12 author newsletter examples to inspire your next campaign

We don’t have the answer to why, but we do have a solution: 12 examples of author email newsletters, 3 templates, and 18 further ideas that you can use to inspire your own email content. 

With these email examples in your idea bank, you’ll find it easier to write content that engages your audience, builds your author brand and results in a ton more book sales.

Here are the 12 author newsletter examples. They cover everything from announcing your first book to selling your back catalog. 

Many of the examples and ideas come from a webinar we held with best-selling authors Ivy Hunt and Danika Bloom. 

This session covered everything authors need to know about email marketing, from growing a list to making sales. We’ve embedded the webinar below so you can watch it. Or you can read the key points in our guide to author email marketing here.

It’s never too early to start building your audience with email, even if you’re a new author yet to publish a book. 

Building your list early means you’ll have an audience to promote your book to when it’s ready. It’s also a great opportunity to build your brand. 

Ivy Hunt recommends using your newsletter to hone a recognizable author voice. One way to do this is through sharing stories that let your personality shine through and appeal to your audience. 

Ivy included her “meet cute” story in her newsletter. Sharing thoughts on such an intimate topic no doubt brought her audience closer to her. Plus she asks people to respond with their own stories which further deepens the connection.

Just make sure to keep your stories relevant to your target audience. Ivy didn’t talk about her hobbies, family, or current events. She spoke about her love life, a topic that is likely to appeal to the subscribers of a romance author. 

Don’t wait until your book is ready to start selling. Let people know when it’s almost ready so they can buy it in advance. 

Promoting preorders is a great way to build momentum since advance sales are only counted on release day. When your book is finally available, all these orders could send your book racing up the charts. 

A good preorder email consists of 2 parts. First, include direct links to all the places where readers can buy your book. This makes it as easy as possible for them to do so. 

Second, include a ton of value to build excitement for the big release. In the example below, Lyra Parish does this by including the first chapter in the email for free. Buying the book is the only way to know what happens next.

When your book’s ready, announce it to your audience! Invite readers to celebrate the launch and share a personal message showcasing what the launch means to you. 

The email content gets straight to the point by letting readers know the release date and a short teaser about the book. And what would a teaser be without a proper call-to-action at the end? 

The below newsletter is a great example. It showcases the cover, introduces the book, and then encourages people to buy with a clear call-to-action that even includes the price. It’s simple yet effective.

Ask for reviews once your book is live and people have had time to read it. Positive reviews will help increase exposure on your chosen platform. Plus, you can share the reviews with your audience so people know how great your book is. 

Danika Bloom recommends increasing the chances of people reviewing your book by “highlighting how important reviews are to the success of your launch.” 

Your supporters are more likely to help when they know how impactful reviews are. The below email shows how Danika asks for reviews.

Once you’ve got reviews, it’s time to share them! A great way to promote your book is to let your newsletter subscribers know what others are saying about it. Plus, the readers who take the time to write a review will appreciate that you value their effort. 

A.D. Justice does this in her newsletter below. When she announced the release date of her new book, she showcased her best review in the promo.

People have different tastes in how they read books. Some read on a Kindle, some on a Kobo, while others prefer paper books. Make sure that your readers can easily choose their preferred reading format. 

Include links directly in your newsletter just like best-selling author K.A. Linde in the following example. She sent an email announcing that her brand-new book was available and included a link to every possible format.

Readers want to know more about authors beyond their new or upcoming releases. Adding relevant news to your emails can help you connect with readers on a deeper level. 

In the email below, author Helena Rookwood shares that she’s moved house and explains some interesting traditions surrounding a move.

If you're currently writing a book, sharing progress and bringing readers along in the journey can help build anticipation for its release. In this newsletter, author Dyan Chick shares important updates regarding her future books.

Dyan also encourages her readers to follow her progress and participate in the popular NaNoWriMo challenge, in which participants attempt to write a 50,000-word manuscript in the month of November. 

This article contains a lot of newsletter ideas you can use. Why not combine a few of them into a single monthly digest? This is especially useful if you don't have time to send a newsletter each week.

In the example below, Heather C. Leigh packs her monthly email with information on upcoming releases, future projects, radio appearances, personal news, and events where readers can meet her and other authors.

If you’re not in a release cycle, consider promoting books from your backlist. This can generate sales and keep subscribers interested in your brand all year round. 

Another way to use your backlist is to offer previous books in a series as a freebie before an upcoming launch. This helps get new readers invested in the characters so they’re more likely to hit buy when release day arrives.

If you’re an author who has published multiple books and is about to release a sequel, you can use the occasion to offer a box set of your previous books at a discounted price. 

This is what author Susan Kaye Quinn did when she announced her new book to her subscribers in the newsletter below.

Your subscribers trust your voice and love reading books. Make the most of this by sharing recommendations they may like. 

Consider setting up a mutually beneficial cross-promotion by contacting other writers and agreeing to promote each other's books to your respective audiences. This is a great way to increase the visibility of your books.

Here’s an example by Sierra Simone, which features 2 books and promotes 3 more at the bottom of the article. 

One of the hardest parts of sending a newsletter is making the design look great. Our professional templates can help. 

We’ve got several templates designed especially for authors, or you can choose one of our many other templates and customize it to your needs. See some of our favorites below. 

When using a template, be sure to customize it so it fits your brand. Use consistent colors, fonts, logos, headers, and footers every time you hit send so that people recognize the email is from you. 

MailerLite makes this super easy. Just customize your brand colors in the Email template section of the editor. Any new blocks you add to the email will use the same styles. You can then save the email as a template to easily reuse it each week.

Alternatively, you can simply duplicate a previously sent campaign to use it as the base of your next one.

Here are 18 more author newsletter ideas you can use to engage your audience. Some of the book marketing ideas are suitable to use for an entire newsletter. Others can be put together as smaller sections within a newsletter. 

1. Run an AMA: Tell your readers to send in questions and answer them the following week. Your fan base will love being brought into the conversation.

2. Write character spotlights: Provide background information about characters in your books. Do it before a release to build anticipation, or after to encourage people to buy.

3. Share author events: Highlight events you’re attending or running so your audience can participate. Or share content from previous events so people who didn’t make it can still get a taste of the action. 

4. Reveal your cover: Build anticipation for your next book with a dedicated cover reveal newsletter. Also, mention where people can preorder your book.

5. Automate a welcome email: Create an automated welcome email that goes out to new subscribers as soon as they join your list. Introduce yourself, explain what you share in your newsletter, and tell people where to buy your books.

6. Hold anniversary celebrations: Celebrate the anniversary of a book release by running a sale or offer to encourage people to buy. 

7. Run a book club: You’ve got an audience that loves to read! Recommend a book and share your thoughts and the thoughts of your readers. 

8. Share short stories: Repurpose content that doesn’t make it into your books into short stories you can share via email.

9. Highlight social content: Are you active on any other online channels? Highlight social media posts in your email. 

10. Run giveaways: Create a prize and offer it as a giveaway to people who enter a competition.

11. Link to content you’re featured in: If you’re featured on a website, podcast, or other form of media, share a link to the content in your newsletter.

12. Survey your readers: Bring your audience into the book-writing process by asking them what they want to read. 

13. Discuss current events: Discuss contemporary events that are related to your books. If you write sci-fi and a popular sci-fi movie has just been released, talk about it in your newsletter.

14. Run polls: Ask your audience to rate upcoming story ideas and use the winning idea in future books. 

15. Writing tips: Many readers are interested in writing—who better to learn from than an author they love? Share writing tips to help subscribers improve their own work. 

16. Create a referral program: Grow your email list by offering a freebie, discount or prize to anyone who successfully refers your newsletter to someone new. Here’s how to run a referral program. 

17. Recommend other content: Tell your readers what you’re watching, listening to, playing, or enjoying, and recommend they do the same. 

18. Share behind-the-scenes content: Talk about where you did your best work, the things that inspired you, or updates on your next project.  

Consider choosing a few ideas from the above list and run them as regular features. That way you won’t have to think of entirely new content each time you hit send.

When you're in the midst of a book release, thinking of newsletter content to send is relatively straightforward: just talk about your upcoming book! 

It’s the rest of the time when things get hard. But this is also the most important part of the process since it’s when you’ll nurture your audience for your next book. Hopefully, some of the ideas and examples in this article will help you be more consistent.  

What are some other ways that you use email to stay in touch with your readers? Do you know of any other newsletter examples that you’ve seen other authors use? Don’t hesitate to share them in the comments.