YOU’VE GOT MAIL

Mailing lists. Every author should have one. Why? Because once we have our readers’ email addresses, we control how and when we communicate directly with them. We’re not reliant upon a traditional publisher’s marketing strategy, or another company’s platform, like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Having a database of readers’ email addresses makes great business sense. Being able to contact readers who’ve bought our previous books to tell them that our next book comes out in two days’ time can be extremely powerful. Some authors manage this so successfully that they’re able to concentrate a lot of sales into a short time period, increasing their chances of getting on the bestseller lists.

But in the same way that we’re advised to avoid filling our social media channels with ‘buy my book!’ posts, newsletters shouldn’t just ask our readers to buy our latest offering. So what else should we be writing to them about, and how frequently should we be doing