To Newsletter or Not To Newsletter

For more than twenty years I’ve read and heard that authors should have mailing lists and send out newsletters — to let their readers know about updates, author events, book reviews, awards, what the next book will be, and so on. Newsletters, perhaps more than any other format, help create repeat readers: those who will buy your next book.

When the internet first made email newsletters possible, I, as an avid reader, used to subscribe to author newsletters, mainly by mystery writers. But I soon tired of them and unsubscribed, for two main reasons. First, I thought many of those early newsletters were very long. Way more news than I had the time to read. Second, many of them were heavy-handed with the “buy my book” approach. 

With the growth of the worldwide web, it became easier for authors to be less blatant about the buy-my-book aspect of their web site or newsletter. The web allows authors to provide a link to their books. Readers can click on the link or not. As a reader, I love this. I like to explore these links, read about the books, and then buy them, file them away for future reference, or ignore them.

Despite the fact that author newsletters have become shorter and less blatant, I never got around to writing one. Until now.

Now, I feel, is the time for me to explore whether or not a newsletter is something my readers want. Whether it is something that will help get the word out about my books. Whether it will strengthen the relationship between my readers and me — via reactions to, comments on, and requests.

The reason I feel that now is the time for me to start a newsletter is that my first YA novel, The F Words, will be published September 1, 2021. There’s a lot of marketing that writers do to help sell their books, and heaps and heaps of those marketing efforts take place months before the book is published. My thinking is that I have eight or nine months before the publication of The F Words: now’s the time for me to start talking about the book, to get people excited about it.

Unlike my blog, in which I cover various topics in mid-depth, so to speak, my newsletter will cover topics only in brief. A quick mention to inform or to pique interest, and no more. While my blogs average 800 to 1,000 words each, my newsletters will average 50-400 words. While it takes a lot of time for me to write each blog, it won’t take much time at all for me to zap off a newsy newsletter. And because the newsletter will be quick, it will, I hope, sound very upbeat.

If you’re interested in my newsletter, click on the link below. 

At the end of a year, I hope to revisit this topic and analyze the first year’s results.

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