Welcome to my first ever Tip of the Week! The goal here is to just provide tips and tricks and everything in between about helping authors. They will be super short posts, but hopefully help you out!
Today I want to talk a little bit about author newsletters. I know, I know, no one wants a billion emails in their inbox. I get it, because I am one of those people.
However……
Let me share some reasons why the best thing you can do for an author (and yourself!) is to sign up for an author’s newsletter.
1 – Newsletters are something an author spends more time on then you think – thinking of content, creating graphics, creating the outline, the look, etc… And they are doing all of this for you! Newsletter services can even cost money. I work for authors who do have free newsletters, and other authors who are paying a nice chunk of money every month to have the ability to send their followers a newsletter. From an author’s point of view – newsletters are an investment. An investment in you!
2 – Authors have more freedom in their newsletters. They can share whatever is on their heart, and not have to worry about “big brother” so to speak. Their newsletters don’t get deleted off of social media, or blocked, or have trolls commenting on them (well maybe they do get trolls emailing them back, but you know what I mean 😜). I have seen some authors lose their ability to post on social media. I even had a time where I lost control of my own profile, my blog profile, and the profile of all the authors I support. I cannot begin to describe how disruptive that was. It’s a million times worse for an author who relies on that social media presence to connect with their readers. But you know what? It didn’t disrupt their newsletters! It was the one place they could still reach out and talk until their account issue was resolved.
3 – You always hear about things first in a newsletter. And don’t we always want to be the first to know!? You see cover reveals early, you see sales early, and you hear about new releases early. Sometimes it’s a day before the news is on social media, sometimes it is a month, and sometimes it’s longer – because the author trusts that you will keep the information safe until it’s truly time to share with the world. I love seeing these things before other people. It’s kind of like you and the author have this little secret together. 😊
4 – The Giveaways!!! So many authors these days have giveaways for newsletter subscribers only. And that’s all I need to say about that. Ha!
5 – You can respond to most emails, which go directly to the author. And guys, the authors look at all these emails. Whether it’s one or one hundred. Authors love to hear from readers – a note of encouragement, how their book touched your life, etc… We only have so much space to share our hearts on social media, but an email response allows so much more freedom. You can even share things in an email to the author that maybe you don’t want the world to know about, and I can tell you that they will respect your privacy when that happens. Most authors will respond as well, which is always fun for this reader!
There are so many other good reasons to sign up for an author’s newsletter, but these are my top five. So if you really want to help an author out – sign up for their newsletter. Do it today. It’s really a win-win situation.
What makes you sign up for an author’s newsletter?
What an excellent post. I truly had no idea newsletters were this important. I’m definitely not going to hesitate from signing up for newsletters in the future.
Thank you!! To be honest, I’m scared with cancel culture and all the censoring there can be on social media that I don’t want to lose contact with all these amazing authors!!
Truth! It’s all so frustrating and needless. Stop worrying about the speck in someone else’s eye.. is what I want to say to all the controlling people.
Love this! 🙂
I love author newsletters – I actually prefer those to other types of social media.