Should You Have An Email List or Newsletter?

I've been thinking about this question for a while and keep coming up conflicted.

This is one of those things where all the advice I'm reading online says different things. Some say email lists and newsletters are the ultimate way of reaching an audience. Others say they are old news and only annoy people. I see a lot of good points for both sides, too.

When this happens--when I read conflicting marketing advice--I think about what works on me. And to be honest, I'm not personally a big fan or reader of email lists and newsletters. I can think of one that I am subscribed to, and that's mostly because I signed up so I could get a free book and the emails haven't been annoying enough yet for me to unsubscribe. Especially with smart phones it is so easy to delete an email before you hardly register it's there. When I want to follow someone and not just follow them but really keep updated on their latest, I follow their blog on Feedly.

So, one would think I'd be on the old news side of this fence. However. A lot of the points I see in favor of email lists and newsletters I think are very good, and I want to incorporate them. The fact that you can reach a number of people instantly, that it goes directly to them. Those are good things. And for some people newsletters totally work. Everybody has a different way of getting information, just because I primarily use blogs doesn't mean everyone else or even most other people do.

I guess my point here is that I feel like neither having a newsletter/email list or not having one is a good option, which I guess doesn't make too much sense, but I'm hoping there's some good middle ground and maybe you guys have some ideas. Collecting emails is a fabulous thing to do at conferences and events and signings or just in general, I totally get that. But I also think email blasting can quickly become one of the more annoying ways of promoting your books. Maybe collecting emails and sending out something only once every three or six months, or maybe during book releases? Hmmm.

What do you guys think? How can you make connections with people as intimate and one-on-one as email, without being annoying and obtrusive? Have you found email lists to be positive and effective? Do you enjoy reading them from other authors?

Sarah Allen