Email marketing for authors: Learn tips from 2 best-selling writers

Keep reading to learn how to create an effective author email marketing strategy. We cover getting your first subscribers, converting existing readers, boosting visibility with relationships, selling your back catalog and ensuring your next release is your biggest ever!

Here it is: our guide to email marketing strategy for authors from 2 USA Today best-selling authors.

The goal of email marketing for authors is building book sales. Several smaller targets can help you achieve this. 

Ivy Hunt gave us a rundown of the goals your email marketing strategy should be aiming towards. 

Build a loyal reader base

Email helps you build a loyal reader base by enabling you to communicate directly with your readers. 

The key is to go beyond sharing promotional content. Ivy recommends using email to “share updates, behind-the-scenes content and personal stories.” 

She highlighted that you can even “tailor communication based on different levels of reader engagement.” For example, you can greet new subscribers with a welcome email or reward long-time fans with freebies. 

Targeting content in this way lets you create personalized experiences that strengthen your audience’s connection with your world.

Own your audience

An email list is something you own. You’re freed from the impact of algorithms and are in charge of what reaches your audience. 

That isn’t the case with social media platforms and online retailers, where your connection can be severed by a retailer shutting down or a social media site blocking your account. 

Owning your audience also provides full visibility into email performance metrics. Ivy explained that tracking data like opens and clicks lets you “continually refine your content so it’s as engaging as possible.”

For example, if a subject line gets a high open rate, you know the topic interests your audience. Or if people click on a link to a specific book, you know that the title, theme and cover grab their attention. 

Build relationships with other authors

Your email list will make it easier to connect with other authors, which is a big opportunity to expand your reach. 

Cross-promotion is one way to boost sales with partnerships. Team up with other indie authors to promote each other’s work to your audiences. You’ll expand your reach and introduce readers to books they might love. 

Cross-promotion benefits you by opening up the opportunity for more sales. But it’s also good for your audience who get fresh content and are introduced to other books they may like. 

Sharing work from other authors also helps with the email content creation process. As Ivy says, “Since most authors only publish a few books a year, cross-promotion is a good way to maintain a consistent presence in your readers’ inboxes.”

Establish your author voice and brand

Ivy says that writing a newsletter is an opportunity to hone your “author voice” and create a brand personality that readers recognize.

A strong author brand sets the tone for how readers see you both on and off the page. It sets you apart from other authors and leads people to buy your books rather than a more generic competitor. 

Brand building doesn’t have to be a complex process. Readers often simply want to know more about you. 

Ivy recommends sharing “insights into the creative process, inspiration influences, or personal anecdotes to help readers feel more connected to your work.” 

We've got examples of how you can do this further down the article.

Growing your list is one of the biggest challenges facing authors. Fortunately, there are several effective strategies you can use. 

In this section, Danika Bloom introduces the tactics she’s used to build her thriving email list. The strategies cover new readers and people who have already interacted with your work.

1. Use a lead magnet to attract new readers

Lead magnets are freebies you offer potential readers in exchange for their contact information. They are an effective way to fill your list with people who have expressed an interest in your writing and are likely to buy.

Promote your lead magnets anywhere you meet potential readers, whether on your website, social media profiles or in-person readings.

Danika Bloom recommends starting to build your list early: “Even if you are pre-published, it is not too early to start growing your list. You can build a loyal list before your books even hit the shelves.”

Having an audience will impact the success of your first book launch. Building it before you launch will give you a “strong and engaged reader base when your book is ready to be released.”

You can use a short story, novella or a prequel as a lead magnet. If you don’t have an existing lead magnet—or the time to write one—use an excerpt from your book. Just make sure the free content is from the same genre as the book you want people to buy.

How to offer a lead magnet?

You’ll first need to create a landing page that people can use to sign up for the lead magnet and join your list. Keep the page simple by highlighting what the reader will receive. 

You can then automatically deliver the lead magnet when someone fills in the email signup form. Use a service like Book Funnel to host and deliver the book. 

With the MailerLite integration, you can automatically add people who sign up with Book Funnel to a group in MailerLite, and use this to trigger an email sequence that introduces yourself to your new subscribers. 

Here’s the sample nurture sequence that Danika recommends: 

1. Re-deliver the lead magnet link: Many people won’t click the Book Funnel link since the email doesn’t come from you, so resend the link to the freebie.

2. Set expectations and outline the types of emails people will receive: Let people know the value of staying subscribed and encourage them to engage.

3. Share your “big why:” Let people know why you write and share a personal story so people connect with you on a deeper level.

4. Share your social links: Let people connect with you on all the platforms you are active on.

5. Share a survey: Discover reader preferences so you can tailor future content and offers. For example, ask about the person’s favorite genre. 

6. Share a free book: People love a freebie. If you have a book you can give away, sharing it will engage your new readers and bring them into your world.  

Of course, you don’t need to use this exact sequence. Customize it so it’s relevant to your books and your audience. 

2. Convert existing readers with a reader magnet

Reader magnets grow your list by converting people who bought your book from a third-party seller like Amazon into email subscribers. It helps you take advantage of the distribution opportunities offered by these platforms.

To set up a reader magnet, add a promotion to the end of your published books that people can access by joining your list. Danika says the reader magnet should be “any content that adds value to the experience of reading the specific story.”

The strategy is effective because people who read to the end of your books are hot prospects sure to be interested in your other projects. Once they're on your list, you can promote your back catalog or future books to them. 

You can easily create a landing page in MailerLite. Danika recommends keeping the page simple: “Just add a picture of the book cover and a brief one-sentence description of what the reader will get.”

Next, create a success landing page with a message people see after they fill in the landing page form. 

Authors often ignore the success landing page. But Danika recommends that you “take the opportunity to reinforce your brand.” She suggests that you add your tagline, image, and character images to create a “more professional experience for readers.”

Finally, write a nurture sequence with 3 to 6 emails designed to engage your readers further. Here’s the automation Danika recommends:

1. Deliver the reader magnet. 

2. Talk about the inspiration for the story.

3. Introduce your other books. This works well if you have a series with the same characters.

4. Offer a free book from your back catalog or another author. This shows the new subscribers that they will receive value from your emails. 

You can trigger this automation when someone fills in the reader magnet landing page form. Feel free to reuse content from your lead magnet automation if it makes sense.

3. List-building services

List-building services let you offer a book for free or as part of a giveaway contest. The service promotes the offer to their audience, who enter their email address to get the deal. You receive all the email addresses. 

These services can attract a lot of subscribers to your list in a short time. Danika says they typically cost between $50 and $200 and that reputable services include ProlificWorks, BookSweeps and AuthorsXP.

Be aware that they won’t all work for all types of authors. Danika recommends, “talking to other authors in your sub-genre to discover which services work for them.”

Subscribers from these giveaways aren’t as valuable as those that come from your lead magnet or reader magnet. But, an effective nurture sequence that targets contest entrants as soon as they join your list will boost their value. 

Track how the audience you build from one of these services engages with your automations and campaigns. If engagement is low, don’t use the service again. 

4. Other ways to build your list

There are plenty of other non-author-specific ways to build your list. Our article on building an email list has plenty of ideas you can use. Here are 2 that will work.

Collect subscribers at offline author events. 

If you speak at events, use the MailerLite forms app or even a pen and paper to collect the email addresses of people who want to learn more. You can even offer a relevant lead magnet to encourage more signups.

You can then upload these addresses to your MailerLite contacts. Consider creating a nurture sequence targeted at people who join your list via an event. A simple strategy would be to provide more information about the topic you spoke about. 

To stay on the right side of privacy regulations, ensure that people who give you their email addresses know that they will receive your email newsletter.

Use a refer-a-friend program

Offer a freebie in your newsletter that people can only access if they refer your email to their friends. 

You could keep it simple by offering a single freebie—such as a short story—that people can access. Or go deep and use a tiered structure that lets people unlock bigger gifts by referring more subscribers. 

Find out more about creating a newsletter referral program here. 

Once you’ve built your list and created your automations, it’s time to start sending your campaigns. 

Danika highlighted that authors often think subscribers will get annoyed if they contact them too often. However, she stresses that readers want to hear from you and says that even sending weekly emails “would not be too much.”  

This is backed up by our email cadence data, which shows accounts that send emails once a week still get an average open rate of around 40%. Considering the average author sends emails every 18.67 days, this is a big opportunity to get more eyes on your content.  

The hard part of more frequent contact is knowing what to send. Here are some ideas you can use. 

Share personal stories

Your newsletter is where you showcase your voice, so include real stories to let your personality shine through. 

In this newsletter, Ivy Hunt shared her "meet cute" story and her thoughts on meeting people. 

What’s more, she invited users to share their stories too. This builds engagement and helps people on your list feel valued. 

Ivy recommends responding to any email replies you receive to deepen the relationship further. “I try to respond to everybody and personalize each one,” she said. “The more you can engage with your readers, the better.”

Drive early sales

Your email list is a great way to get advanced sales of your upcoming books to build release momentum. 

Consider offering your readers a sneak peek of new releases. Share excerpts or new chapters to get them invested in the upcoming project. Use segmentation to discover the group that interacts the most with your emails and send them the details. 

In this example, Lyra Parish pastes the first chapter directly into the email while adding pre-order links so people can buy the book.

Announce a new release

Celebrate the launch of a new book and invite readers to celebrate with you. Share a personal message and include direct purchase links so it’s easy for people to buy. 

You can also include early reviews to add social proof and build excitement like Angel M. Shaw does in the email below. 

Boost post-launch interest

Don’t just send a single email when launching your book. Sending multiple messages will give the new release maximum exposure. 

Some authors worry they might annoy subscribers if they contact them too frequently. Danika says this is unlikely and that you shouldn’t “be afraid to send a lot of emails when you launch.”

She highlights that the below email was the fifth she’d sent in 7 days and it still had a 69% open rate and 8.45% click-through rate. 

Don’t just send the same email content repeatedly. Mix it up with different types of content. One email to consider is a review request, which you can use to collect reviews on your most important platform.

Danika says you can boost the chances of people responding by “highlighting how important reviews are to the success of your launch and asking people to leave a review.” 

Promote your backlist 

Even the most prolific writers have times when they aren’t promoting a new book. When not in a release cycle, promote your backlist to generate sales and keep subscribers engaged. 

One way to do this is with freebies and discounts. People love receiving deals—sharing them can boost interest in your older titles.

Freebies can also increase email engagement. As Ivy explains, “knowing that there’s always the chance of a great deal keeps people opening your emails.”

Try to be tactical with the discounts you offer. If you have an upcoming release, discount books from earlier in the series to build momentum and drive interest. That’s what Ivy did in the email below. 

Ivy also suggests tying your backlist to current events. For example, popular movies or TV series with a similar theme to your books. 

Share engaging content beyond your own

Generate fresh content by sharing work from other authors. While you may be wary about sharing content from other writers, your subscribers trust your recommendations and want to hear them. 

Sharing books from other authors can also help when you release your book. Authors you promoted may be willing to return the favor and include your content in their newsletter. 

You can also promote the books of multiple authors at once. Set this up with an organized exchange through a promotion service or contact other authors to set up a private deal. 

Below is an example newsletter from Sierra Simone promoting content from several authors. 

You want your newsletters to look good! MailerLite templates ensure your emails have a cohesive and professional design.

We have over 70 templates to choose from, including several designed especially for authors. Browse some of our favorites in the section below.

Sign up for MailerLite to start using them today. Templates are available on all paid plans as well as during your 30-day free trial of paid features. 

Once you choose a template, you can keep using it by duplicating your past newsletters even if your trial ends and you switch to a free plan.

Your subject line is one of the most important parts of your email. It’s the content that encourages people to open and read your email. 

Writing good subject lines is more of an art than a science, but there are things you can do to improve their impact. 

For example:

• Make the value of the email clear: Show people why they should open

• Front-load important content: Only 40 characters show on mobile

• Use dynamic personalization: Add the recipient’s name to the subject line

• Use AI for inspiration: Generate multiple subject lines in seconds with MailerLite’s tool

• Ask a question: This often increases engagement, just don’t do it in every send

• Keep track of what works: Think about subject lines, topics and offers 

• A/B test multiple subject lines: This shows more people your most effective subject line

• Use numbers: Our data found that subject lines with numbers get more opens

• Use emojis: Making your subject line more visible with an emoji can improve opens

What works for your audience will be different from what works for another. You need to keep experimenting to discover the tone and content type that your audience responds to. As you send more emails you’ll better understand what works. 

Find out more about these subject line best practices and more in our ultimate guide to subject lines. 

Many authors wonder which email marketing tool is best for them: MailerLite or Substack. Both Ivy and Danika use MailerLite and recommend that you do the same. Although that’s not to say that Substack isn’t useful, it just serves a different purpose.

Danika explained that MailerLite and Substack “are like cake and pie.” She says that Substack is “a blog that distributes content to people who subscribe,” while also highlighting that it’s “harder to nurture people as it doesn’t have automations.”

MailerLite

Since MailerLite is an email service provider it has tons of marketing features you can use to generate book sales. 

Danika gets value from the ability to create a lead magnet or reader magnet nurture sequence. As we discussed earlier in this guide, sending automated emails can turn people from interested parties into repeat buyers. 

Beyond automations, MailerLite has way more marketing-focused features that will help you grow your author business: 

• Create an author website

• Group and segment subscribers to send more relevant content

• Integrate with third-party book promotion services

• Easily create newsletters with a differentiated design using drag-and-drop tools

• Sell products directly from your MailerLite newsletter

• Access email templates 

MailerLite is also super affordable and has a free plan that lets you send up to 12,000 emails a month to 1,000 subscribers.

Substack

Substack is a blogging platform that sends your content to subscribers in an email. It’s primarily built for people who want to start a paid newsletter, rather than authors who want to promote their books. 

The benefits of Substack are that it’s easy to start writing and that posts are automatically hosted on a Substack domain. It also has some audience distribution features. For example, people can search for topics in the app and they may find your newsletter if you do. 

But, Substack is missing automations, landing pages, product blocks and other features that are helpful for selling more books. 

There are several author-specific tools that you can integrate with MailerLite to boost your book marketing. 

The integrations connect to MailerLite and sync subscribers with a group in your MailerLite subscriber list. Use this to trigger automated emails, send targeted campaigns, and track engagement. 

Here are some of our most popular author tools.

Prolific Works (formerly Instafreebie)

Prolific Works is a list-building service that allows authors and publishers to distribute free eBooks to their readers. It handles book delivery, support, and also has a recommendation engine that puts your book in front of new readers. 

The integration will automatically add people who download your eBook to a group in your MailerLite account. Check out our Prolific Works email marketing integration here. 

BookFunnel

BookFunnel is an online platform you can use to distribute reader magnets or ebooks. It also has tools to help with distribution, such as 1:1 author swaps, group promos, and a landing page creator.  

The MailerLite integration will automatically add any subscribers you generate with the platform to MailerLite so you can nurture them with automated sequences and campaigns. Check out our BookFunnel integration here. 

Book Cave 

Book Cave is a service that recommends free or heavily discounted books to people on its email list and social channels.

Authors can use the tool to host their free books and then point readers to a download page with a signup form. Any addresses you collect will automatically be added to MailerLite with the integration. Find out more about the Book Cave interaction here. 

StoryOrigin

StoryOrigin is a platform where authors can find reviewers, grow their mailing list through landing pages, and increase sales with newsletter swaps and group promotions. 

As with the other tools, connecting with MailerLite will automatically add subscribers to your MailerLite email list. Find out more about the StoryOrigin integration here.

You now have the template used by successful authors to promote their books with email marketing. 

Start putting your own strategy in place by:

1. Creating a lead magnet 

2. Adding reader magnets to your existing books

3. Setting up nurture sequences

4. Sending out frequent newsletters

5. Going deeper with author partnerships

Remember that even if you’re not yet published, it’s never too early to start building your list. A larger list means more sales when it’s time to publish, so now’s the time to start!