Social media is great for discovery, but it’s rented space. Algorithms are unpredictable. There’s no controlling who sees your content. Your reach, even your account, can vanish overnight. Rules and regulations are constantly changing—just look at a couple years ago, when the United States implemented a full-on TikTok ban.
With social media, your audience can be ripped from right under your feet. An author newsletter is the only platform you truly own.
Social media rewards consistent, frequent, posts, and if you’re anything like me, that chips away at at least 8 hours/week of valuable writing time. Newsletters can be infrequent as long as they’re impactful.
I was in a meeting with the Director of Marketing and Brand Strategy at a Big 5 publisher the other day, and he told me that while social media certainly influences sales it does not drive sales directly.
You know what does? Author newsletters, because those people have fully opted in. They’re the ones waiting to hear about the next release, who will leave reviews and recommend your books and click that preorder link as soon as it’s available. Newsletters are not mindless scrolling, they are active participation from readers who can turn into lifelong fans.
Here are six ways to grow your list and build out your dream readership:
1. Reader Magnets
A reader magnet is a free piece of content given in exchange for an email address. This is a great way to introduce people to your writing style, your characters, and your backlist (if you have one). They’re short and bingeable, running between 5k to 20k words.
Here are some examples of reader magnets:
- Short stories
- Novellas
- Bonus chapters
- Deleted scenes
No matter what you decide, it should be edited, polished, and have a clear beginning, middle, and end—like anything you’d publish. Improper formatting, spelling errors, a bad cover, and an incomplete storyline can repel future readers. The goal here is to attract them and keep them wanting more!
2. Freebies
Freebies are also free pieces of content given in exchange for an email address, but I gave them their own category. Because, unlike a reader magnet, these are not focused on writing or storytelling at all. They’re a resource that either adds value, solves a problem, or is fun. These are big with entrepreneurs and creators and coaches but I actually think they can be adapted for authors.
Here are some freebie ideas specifically for writers:
- Worksheets (personal branding, character’s core wound)
- Guides (how to go from first draft to polished manuscript)
- Checklists (i.e. world-building or first scene)
- Bingo cards (yes—see my Twilight example here)
- Emotional thesaurus (i.e. what to use for the MMC instead of “he growled”)
There’s an opportunity to have fun with it and insert some humor while also showcasing your expertise.
3. Quizzes
Remember those Buzzfeed personality quizzes that were super popular in 2015? You could find out all sorts of things about yourself—what Marvel character you’d be, the cat breed you were most like—they were easy, fun, and all sorts of ridiculous.
Well, guess what? They’re also an amazing way to grow your author newsletter. In fact, I doubled my email list when I first launched my angel quiz.
The key to creating a personality quiz that people will actually take comes down to five things: simplicity, fun factor, speed, share-ability, and relevancy.
Here are some quiz ideas specifically for authors:
- If you’re writing a fantasy novel, you could do: Which magical creature are you?
- If you wrote a book about witches, you could try: Discover your animal familiar.
- If you have a massive backlist, you could do something simple like: What [insert genre] book should you start with?
I’m not going to lie, a quiz is a big investment, but it can have one of the biggest payoffs. There’s a bit of a learning curve, monthly fees for upkeep aren’t cheap, and building out all the copy and results pages can be extremely time consuming. But… you can get as creative and detailed as you want, a quiz is an engaging way to get in front of new readers, and there are many platforms to choose from at various price points.
Here are three platforms worth looking at:
Interact: Interact is consistently ranked #1 in the industry (this is actually the one I use!). The interface is pretty user friendly, you can your incorporate branding to form a seamless experience, the quiz is embeddable and super responsive (no lag), and there are tons of third party integrations available. There’s a 14-day free trial. After that, the base plan starts at $39/month.
Typeform: Typeform is another popular quiz builder. I’ve filled out many intake forms and surveys on here, though I’ve personally never created a personality quiz on it, but I do know it’s possible. Visually, this is a very streamlined platform with custom branding, automations, and integrations. This is a good route if you have other aspects of your business you want to use it for. Their free version offers minimal capabilities but it’s a good way to test out the interface. Base plans start at $28/month.
Opinion Stage: This platform is new to me but one I see recommended a lot. It’s got an aesthetic that kind of blends what Interact and Typeform have going on. Their quizzes are optimized for mobile (which is how most view content nowadays). They have some good templates to choose from. Their free plan will get you in the system so you can play around with it. The Pro Plan comes in at $25/month and gets you unlimited quizzes with up to 1,000 responses every period.
At the end of the day, they’ll all deliver a solid personality quiz. The choice comes down to your budget, what interface feels most intuitive, and what kind features are most important to you.
4. List Builders
If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to gain new subscribers, a list builder is a solid option, but it does come with a risk.
First, let me touch on what a list builder is: a paid marketing service that connects authors with new readers by offering a chance to win a genre-specific prize in exchange for email addresses.
Depending on the service, authors pay anywhere from $10, $25, up to $65 to participate. These costs contribute to administrative fees, as well as the prizes. The contest will run for a set amount of time (1-2 months) and is promoted via email, social media, and Facebook ads, with you, and the other participating authors, listed as the sponsors.
When the contest concludes, you get a nice chunk of email addresses from people who opted in to hear from you.
Sounds legit, right? Here’s the catch: not everyone who enters these contests has any interest in your books—some are only in it for the shiny prize. When you send that initial welcome email, these are the people that will hit unsubscribe. Or worse: spam.
My advice is to go with a reputable service and do no more than one per quarter. A legit list builder will do everything they can to target people actually interested in your genre, offer prizes that are relevant, and will scrub the final list for bad email addresses or anything/anyone that looks fishy.
I’ve used Fiction-Atlas Press many times and have had nothing but great experiences. They’re affordable and they put a big focus on finding the right readers.
5. Newsletter Swaps
Another great tactic that will grow your list while also building community. A newsletter swap is simply you and another author (ideally in your genre) featuring each other’s work in an upcoming newsletter.
To do this, you only need three things:
- A high-res cover photo
- A blurb
- A CTA (aka link to purchase)
I have found this to be the most effective when I work 1:1: with another author or their publicity/admin team directly. It feels a lot more organic and, to me, adds a layer of trust because I’m recommending a book by someone I know. Don’t be afraid to reach out and create those connections!
6. Giveaways
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Giveaways are a f*cking beast. They give me anxiety just thinking about them, but I’m going to white-knuckle through it and outline how to host one anyway, and show why they can be worth it.
First off, there are a couple different ways to conduct giveaways. I’m going to list them from lowest effort –> highest effort.
- Instagram: This won’t build your newsletter list, but it’ll help grow your community. To enter, folks simply need to follow you and comment on your giveaway post. Once the giveaway closes, you run the post’s URL through a platform like Simpliers to get a randomized winner.
- Newsletter: I have yet to find a more efficient way to run these, but currently, I’ll post the contest details in an email and have anyone interested in entering respond back with a code word. Once the giveaway closes, I pick a winner at random. Sometimes I get a few dozen entries, sometimes I get hundreds. I always make a point to respond to everyone, which can be super tedious, but it’s important to me that everyone at least knows their entry was received. This kind of giveaway won’t grow your newsletter list, but it does help your current subscribers feel special.
- Viral Giveaways: These are platforms specifically designed to host large-scale giveaways. Setting up the contest itself is pretty intuitive: you basically fill out an online form with all the details. The hardest part is integrating it with your email service, building out the page you’ll host it on, and then promoting it to the masses so you actually get some entries.
Let’s explore the viral giveaway option. At the recommendation of a couple friends, I used KingSumo to host a Twilight-themed giveaway and grew my email list by almost 1,000 new subscribers. What made it so effective was:
- I took the time to really build out an experience
- The marketing power I put behind it
I paid the one-time upgrade fee of $49 to give me access to unlimited giveaways, tools that encourage participants to share on their socials for bonus entries, embeddable widgets, integrations, and branding customization. Then, I created a custom landing page for the giveaway itself, with a Twilight clip playing in the background. Finally, I crafted compelling, hooky copy that made people not want to miss out.
In addition to sharing the contest on my socials and in my newsletter, I also created two paid ad campaigns. One on Pinterest and one on Facebook.
Was it worth it? Yes. Was it exhausting? Yes. Will I ever run one again? I don’t know. I need to be in the right headspace to manage the barrage of messages asking me “so did I win?”
This author newsletter post is already pretty long, so how about this: I’ll write another blog covering exactly how I ran my KingSumo giveaway and give you some tips and tricks on how you can create one successfully. Stay tuned!
I hope you enjoyed this blog post about author newsletters! If you’re looking to refresh your author website, read this blog post first for tips!
