🧙‍♂️🎃Why & How to Start a Newsletter if You're a Writer (Or Not a Writer)

It’s officially spooky season! I didn’t read this week because of the lack of vitamin D and work. I declare everyone should watch Nightmare Before Christmas.

Seriously though, I’m going to tell you why you should (probably) start a newsletter, give you awesome recommendations that you need to read because they’re all fantastic, and shout out one of the best stories I’ve read that’s releasing on Amazon.

WEEKLY RECS | TERRA MYTHICA RELEASE | BUT SAGA, NO ONE WANTS TO READ EMAILS |

Weekly Recommendations - Stupendous Stories, Hidden Gems

All of these are amazing!

Terra Mythica Release 🍾 

The real world is burning, but inside the virtual realm, you can conquer like a god. Follow Jace, Hades’ reluctant protégé, as he faces Mouth Olympus University, where gods play dirty, and he must battle through mythic trials and uncover secrets that blur the lines between life and death.

Fobywoby is a good friend, awesome writer, and all around mastermind. Can’t recommend Terra Mythica enough.

Get your pre-order copy here: LINK. It’s just $0.99 until release and one of the best stories I’ve read all year.

How & Why to Start a Newsletter if You're a Writer (Or Not a Writer)

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “A newsletter? Really dude? Why would I start a newsletter? No one would sign up and it’s dumb anyways”.

Well, here are some of my stats:

See that? My stats are pretty good, but not extraordinary in the space. 54% of all my emails get opened when they’re sent. 18% click the link. Regardless of what I post, who I interview, the time of day, when I send an email to 1,000 people, 540 of them read it, and about 180 of them click the shiny link. Mind you, I do multiple so these are spread across multiple stories. Can you imagine an ad that converts 18% of the time?

How much does this cost me? Little bit of time to write this. I still use the free version of Beehiiv (I wouldn’t recommend this platform for writers, use Kit(formerly ConvertKit).

If you’re an Author, or if you create anything, you should have your own email list. If you ever want to potentially sell something, you should have an email list. If you contribute to any community in a meaningful way, you should probably have a list. I’m going to give you just 3 main reasons why you and your books (or your business, drawings, your niche interests, the poems you write about plants) should start a Newsletter. Then I’ll point you in the direction on how to do that.

1. Ownership of Your Audience

Royal Road is great, Reddit is great, so is Patreon, and Webtoon, and even Scribblehub. These platforms provide writers with an audience. Post good stuff, you get readers. But you don’t own your readers. The platform does. If the platform dissapears, or becomes less popular, or a reader never comes back to Royal Road, say bye bye to growing follower lists. Got banned? See ya!

When you have a newsletter, someone is giving you their immediate line of communication. They’re literally asking you to send them emails. Every new subscriber is like a friend saying “Hey, I really like your stuff, and I want to make sure I know what’s going on with you, even if I never come back to Royal Road or this weird small platform that I used for 3 weeks and then got bored of.”

It’s a marketing person’s dream. People leave discord, or cancel Patreon, or never come back to Royal Road. But you get that email? People don’t change their email that much, if practically ever. I still have my email that I made when I was 12 for a Runescape account.

Author newsletters are criminally underrated. This also applies to all Creators, but we’re about books here, folks. You create something great, and if you have a newsletter, these are people who want your stuff, want to hear from you, and are more likely to buy your stuff. Emails aren’t cheap and audiences know that. When they give you theirs, they’re extending trust towards you. Don’t squander that.

2. Numbers don’t lie.

Here’s some very fun stats about email and email marketing in general:

• Half of marketers say that email marketing is their most impactful channel (18% click through rate on links! Were they affiliate links? No. Should that have been? Yes 😿.)

• The average open rate is 36%. Author Aleese Hughes has an 8000 member list. Know what that means? Means she’s driving click to her books. 💰

• 87% of brands say that email marketing is very critical to business success. According to Litmus. They look serious.

• 88% of people check their emails every day. Do you really think 88% of people on Royal Road go there every day?

• You can just do it free. Most of these platforms have a free version. Free account, free SEO, free sending emails until about 2500 subscribers. Free! I love free. They also pretty much all operate as a blog as well. If you go to my landing page, every interview is a little blog. That’s free realestate, baby 😎.

• I have eaten exactly 50% of the oreos in the box while writing this.

3. Je ne sais quoi | That little something, something

Newsletters when written from a person, or professional brand, or personal professional brand (bleh!) let’s you add that little extra something.

If you’re an Author, you could have your readers hear you. We have friends, and colleagues, and inlaws, and neighbours. A newsletter is just a way to share a part of yourself with a wider audience. It let’s people realize that they might have something in common with you. Yes, obviously you can use it to sell more books. But you can also connect with more people and maybe make them smile.

They’re also great for processing your thoughts. Yes they can be casual, or business oriented, overdone and salesy. But they sure do feel more formal than sending a message. A bunch of adults are reading this, let’s make sure we’re writing well.

Ok, I get it. I’ll start one. Where? How often do I send a Newsletter?

Wow, great questions.

There’s two big platforms right now that are great for Authors.

1. ConvertKit (Kit): The one I’m recommending for Authors. It’s got a free tier, some nice automation (send email on sign up), unlimited landing pages, unlimited opt-in forms for testing, audience segmentation, and you can even sell directly within their platform. They do have the ability to even have a paid newsletter, and I’m waiting for the day for an Author to test their luck with that.

2. Beehiiv: This is good too and is what I use. You get a website, custom newsletter with branding, up to 3 publications incase you use different pen names.

How often should you send your Newsletter? As often as you damn well please. You know your audience best, and when you get them to sign up to your newsletter, they can just unsubscribe when they want.

Real answer? When you want to share something with them. Thoughts, updates on how you’re doing, your new book release, when you want to do a poll. Learn by doing, folks.

Here’s how you can get your readers to sign up to your Newsletter, since you made it this far.

Hey awesome readers! Guess what? I’ve started a newsletter. For all the latest news, updates, and occasional chaos, click here: linkeroonipepperoonihere!

👆🏼I literally posted that to reddit and got 80 subscribers for the Newsletter you’re reading right now.

Feel free to reply to this email if you want to know more :)

BACK TO INTERVIEWS AND SNOOPING NEXT WEEK

🧙‍♂️Saga Scribe