JD Kirk’s Thoughts on Author Newsletters
When I first started self-publishing back in 2016, there was a lot of conflicting advice going around. That’s still the case, and perhaps even more so nowadays, where everyone is an expert on everything.
One thing everyone could agree on back then, though, was that one of the best ways to build a successful self-publishing career was by investing time in growing your author newsletter mailing list.
That was eight years ago, though. Since then, we’ve seen the rise of platforms like Substack and Beehiiv, and an exponential growth in email marketing to the point that subscribers can often feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of newsletters they receive each day.
I see talk in various author groups about how open rates are falling, click rates are down, and general engagement is dropping like a stone.
And it’s no wonder. When you subscribe to a mailing list on Substack, it subscribes you to seven others, too, unless you explicitly opt out. Beehiiv adds you to fewer than that – five, at the last count – but the effect is the same: more newsletters competing for the attention of the same subscribers.
And the result? Reader overwhelm.
Are Author Newsletters Dead?
You’d be forgiven then, for thinking that an author newsletter is no longer a good idea in 2024, let alone a necessity. That, however, couldn’t be further from the truth. An author mailing list is as vital now as it’s ever been, perhaps even more so.
It’s that ‘good’ part that makes all the difference.
Building a good author newsletter is critical for self-published authors aiming to foster a meaningful connection with their readers. By building, growing, and using it correctly, it can turn casual readers into devoted fans, laying the foundation for a thriving author career.
Unlike the ever-changing algorithms of social media, newsletters ensure your message reaches your audience.
By regularly engaging with your subscribers through well-crafted updates and personal stories, you nurture your reader base until they’re not a bunch of folks who read your books, they’re people who look forward to hearing from you, and actively root for your success.
My Experience with Author Newsletters
My newsletter is one of my most precious commodities. Over the past five years, I’ve very slowly and deliberately built the JD Kirk VIP Club from zero subscribers to over 30,000.
With an average open rate of almost 80%, it forms the cornerstone of my marketing efforts, has allowed me to get to know readers from all over the world, and has propelled several of my books to #1 in the Kindle Chart.
It has been a key part in my success, and in a moment, I’ll explain why I think that my open and click rates have held steady while others have seen them dropping.
But first, if you’re new to all this…
What is an Author Newsletter, Anyway?
An author newsletter is an email mailing list that readers sign up to, and which the author uses on a regular basis to communicate directly with subscribers. Those are the bare facts of it, at least.
At it’s heart, though, an author newsletter goes beyond mere updates; it’s an intimate two-way conversation between authors and their readers.
It offers a unique platform where authors can – among other things – share parts of their personal life, behind-the-scenes peeks into their writing process, and early access to new works.
This direct engagement creates a special bond, making readers feel like insiders in the author’s world. And why? Because that’s exactly what they are.
Build those relationships via email isn’t an easy task, but you’re in luck, because a good newsletter harnesses the author’s superpower – storytelling – to full advantage.
Key Components of an Author Newsletter
Let’s break down what you need to run a good author newsletter. By which I mean a newsletter that readers don’t just read, but look forward to reading.
In this era of cluttered inboxes, where people might be receiving four, five, six or more emails a day from various mailing lists, you need to make sure your newsletter is the one they’ll skip over all the others for.
So, how do you go about that? To run a successful author newsletter, you only really need four things:
- Mailing list software – Mailerlite, Mailchimp, Get Response, etc
- Landing page(s) – Where subscribers can sign-up
- Subscribers
- Content to send them
If anything on that list doesn’t make sense, you can find out all you need to know about starting your own newsletter in my Bookstrapping course.
With just those four things, you’ve got all the basic ingredients for an author newsletter.
Which is all very well and good, but how do you get subscribers to actually read the emails you send them?
The Secret Key to Great Email Open Rates
Ready to discover what I believe is the secrets to great open rates, click rates, and general engagement on every newsletter you send to your mailing list? Brace yourself, then, because he it comes…now.
It’s not you, it’s them.
OK, it’s you, too. But it’s at least fifty percent them.
What the hell am I talking about? Stick with me, while I explain.
Over the years, I’ve had a number of different types of subscribers on my author newsletter mailing list (which I call my VIP Club). Their addresses were collected in various different ways from a variety of sources. They included:
Freebie Hunters
They joined the list after I’d run a Facebook ad or some other promo, giving away a free ebook, or some other shiny trinket designed to attract their attention. Many of them had never heard of me before that point. Very few of them, after getting their free book, opened another email from me again.
Nowadays, I don’t go looking for subscribers like these.
Competition Entrants
For a while, I would run competitions and giveaways, sometimes partnering up with other authors to improve marketing reach, and part of the deal for entering was that I and any other authors involved got your email address. Much like with the Freebie Hunters, engagement from these subscribers was usually very low, to the point of being non-existent.
What made it even worse was that, if I was doing a group promo with five or six other authors, we all added the same people to our lists at the same time, so those poor souls were then bombarded by emails, and so, quite understandably, immediately unsubscribed.
Again, I no longer try to get subscribers in this way.
Cross Promo Subscribers
At some point, I joined the trend for cross promoting newsletters with other authors in the same genre. I’d share the link to their sign-up page to my subscribers, and they’d do the same to theirs. It was a sort of informal introduction, and while the quality of subscribers was generally much higher than either of the categories above, it still wasn’t great.
And you were adding to that issue of newsletter overwhelm. All my subscribers who signed up to the other author’s email now had one more newsletter arriving in their inbox every month, adding to the risk of them either skipping over mine, or mass unsubscribing when it all became too much.
I don’t want these subscribers these days, either.
What Sort of Subscribers DO You Want?
There are, at present, only two ways that I attempt to get subscribers onto my author newsletter.
A) Via a simple sign-up form on my website.
B) With a link at the back of each Kindle book.
That’s it. That’s all I do.
And Option A very rarely brings in anyone.
The reason I take this approach is because the type of subscriber you have is far more important than the number of them on the list.
Think about it, would you rather have a million subscribers who never buy any of your books, or one who buys all of them? One of those costs you money, the other makes you it.
More than that, even, would you rather have one subscriber who buys everything you write, or one who buys everything you write AND tells all their friends about it AND shouts about their favourite parts on social media AND emails you to tell you that you’re a wonderful, magical, precious human being who must be protected at all costs?
Those are the subscribers you want on your author newsletter mailing list. Those are the ones who, regardless of how many other emails they’ve received that day, will open yours first, and probably squeal with joy while they’re doing it.
Give me a million disinterested subscribers and I’ll be bankrupt from the bill from the mailing list company within a year.
Give me a thousand die-hard fans like those above, and I’m set for life.
How Can I Get Subscribers Like These?
You’re probably not going to like the honest answer as to how you get subscribers like these.
Slowly.
There are no flashy tricks, no shortcuts, no scams. You don’t try and lure people in, or trick them into following you, or coerce them in any way. You let them come to you.
If you build it, they will come.
People are drawn to authenticity, so be authentic. Lay out exactly what they’ll get when they subcribe to your author newsletter. If you’ll be sending insights into your writing day and updates about your pets, tell them that.
If you’ll be sharing stock tips, or interesting heavy metal bands you’ve discovered, or photos of the area where you live, tell them that, too.
Some people won’t be interested in some of those things. And that’s fine. That’s what you want, in fact. You’re not trying to get everyone. You’re not even trying to get the majority of people. You’re trying to get people who are an exact fit for your newsletter. People who will read every word, very possibly more than once, then reply as if chatting to an old friend.
And the only way you find them is by being open and honest with what you’re offering. If they like it and want to get on board, great! You’ve just got a new subscriber. If they don’t, that’s also great! You’re not wasting your time (or money, if you’re paying for the number of subscribers on your list) on someone who probably isn’t going to be a lifelong supporter of your work.
Building a large list this way won’t happen overnight. It will happen bit by bit, piece by piece, over weeks, months, and years. But, in a world of Buy Now, Look Here, Download This Thing Immediately, slow and steady can be a breath of fresh air.
And, by doing the above, you’ll have a valuable, dependable asset that will help you to keep selling books throughout your entire self-publishing career.
Looking for more low cost ways to promote your books? Check out these book marketing tips for indie authors.
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