newsletter itself should promote the newsletter. Include a link at the bottom where readers can share your newsletter with others who may be interested.

You can enhance this effect by rewarding readers who refer to you in this way.

In fact, beehiiv has a built-in referral feature to keep track of these referrals automatically.

Creating Engaging Newsletter Content

The best way to promote your books is to build a stronger relationship with your readers. Keep them entertained and enlightened. They’ll respond well to the occasional plug for one of your books.

But if you only give sales pitches in your emails, most readers will ignore you or unsubscribe. 

So in order for your email campaigns to work, you have to deliver content that your readers want to see. 

Here are a few ideas for engaging content that will keep your readers loyal and enthusiastic. 

• A special, “behind the scenes” glimpse at your workspace and routine

• Commentary about the characters in your novel (or your subject matter if you’re a non-fiction author)

• Chapters, ideas, and other content that didn’t make it into the final edition of a book

• News related to your field or genre

• Updates on the progress of your next book

• Sneak peek at future books

• Calendars or announcements about when/where you’re making a public appearance

• Obscure writing that you’re proud of but which isn’t well-known

• Humorous stories and pictures about your early days

Use Technology and Testing to Continuously Improve

The best email marketing service for authors should free up your time so you get to act as an author. In practice, you want a platform that can accomplish at least these two tasks:

1. Automate as much of your email marketing campaign as possible 

2. Give reliable feedback on practices that aren’t working so you won’t waste time on them.

Using Automation To Enhance Campaigns

Automation usually involves a “trigger” event. When the trigger is pulled, the automation sends a pre-written email. You can also set it up to send you a notification.

The most common and useful automation involves a welcome email. This automation is triggered whenever a new reader is added to your newsletter. (The new addition is the trigger event). 

Here’s a tutorial on creating a welcome series in beehiiv. Most software for email marketing will work in a similar way.

Here are some other possible automated email campaigns for authors:

• When a reader clicks through your link to buy a book (trigger), they receive an email asking them to write an Amazon review

• When a reader RSVPs for an event (trigger), they get a special thank-you gift (something similar to a lead magnet)

• Send a thank-you and congratulations message when a reader opens their 100th email from you

Tracking & Analyzing Performance

The feedback you get from analytics will help you become better and more efficient at email marketing. 

All beehiiv plans come with analytics, and the premium plans come with proprietary 3-D Analytics.

These tools will allow you to view important metrics such as open rates, clickthroughs, and engagement. 

When you’re not seeing the numbers you want, analytics provide a clear indication of what’s going wrong.

For example, suppose you’re not getting high open rates. You may need to write better subject lines or change the time and day that you send your email. 

Or perhaps you have a good open rate but readers aren’t clicking, responding, or otherwise converting. In this case, you can tweak your writing and other features.

The most simple and effective way to test these and other changes is an A/B test.

A/B Testing

To conduct an A/B test, you simply divide your email list in half. You send one version to the first half (A) and a tweaked version to the second half of your list (B). 

Then, you use analytics to see which version gets closer to the result you want. 

A/B testing is a built-in feature of beehiiv and many other email marketing platforms for authors.

Best Practices For Maximizing Engagement

If you follow everything we’ve told you so far, you’ll have a strong newsletter to promote your work as an author. Here are some best practices to turn a good newsletter into a great one:

• Take the time to write compelling subject lines. If your readers don’t open your email, they can’t read it.

• Be consistent. Send your emails on a predictable schedule. Stick to the same day of the week. Avoid dramatic changes in frequency.

• Use segmentation to tailor your emails to different segments within your subscriber list. For example, if you write about tennis, you might send advice on techniques and training to your “athletes” segment. Meanwhile, your “spectator” segment gets content about interesting players and what to watch for in an upcoming match. 

Common Email Marketing Pitfalls To Avoid

A subscriber list isn’t just the most valuable asset you own. It’s also a privilege that you worked hard to earn. Avoid these common pitfalls to keep your newsletter healthy and effective:

• Don’t overthink your email marketing. Emails are different from books. They come out fast with limited time for editing. Just write, and over time you can incorporate the tools and techniques we’ve been sharing in this article. 

• Don’t spam your list. If you send a daily pitch for your latest book, you’re going to lose followers. 

• Don’t be a stranger. Whether you send an email daily, weekly, or monthly depends on factors such as your time, resources, audience, and overall strategy. But remember, only about 40% of your readers will open any given email. If they only get the chance to do so once a month, many of your readers will miss out. 

• Using the wrong platform. We’ll review a few of the best-known email marketing platforms in a moment. The purpose of any platform is to save you time. As a general rule, a platform that doesn’t have all the features you need isn’t worth the money you’ll spend. Likewise, you don’t want to pay a premium for features you don’t need.

Email Marketing Success Stories For Authors

Nick Kennedy already had a following for his newsletter, Zippy Turtle, when he changed the name to The Good Entrepreneur.

This rebrand matched his book, which has the same title. 

Nick successfully leveraged his newsletter to promote the book, but that was just the beginning. 

He expanded his teachings and today offers coaching, workshops, and talks on entrepreneurship.

This move has created multiple streams of income for Nick. It also enables him to pursue his mission: “To help high-growth leaders create a life that matters while blowing out the goals they want to accomplish.”

Email newsletters are an effective strategy for fiction authors as well. 

We already showed you that bestselling author L.T. Ryan uses his newsletter to pump future book sales. The world is also filled with successful, if lesser-known, authors who have adopted the newsletter strategy.

When Glenda Bailey-Mershon launched a newsletter, Weaver’s Knot, the emails helped promote her new novel, Eve’s Garden. 

The book was a success, but the newsletter had a more far-reaching purpose.

Weaver’s Knot is a mix of advice and encouragement for fellow writers, with an occasional plug for her new books. 

But when she started the newsletter, Glenda was already working on a collection of poems. She planned to release this collection (and eventually did) under the same title, Weaver’s Knot. 

In this way, the newsletter built name recognition for the book long before she published it.

Best Email Marketing Software for Authors

We recently posted an in-depth comparison of several email platforms. But to save you some time, here are a few of the most popular email marketing platforms for authors.

Mailchimp—For Writers Who Mean Business

Kindlepreneur recently rated Mailchimp the worst platform for authors, but not for the reasons you might think.

Mailchimp has been a popular email platform for many years. It gives you functionality without requiring a lot of technical knowledge. 

In particular, you can set up multiple, sophisticated automations. Detailed reports show you how well these automations are doing, so you can tweak and improve them. 

These are valuable features if you’re running an e-commerce business. Mailchimp is often popular with entrepreneurs who have a lot of different products to sell.

However, as Kindlepreneur points out, “Most indie authors need pretty simple stuff out of their mailing lists.” 

Mailchimp offers a rich arsenal of tools, bells, and whistles…which you’ll probably never use. But you’ll still have to pay for them. 

Mailchimp has a confusing price scheme for this high-tech clutter, making it an expensive option for superfluous features. 

MailerLite: The Low-Budget Option

If you’re just beginning your email marketing journey, Mailer Lite will give you all the critical features we’ve discussed.

And if you have less than 1,000 subscribers, you can access most of these features for free. 

For some authors, this email service is enough. However, you get what you pay for, as the saying goes. 

The free account only allows you to access a few templates, and you can only send 12,000 emails a month. (If you have 1,000 subscribers, you can only email them 12 times a month if you send a newsletter to your entire list.)

They also require that you fill out a detailed application to open your MailerLite account. This can be tedious and frustrating.

Our researcher had to log into two separate email platforms to verify both his main email and domain. There was also some back-and-forth with extra fields to fill out because his industry wasn’t on the dropdown list.

If you decide to go premium to unlock the extra features, the plans on their pricing page start with 500 subscribers or fewer. If you’ve already maxed out the free plan with 1,000 followers, you will end up paying more than the price you see on the page.

beehiiv: Designed for Writers and Other Creatives

What started as a side project by a pair of engineers from Morning Brew turned into one of the fastest-growing email newsletter platforms in the world. 

From day one, the beehiiv team wanted to build a platform that would help creatives. They dreamed up new ways to help writers gain exposure and build their lists.

They wanted to make it easy for authors to build without writing code. They wanted a pricing structure that wouldn’t penalize writers for growing a large following.

On beehiiv’s Free plan, you can have up to 2,500 subscribers. You get to participate in the Recommendation network to grow your audience.

The free plan includes access to the no-code editor, which lets you customize 100% of your newsletter. This gives you more flexibility than most platforms, where all you can do is copy/paste into a template unless you have some mad html skills.

One of the best beehiiv features for authors is the automated, custom website. You get a dedicated blog which you don’t even have to build. 

Every newsletter you send is automatically duplicated as an SEO blog post. Your site is filled with forms and prompts to get readers to subscribe whenever they read a blog post.

When you upgrade to a premium plan, you gain access to additional growth tools. You also get to join fellow creatives in the Hiiv community. The premium plan also opens three new ways to monetize your newsletter with a few clicks. 

beehiiv is one of the most robust and user-friendly email marketing platforms for authors. There are too many reasons to list here, but you’ll get a broader sense of what’s possible as an author when you start a beehiiv newsletter.