The All-Important (maybe all-knowing) Newsletter

There are many activities you need to be doing as an author and I’m not talking about only writing great books.  At Juxtabook we talk about having a great book, a great platform, and a great launch and evergreen marketing plan.  

Today we need to talk about an important pillar of your platform--the email newsletter.  Everything should funnel to your newsletter.  All of your social media followers should be invited to join the newsletter.  Your website should have an opt-in form for visitors to subscribe to.  

You may have concerns that email marketing is dead, or that having a newsletter takes too much time to maintain and you don’t know how to set it up, or you simply don’t want to pay for ut,.  Well, the short answer to your concerns: do it anyway. 

Email Marketing is NOT Dead

Email marketing has been around for a long time but it is not dead.  It still works.  It’s estimated that there are currently 306 billion email messages sent and received daily (Statista), which is up 293 billion per day in 2019.  There are a lot of stats you can sift through but the short story is that segmented lists have high open-engagement and click-through rates.  

The bottom line is that you have control over your email list.  You know who your subscribers are, who the most active are, and you engage one-on-one via email with your subscribers.    

Too much time to maintain

A newsletter is a commitment of time each week.  The payoff as an author is tremendous.  For example, the bestselling book Atomic Habits by James Clear continues to sell well because James Clear built a following and had a huge newsletter (close to 500,000 in 2018 when his book launched). Imagine the impact you can have as an author when you have over 500,000 subscribers.

I don’t want to pay for it (social is better)

It’s true that social media platforms are “free”, meaning they don’t cost money.  However, when you rely solely on one platform (social media), you are taking a big risk.  I’ve heard horror stories of author’s pages and accounts being hacked and they no longer control the messaging. Social Media platforms have ways to regain control, however, it may take up to two weeks before you can fully reel it back in.  Imagine the damage that could be done in those two weeks.  If you have a newsletter and your social media is hacked, you can quickly take control and rally your followers to stay with you and keep them engaged while you report that your social media has been hacked.  

Lack of Knowledge

It’s true.  Email is old but email marketing is a new skill.  There is a learning curve but there are many great services out there with training videos and platforms that take you step-by-step through the process of setting up your account and creating your first newsletter.  It may take a few weeks to get a handle on it but it is worth every hour you put into it. 

To sum up, if you don’t have a newsletter, seriously consider starting one.  It works. It takes time to build but there are so many advantages you have as an author.