Do You Need An Author Newsletter? Five Reasons The Answer Is Yes!

Here’s some chatter I’ve been hearing around author groups recently… “Why are newsletters being shoved down our throats? Why should authors have to have a newsletter?” "What do you even use an author newsletter for?" Good questions! Let’s talk about it…

When you’re in marketing, the value of emails seems obvious. But for many authors, coaches, and speakers it’s not nearly as clear why they should care about gathering an email list and sending out an author newsletter.

The objections I usually hear to why they don’t have an author newsletter:

• No one reads emails anyway

• I don’t want to be a bother to my audience

• I don’t know what to send so I don’t send anything

So first I’m going to give you five reasons why you as an authorpreneur must have an email list and send out regular content and then we’ll go over those objections.

Reason Number One: Build Relationships

When treated right, email affords you the opportunity to show up and give value to your readers. You have the chance to show them who you are and what matters to you, and to bring them along in your life, your journey, your goals, and your mission.

An author newsletter provides regular touchpoints so your audience remembers you and builds up investment in what you're doing. 

Reason Number Two: No Algorithm

Emails don't guess at who might want to read them and only send to those people. When you send out your author newsletter, it's going to your whole email list and then it's up to those individuals to decide if they want to read it or not.

On social media, an algorithm decides who sees what you share. 

I'm not one to complain about "the algorithm" as though it's a living creator with a hunger for revenge. It's just a computer program and it sorts by a very sophisticated set of rules. It's not a bad thing. 

But email goes to everyone who raised their hand and said they wanted to hear from you.

Your job is to write subject lines that inspire people to open them. 

Reason Number Three: It's Yours

Have you ever had someone tell you that you "own your list." It's something that gets said a lot but not often explained. What this really means is that if you are building your audience and your followers somewhere that you don't own (if you aren't paying for it, you are the product!), you can lose that access.

Facebook could put you in "FB jail." Your Instagram account could get hacked. Now you can't communicate with that audience you built.

When you have the email addresses those can't be taken away from you except by the individual who gave it. 

You may think, wait, couldn't my email platform also get hacked, or shut down, or kick me out? Yes, it could. And that is why you should also be backing up your list. Every email automation platform allows you to download a spreadsheet of your leads called a CSV file. At least once a month you should download and store your list. That way you can reupload it to a new system if you need to (also take note of what opt-in people used to get onto your list as the new system may ask you for that).

When you have email addresses, that audience is yours and no platform can take that away from you.

Reason Number Four: Don't Lose Potential Leads or Readers

When you don't provide people with a way to stay in touch with you, they are very likely to disappear out of your world. If someone comes to your website but they aren't actually ready to purchase something from you yet (as the vast majority of people won't be!), do they just bounce and you never see them again?

Not if you offer them something free for keeping in touch.

The idea of a free "opt-in" (also called freebie or lead magnet) on your website is to offer something of great value to your ideal client in exchange for the Internet currency of contact information. 

People who aren't a good fit to work with you won't be attracted to that offer, so they leave and we don't worry about it. The people who are a good fit will want your freebie and sign up for your author newsletter to get it. 

One of the main things that I do in my business is create that exact system (which is a sales funnel) using a chapter or other teaser part of your book to bring people onto your email list. 

Reason Number Five: Someone To Talk To

When you have a new book or promotion coming out, you know exactly who will be excited to hear about it. That's right, the people who asked to be on your list and hear about your new projects!

You've been sending lots of value so when you ask them to be part of your launch team or to leave a review on your new book, they'll be eager to help.

Okay, time for your objections!

No One Reads Emails Anyway

This is just demonstrably untrue. The numbers on email marketing are still strong. Maybe it isn't what it was 15 years ago, but email is still the best way to keep in touch with your audience.

A trap that a lot of people fall into is that they don't know what to send so they only email when there's a promotion. That leads to a lot of unsubscribes and hardly any opens because if you're that infrequent with your emails, people will forget who you are and how they know you. Harsh but true. 

Plus, obviously, no one wants to feel like you only get in touch with them when you want them to buy something. 

I Don't Want to Be A Bother To My Audience

This requires a mindset shift. You may feel tired of getting lots of emails and sure, none of us want an inbox clogged with junk. But email marketing still works better than anything else! 

And that's because when you focus on bringing value to your people instead of worrying over bothering them, they want to hear from you.

Think about yourself and whether there's maybe one or two people who send emails that you look forward to getting. I bet you can think of at least one! So how can you be that person for your audience? 

I Don't Know What To Send

As I said earlier, you don't want to be only emailing when you have a promotion. It's important to build up the relationship and focus on pouring value in. To keep your list warm, you must be sending out an author newsletter at least once a week.

Here are some ideas of what you could include:

• Blog post you wrote that week

• Summary of what's been happening on social

• Your thoughts on a recent news article in your field

• Sharing a person or resource that will help your audience (but doesn't compete with what you do)

• Jokes or memes you saw around your topic

• Behind the scenes of your work process

• Client success stories

And you can join my own email list if you'd like to see how I handle it! I've got a very unique game that I built into my emails where you can draw an inspiration card each Monday right from your inbox! 

Here's some more ideas:

And now the question of what email system (CRM) to use!

I know a lot of people use Mailchimp or start there. I did some research recently and discovered the Mailchimp is one of the worst choices for people starting out with email marketing. You can read more about why in this blog post: 8 Email Platforms Compared for 2023.

Spoiler: the winner was Mailerlite, and here's how to set it up for your very first reader magnet funnel: