Day 6 of 365 of blogging about my writing daily.
When I first started toying with the idea of actually writing and publishing books, all the authors I came across with a relative degree of success behind them strongly suggested creating a newsletter. Their primary rationale was that social media sites come and go, but email is fairly consistent, which makes sense. This was during the time of Twitter changing over to X and many people leaving, as well as congressional arguments against TikTok. For indie authors who use social media for marketing, it is imperative to have other options for remaining in contact with readers.
In January 2023, as soon as I decided to draft The Maenad as a full novel, I started a newsletter. I put out a post on my social media feeds starting in December asking for people to subscribe for my monthly newsletter. My January 1st edition went out to 6 people, two of them my children. I often forget to ask people to subscribe, and I rarely talk about the newsletter other than the day before it’s scheduled to release. Yet, I have gone from 6 subscribers to 64 subscribers that received the January 2024 edition.
As I said, I only send the newsletter out monthly, generally during the first week of the month unless something major is coming up that week. Then, I release it early, so my subscribers get a first peek at what I have happening. I also try to keep the format simple, so I can manage it. Early on, I was doing a little too much, and the task became daunting. It was important to focus on the goals I have for my newsletter.
- I want to keep in touch with readers who are interested in what is happening in my writing journey.
- I want to share things I’m excited about, especially art related to my books (cover/character)
- I want to talk about books I’m reading.
- I want to support other indie authors.
As such, here are the key components of my newsletter each month:
- I always have some kind of update or something important to share.
- I have updates for each of my works in progress that have had some significant change.
- I share books that I’ve read during the previous months. I will only share ones that I really enjoyed, and the majority will be from other indie authors.
- I highlight other indie authors. This might be me just giving a shout out to another author who helped me out with something that month. I will share their social media and their books. It might be a newsletter swap where we talk about each other in our newsletters. Or, it may be me shouting out the members of my writing groups who I sprint with regularly.
By keeping the same or similar components each month, I am better able to remain consistent. I am also able to adapt the newsletter to the updates I want to make.
So, if you are considering creating a monthly/weekly/or daily newsletter, I highly suggest you create a template to help you keep the format simple. I also suggest that you don’t bite off more than you can chew. I only send out a newsletter monthly because that’s all I can manage. Other authors only send one out when something big is happening (cover reveals and book releases, for example). Finally, don’t inundate your subscribers with frequent newsletters that provide little value for them. Be strategic.
I try to be conscientious of my readers, whether they follow me on social media, subscribe to my newsletter, or follow my blog. I try not to target the same people all the time. For example, though I am working to be consistent with my blog, I do not have the system email the few people who are following. Daily emails can turn subscribers off. I know it does for me, and I will sometimes unsubscribe when it gets to be too much.
As I close up, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask those of you who are still here to subscribe to my newsletter. I would also be remiss if I didn’t share that I archive each edition at the bottom of the subscription page. If you need ideas, or just want to see an example, feel free to check them out and see how thing have changed over the course of the year.