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How to Master Email Marketing for Books (A Beginner’s Guide)
A Practical Guide to What’s Actually Working for Authors in Email Marketing Today
Kawusara Salley
May 20, 2025
What do best-selling authors James Clear, Mel Robbins, Robert Greene, and Ryan Holiday have in common?
Take a pause…check the title of this article for a hint.
It’s an email list.
Every author needs an email list.
It doesn’t matter if you're aiming for traditional publishing, considering self-publishing, have some published books under your belt, or are still working toward completing your first book.
Wherever you are in your author journey, the smartest move you can make today is building an email list for marketing your published and upcoming books.
An email list lets you connect with loyal readers, increase book sales, and build a sustainable author career.
This article covers everything you need to know about email marketing for books—from how to build your list from scratch, what kinds of emails to send, and the best email marketing software that’ll suit your unique author needs.
Why Trust Me?
Kawusara Salley has three years of experience with email marketing, working on side projects and volunteering to help businesses with their email projects. She’s also a passionate technical writer who enjoys deep research and sharing her unique insights in plain, simple language.
Table of Contents
Why Email Marketing Is Essential for Authors
Not all audiences are created equal.
Having 1,000 social media followers or 1,000 website visitors isn’t the same as having 1,000 email subscribers.
When someone joins your email list, it shows that they love your online content, trust you, and want to hear more from you. As a result, they’re giving you permission to show up directly in their inbox—a space they don’t open to just anyone.
This direct connection comes with big advantages for you as an author, including:
Owning Your Email List
Unlike social media followers, your email list is yours.
You don’t have to worry about social media shutting down your account or algorithms limiting your reach for no reason.
As long as you have the email addresses of readers who want to hear from you, you can reach them anytime you want.
Also, regardless of which email marketing platform you use for collecting these emails, you’re not stuck with it. You can export your email list at any time into a file, back it up on your personal cloud storage, and import it into your new email platform of choice.
Communicating Directly and Building Stronger Relationships
Social media algorithms limit your reach.
For instance, Instagram initially shows your post to just 10% of your followers, and only boosts it if it performs well.
Email, on the other hand, delivers your message directly to every subscriber’s inbox. The book industry sees an average email open rate of 34%, which is much higher than the typical social media reach. With an engaged email list, you could even hit a higher open rate, of up to 70%.
Email also lets you share more in-depth content, from behind-the-scenes updates to personal stories that shaped your journey as an author. With fewer distractions than social media, readers are more likely to open and read your emails, strengthening the bond you have with them.
Readers who feel connected to you as an author are much more likely to stay engaged, buy more books, and support your work over time.
Making More Book Sales
When you launch a new book, your email subscribers are your warmest audience.
They already know you, trust you, and are excited to hear from you. That makes them far more likely to buy than someone stumbling across your website, social media page, or book ad for the first time.
This could make a big difference in making your book launches a success and also serve as a promotion channel for making sustainable income from your books over time.
Here’s how to build your author email list from scratch for marketing your books:
The first step is to create an author website—your personal home online.
It’s where readers learn about you, your books, and what you’re working on. It’s also the perfect place to add signup forms so visitors can easily join your list.
If you don’t have the time and skills to build a full website yet, a landing page (aka one-page website) works too.
For example, author Brenna Bailey uses a one-page site that covers the basics: a freebie offer tied to her signup form, a list of her published and upcoming books, a short bio, a contact form, and a link to her Instagram page.
Whether you choose a full website or a landing page, the key is to use it as a channel for collecting email subscribers.
Create Your Email Signup Form and Freebie
Once your website or landing page is live, design and embed signup forms in key spots like your Home and About pages. You can also add a pop-up form that appears when visitors land on your page or after they’ve spent some time scrolling.
But don’t just drop a form and hope for the best. Tell people what they’ll get by signing up—whether it’s book updates, exclusive content, or special offers.
To get even more subscribers, offer a lead magnet (aka freebie). This could be a free short story, novella, or sneak peek of your next book.
Author A.N. Sage does this well by offering a free short story, Haunt and Seek, which ties perfectly into the fantasy and mystery novels she writes. She also clearly explains what readers can expect after joining her list, helping set the right expectations from the start.
Instead of a standalone story, you could also share the first one or two chapters of an upcoming book, or offer a prequel to a series. This way, if readers enjoy the freebie, they’re much more likely to buy your book or other books in the series.
This is the approach Sierra Simonne uses for her Lyonesse series.
She offers a free prequel download, which draws readers into her world and naturally leads them to purchase the rest of the series.
Drive Traffic to Your Freebie
People won’t know about your freebie unless you tell them about it. In other words, you have to actively promote your freebie.
Start by adding your website or landing page link (which has your freebie) to your social media bios (Instagram, X, etc.) and mentioning it often in your posts so readers can check it out and claim their freebie.
Another way to get even more eyes on your profile (and your freebie) is by engaging with other authors in your niche. Like their posts, share their content, and leave thoughtful comments.
This could earn you some followers, email subscribers, and even potential collaborations with the authors themselves.
You can also join online communities like Facebook Groups and Reddit forums where your ideal readers hang out.
Before you start posting, make sure to read and follow each community’s rules to avoid getting your posts deleted or getting banned entirely.
Show up consistently, participate in discussions, and focus on being helpful. When it’s appropriate, you can link to a helpful post you’ve written or share your freebie with the group.
Be sure to tailor your posts to each platform.
For example, in Facebook Groups, use an eye-catching graphic to grab attention and include the link to your freebie either in your post or in the comments.
Besides these channels, mention your newsletter wherever you appear—podcasts, guest blogs, or in-person events. Getting featured on other people’s platforms is a sure-fire way to boost your email list growth and expose your books to new audiences.
Finally, don’t miss the opportunity to promote your newsletter inside your books. Add a signup invitation at the end of every book you publish.
Offering an exclusive epilogue, bonus chapter, or sneak peek of your next book can be a strong incentive for readers to join your mailing list.
In his best-selling book, Atomic Habits, James Clear includes an appendix section titled What Should You Read Next? where he invites readers to subscribe to his newsletter.
If that wasn’t enough to get people to join, he offers two bonus chapters—one for applying his ideas to business and another for applying them to parenting.
It’s a brilliant move that provides extra value and makes readers excited to hand over their email address right away.
Proven Email Examples From Best-Selling Authors
As you grow your email list, it’s important not just to collect subscribers but to consistently show up in their inboxes. If you don’t, they’ll forget who you are.
But it’s not enough to just show up, you also need to offer value. You want your emails to be something your readers genuinely look forward to opening, reading, and engaging with.
To build strong relationships (and eventually sell more books), here are three key types of emails you should be sending:
Welcome Series
Your welcome email (or series) is the first experience a reader has with you after joining your list, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.
Inside your email platform, set it up to send automatically after someone subscribes.
You can keep it simple with just one email that:
Introduces who you are
Sets expectations for upcoming emails
Links to the promised freebie (in case it wasn’t delivered)
Mentions any books you’ve already published
Encourages readers to reply and have a conversation with you
Kate, the creator behind Picklebums (a brand that creates children's books and printables), does this really well in her welcome email.
If one email feels too long, break it into a series of 3–5 short emails delivered over a few days.
Besides your automated welcome sequence, you have to keep showing up through regular newsletter emails.
These emails help you stay connected with readers over the long term. They remind readers that you’re still here, still writing, and bringing them along on your journey.
Consistency is the key here.
Pick a sending rhythm you can stick to, whether that’s once a week or once a month. Also, these emails should focus on nurturing your relationship with readers, not just selling to them.
Here are a few email ideas that let you do exactly that:
Behind-the-scenes content: Share your writing process, character backstories, creative challenges, small milestones, and wins.
Exclusive reader extras: Offer special bonuses like printable quotes, bonus chapters, playlists, and deleted scenes from a book.
Educational content: Pass on writing or marketing tips you’ve learned along your author journey or link to a recent blog post or podcast interview.
Reader Q&A: Invite your audience to submit questions and answer them in your next newsletter email.
Book recommendations: Share books by other authors you love and think your readers would enjoy.
Book Promotion Sequence
When you’ve built trust through welcome emails and newsletters, promoting your books feels natural (and not overly salesy).
Your audience has gotten so much value from you that they’re excited to support your book every step of the way.
When promoting a new book, it’s okay to temporarily increase your email frequency to two or three times a week. Also, your goal with book promotion emails is to send them before, during, and after your book is launched.
These emails could cover details like:
Revealing your book title
Showing off the book cover
Sharing the book’s release date
Telling a brief story about the book’s origin
Offering sneak peeks like quotes and short excerpts from the book
Best-selling author Yung Pueblo, first mentioned his book How to Love Better in his Substack newsletter (along with pre-order links) on October 1, 2024, six months before its release on March 11, 2025.
To boost pre-orders, he offered incentives like limited signed copies of his book and a free bonus workbook to use alongside the main book.
Other incentive ideas include offering gift vouchers, running giveaways, or hosting virtual coffee dates to connect personally with readers.
On launch day, send a dedicated email celebrating the release with direct purchase links.
After launch, continue mentioning the book in your regular newsletters. Share positive reviews from early readers and encourage new buyers to leave reviews.
Proven Tips for Writing Engaging Emails for Your Readers
Writing emails that people actually want to open and read is a skill every author should master.
Here are some tips to help you write emails your readers will love:
Use Effective Subject Lines
Your subject line is the first thing readers see, and it often decides whether they open your email or ignore it.
Aim for subject lines that spark curiosity, offer a clear benefit, or create a sense of urgency (without giving spammy vibes). A good rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t open it yourself, rethink it.
If you struggle with writing subject lines, one of the best things you can do is subscribe to the newsletters of authors you admire and pay attention to how they craft their subject lines. This will give you plenty of inspiration for your own.
You can also use the split testing feature in your email platform to test different subject line ideas. This way, you can see which ones get better open rates and learn what resonates most with your audience.
Personalize Your Emails
Readers love feeling like you’re speaking directly to them. This is why personalization is super important.
A simple way to start is by using your subscriber’s first name in the subject line or email body. Most email platforms make this easy by offering personalization tags you can insert automatically.
Take it a step further by segmenting your list based on reader behavior and preferences—like the freebie they downloaded, whether they’ve purchased a book from you before, or if they clicked a link in a previous email—to send them even more targeted and personalized emails.
Keep Emails Short and Sweet
Get to the point quickly in your emails, like this email from Harleigh Manske, founder of Doppys.
How?
Focus on one main idea per email—whether it’s a behind-the-scenes story and the lesson it taught you, an update about your next book, or a special sales offer.
Write short paragraphs (1–2 sentences each) and use headers, bold text, bullet points, images, and GIFs to make your content easy to scan.
You should also end with a clear call to action (CTA), like reading a blog post, downloading a freebie, pre-ordering a book, or registering for an event.
Make it obvious with a hyperlink or button to increase clicks and conversions.
Every email you send should reflect your unique author brand.
The tone, stories, graphics, emojis, and even personal photos you use should feel natural and true to who you are.
Keeping a consistent look and feel across your emails also plays a big role in conveying your author brand.
Use a consistent layout or template, stick to a recognizable graphic style, and maintain a regular sending schedule to make your emails feel familiar.
Here’s an email I received from Mel Robbins.
Mel sends an email every Monday and Thursday, always using the reader’s first name in both the subject line and email body. Her emails also have a consistent structure and tone that feel uniquely hers, setting her apart in a crowded inbox.
When you stay true to your brand, readers feel like they’re building a relationship with the real you—and they’ll keep opening your emails again and again.
Time Emails Effectively
The timing of your emails has an impact on how well they perform.
While the “perfect” time could vary depending on your audience, general trends show that emails tend to get the highest engagement when they’re sent between 9 am to 12 pm on a Tuesday or Thursday.
However, you have to experiment.
Send emails on different days and times and see what gets the best response.
Over time, you’ll get a feel for when your readers are most likely to open and engage with your emails, which helps you time your important announcements and launches accordingly.
Monitor Key Metrics
Pay attention to what’s actually working in your emails.
Most email platforms will show you key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates of every email you send.
These numbers give you valuable insights into what your readers are responding to (or not).
If your open rates are low, it might be time to work on your subject lines. If click rates are down, your calls to action might need tweaking. If unsubscribes spike after a certain type of email, you might need to adjust your content strategy.
Treat your email list like a living, breathing relationship. Always listening, learning, and improving based on what your audience is telling you.
Why beehiiv Is Ideal for Book Marketing
There are many email marketing tools out there, but most of them are either too complex and clunky or come with heavily limited free plans (or limited free trials).
However, beehiiv is super easy to use and is completely free to get started. beehiiv’s free plan lets you grow your list to up to 2,500 subscribers and send unlimited emails.
This plan also gives you access to all the tools you’ll need for starters, including signup forms, a landing page builder, and newsletter publishing tools.
Also, unlike most email marketing platforms, beehiiv has built-in growth tools that support your subscriber growth.
For example, you can join the beehiiv creator network and cross-promote your email list with other authors. You’re also able to set up a referral system that rewards your subscribers for bringing new people to join your mailing list.
There’s more.
You get access to beehiiv’s earning tools.
This is super helpful for diversifying your income streams as an author. In addition to making money directly from book sales, beehiiv lets you turn your newsletter content into a revenue stream on its own via:
Ads: Partner with brands in beehiiv’s ad network and get paid for every click their ad gets in your emails.
Boosts: Get paid to refer subscribers from your email list to other authors and creators in the beehiiv network.
Premium subscriptions: Charge a subscription fee to readers who want to read exclusive content from you.
The best part about earning on beehiiv is that you get to keep all your earnings. You only need to pay a flat fee, starting at $49/month, to access the growth and monetization features.
Here’s how one Reddit user put it in this thread:
“So for me, I make almost all of the revenue from my newsletter via paid subscriptions [on beehiiv]. If I was using Substack, I'd be paying $12,000+ a year for their service. For Ghost, I'd pay a little over $3,000. For beehiiv, it's about $1,000 a year. Pretty compelling!”
Final Thoughts: Start Building Your Reader Community
Building an email list takes time and effort, but it’s one of the most valuable investments you can make in your writing career.
Don’t wait until your book is published to start. The earlier you begin growing your list, the easier it will be to connect with readers who are ready to buy from you and make more sales when your book finally launches.
So, go ahead and create your author website and freebie! Then choose an email marketing platform that lets you set up a signup form, deliver your freebie, and collect emails.
If you’re looking for a user-friendly email platform, beehiiv is a great option.
It has all the tools you need to implement email marketing for your books. Best of all, you can get started without paying a dime.
Email Marketing for Books: Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, email newsletters are worth it. It’s the best channel to stay connected with your readers long-term. Unlike social media posts that can easily get buried or missed, emails land directly in your readers' inboxes. This lets you build a stronger relationship with your readers and ultimately, make more book sales.
How Do I Promote a Book I Wrote?
Set up automated book promo emails that are sent to your readers at a regular cadence during pre-launch, launch day, and post-launch. Also, ensure you include pre-order and purchase links in each email and offer incentives like bonus content and giveaways to drive up sales and reviews.
What Is the Best Email Marketing Platform for Authors?
beehiiv is one of the best options for authors right now. It covers all the core features in popular email marketing tools (like signup forms, landing page builder, segmentation, and automation), in addition to extensive growth and earning features that make it easy to gain more readers and diversify your income streams.
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