What to Include in Your Author Newsletter
As an author, you have probably heard that you need an email list to market your books. You may have signed up for an email mailing list service and are ready to craft your first newsletter, except while staring at the blank page, you have no idea what to do. What should you write? What do readers want to hear about? In this post, we will help you brainstorm What to Include in Your Author Newsletter.
What People Do Not Want in Email Newsletters:
People don't want promotional "Buy my book, buy my book" emails. If every email that subscribers receive from an author is mostly just a big promotion for the author's latest book or other advertising tactics, people will unsubscribe. People hate emails that are just self-promotion.
You have to approach things from the reader's perspective of 'what's in it for them?'
A good rule of thumb is to keep each email newsletter about 90% fun and educational content, and only 10% promotional content.
You should focus on building and connecting with your community. This is a chance to give back to your readers. These people want to get to know you, the author. And yes, they like your books, but they do not want to be bombarded with promotions.
Ideas to Consider: What to Include in Your Author Newsletter
- Behind the Scenes:
Just like celebrities, people are curious about what goes on in the life of an author. What really goes on when creating a book? Your email newsletters can give readers a glimpse into your writing process. You can share photos of your writing office or describe how you plot. Do you have any charts or posters that you use to brainstorm your books?
What goes into the process of creating your novels? Are you going on any research trips to museums or different locations for a story? Is there a coffee shop, bakery, or house that gives inspiration for a place in your book that you can snap a pic of and share with your readers in your email newsletter? Have you purchased any books to research a setting, location, or time period in history? You can take pictures of printed articles, books, and anything that goes into the process of writing your story.
When Darlene was writing her Montana Hearts series, we went on a road trip to Montana and Wyoming and visited a horse ranch, a saddlery, a search and rescue fire station, and several different towns. We went to local museums, did some hikes, talked with the locals. We took lots of pictures that helped inspire scenes that took place in her book series. Before and after the books were published, we were able to share some of these pics from our research road trip in her email newsletters, and on social media and her website.
If you can't visit the setting for your books, you can research using Google maps, Pinterest, and other sites online. You can use free stock image sites to obtain photos that may pertain to the setting or topic of your book.
Examples Below:
- Personal Updates. People who take the time to subscribe to your email newsletter want to get to know you as an author. What bits of your life, outside of being an author, can you share with your audience? What sort of things do you enjoy that your reader might enjoy seeing you do?
Do you like to travel? Have you visited any National Parks or local parks lately? Have you gone to the beach, the forest, or to a cute town or city recently? What parts of your adventures can you share with your audience?
Do you have any pets? People love seeing beloved family pets or even wildlife. Do you have any deer, birds, or raccoons outside of your home? Do you garden? What other hobbies outside of writing do you enjoy? Do you hike, ski, or go snowshoeing? Do you crochet, knit, or bake? Do you play any musical instruments? Do you go to concerts or go out to eat? Do you go boating, ride a bicycle, or paint? Do you have kids? Are there any major life events going on with them? Like graduating school, college, engagements, weddings, or baby showers?
There are so many simple things that can be shared that can help authors connect with readers. Even talking about the joys of a sunset or sunrise. People love hearing what's going on in other people's lives. Ask yourself, what are some of the things from your life that you can share with your readers?
Examples Below:
- Upcoming or Past Events:
What exciting events do you have going on? Are you doing any book signings? Do you have any upcoming fairs or festivals that you will be attending with your books? Are you going to any writer conferences? Do you have photos of you and your writer friends at conferences? Have you recently met up with your agent or publisher and have pics to share?
You can talk about these events prior to going and invite local readers to come stop by your book signing, fair, or event you are attending with your books. You can use your email newsletter to get fans excited about your upcoming events. Or you can share fun photos from these events after they have occurred.
Examples Below:
- Exciting News:
Has your story won any contests? Or are you entering your books in any contests that you are excited about? Have you just received a big box of your books in print? People love seeing unboxing videos and an author's authentic excitement when seeing the print version of their book for the first time.
Have you just received a big box of bookmarks, pens, postcards, or banners that you are excited about? Are you going on any Podcasts, TV, Radio, or Blog tours? Have you just signed your first book contract or signed with an agent? You can take a pic of yourself signing your contract and talk about how excited you are about this new development in your writing career. Your email newsletter is a fantastic place for sharing your exciting news.
Examples Below:
- Request Your Reader's Opinions and Input:
You can use your email newsletter to get readers' insights and opinions. You can ask them which book cover they prefer if you are debating between two different cover designs. You can ask your subscribers what their opinions are on different book titles or what names for characters they prefer. You can ask them if they think you should expand your three-book trilogy into a longer book series. You can ask all sorts of questions from your audience and they will get to feel like they are a part of the process. This is a great way to help your readers feel more invested in you as an author and they will be more willing to support you when your book comes out.
- Giveaways and Freebies:
Giveaways are a great way to keep your email list subscribers excited. You can give away free signed copies of your books and other fun swag and merchandise. People love getting free stuff and you can feature pictures of past winners, with their permission of course.
Example Below:
- Book Recommendations:
Your subscribers like to know what other books you are reading. Do you have any book recommendations to share? You can share in your email newsletter a good book you have read recently or are currently reading and enjoying. Do you know other authors in your same genre that you can cross-promote with? You could share their new book release in your email newsletter and hopefully, they will do likewise when you have a new book release.
- Launch Team Invites:
Nowadays, there is so much work involved with a book launch. You need a team! A great way to create a launch team is to recruit people that are already fans of your novels. You can ask your email list subscribers if they will like to help with your next book release. If they reply yes, you can add them to a secret mailing list or Facebook, or Discord group just for your launch team. You can assign them special tasks and give them swag, free books, and other snazzy cool rewards for helping share promotional posts and reviewing books. Your email list is a great spot to find people that may want to join your book launch team.
- Bonus Content:
Do you have any fun bonus content you think your readers would enjoy? Do you have any deleted scenes from your story that you love as an author, but they had to be chopped from the book to make word count or they didn't add enough to the story? Fun bits of dialogue that no longer have a place in your book? Do you have any prequels or alternate endings to your stories that you think your fans would enjoy? Maybe fun exercises you did, where a chapter is written from another character's point of view? This is all great bonus content that would be great to share with your email mailing list. These fun excerpts, bonus scenes, and chapters are a fantastic way to reward your fans.
- New Book Release Announcements:
A big part of why subscribers sign up for an author's email newsletter in the first place is to be notified when the next book comes out. People want to know book release dates and what other stories you have in the works.
- Fun Facts:
Are there any cool tidbits of information that you learned while researching your stories that you think your readers might like to know? It could be historical facts, how certain things are made, or why specific items were important in this time period or setting.
Examples Below:
- Author Interviews and Articles:
Have you been featured on someone's blog recently? Have you had a recent interview? Any press releases? Your author newsletter is a great place to share these articles and interviews with your audience so they have the opportunity to read these fun Q&As and author interviews.
- Fun Content Related to Your Books:
When Darlene came out with The Cupcake Diaries series many of her email newsletters featured different cupcake recipes. The Montana Hearts series feature horses, so we shared fun horse pictures and information. Usually, pics of our two horses, Riki and J.R., who are also the main characters in our Horse Tales children's book series.
Does your story take place by a beach? Maybe you can include pictures of sand dollars or flip-flops in your email newsletter and talk about them. Do your characters have interesting quirks or hobbies that can be used in your marketing? Is there a special necklace, rock, or item mentioned in your book that you can use as fun content? Does a certain character make the best tapioca pudding ever? Or does a character create or build model airplanes? What items are important to your characters? In the Movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Jack had his compass, his favorite pirate hat, sword, and pistol with one shot.
Think about the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling. There are thousands of fun pieces of content that fans can get excited about. There are quizzes to sort people into different houses, and different information on the mythology of different animals and creatures in the books. Think about all the candies like Chocolate Frogs with different collector cards with famous wizards, Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, Fizzing Whizzbees, Chocolate Wands, and Cauldron Cakes. While writing, think about what things in your book can be fun content for your email newsletters and marketing promo after your book is released.
- Merch:
Does your book have any funny sayings or quotes that would look good on a T-Shirt? If you have created any merch for your books you can share that information in your email newsletters.
Examples Below:
- Q&A:
Your email newsletter is a great spot to answer questions. You can ask your readers to submit questions and you can include answers in your next upcoming email newsletter.
- Memes:
Have you seen any fun memes that you are sure your target audience would also enjoy? You can share fun stuff to give your readers a laugh.
- Special Booksales or Promotions:
Is your book going to be free on kindle unlimited? Are you running a discounted sale on your books? Your email newsletter is a great place to announce these to your most loyal fans first.
- Thank Your Readers:
Your email newsletter is where you can directly tell your fans thank you for all of their support and let them know that they are appreciated.
I hope that our blog post, What to Include in Your Author Newsletter, gives you some new ideas to create content for your email newsletters. If you have any questions or comments, drop us a line in the comment box below. We look forward to hearing from you!
ConvertKit is our number one favorite email marketing platform.
If you are serious about growing an email newsletter for your writer platform and taking your writing career to the next level, ConvertKit is 100% the way to go! Convertkit makes it easy to create stunning landing pages, sign-up forms, set up automations, tag and segment your email list, and much more.
Originally ConvetKit only had paid options but they now have a free version if you have under 300 subscribers. Now that ConvertKit has a free version for newer authors, this company is even more awesome and we cannot recommend them enough.
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Samantha Panzera is an adventurous travel blogger, graphic designer, and multi-media business entrepreneur who uses the experience she’s gained over the years to teach aspiring writers the skills they need to build an author platform and take their careers to the next level.
