Newsletter
Let’s face it, I’m scared to try to start a newsletter. Everyone tells me it’s something a writer needs. It’s *the* essential thing that a writer needs after books. I personally wouldn’t join an author’s newsletter, though I have been joined up by people without my permission to theirs and have – if they happened to be someone I knew – been too apathetic or embarrassed to unsubscribe.
I certainly don’t intend to do that with mine. No one’s going on that thing unless they sign up for it themselves.
Which brings me back to fear. My fear is two-fold:
1. Nobody will sign up because nobody is interested.
2. Several people will sign up and then I’ll disappoint them.
The rational thing to do in this instance would seem to be not to try to do it at all, but I’ve just been reading a book on social anxiety, and for getting over your fear they recommend doing the thing anyway and then trying to persuade yourself that it’s not that bad.
So, in the spirit of behavioural therapy, lets do the thing 
You can sign yourself up for my newsletter over here:
http://lists.alexbeecroft.com/mailman/listinfo/newsletter
or you can do it by emailing here
mailto:newsletter-request@alexbeecroft.com
To make this prospect more appealing, I have an Advanced Review Copy of Trowchester Blues available to be given to one random new subscriber. There are only 5 of these ARCs – which are produced to go out to reviewers before the book is given its final proofing – in my hands. I’ve reserved two for giveaways elsewhere, one for me and one for a friend, so this is a fairly exclusive offer. I’ll draw that on New Year’s Day.
I don’t know whether it makes it more or less appealing to know that anyone who did sign on would have free rein to tell me what they wanted to see in a newsletter, because other than news of new releases I’m not sure what people would want to see in there and I’m more than willing to be told. I personally see it working a bit like an email group, with everyone talking to each other, but IDK. What do you think?
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Josh wrote: "I know we're all supposed to do regular newsletters, but I knocked mine down to quarterly updates. I've never signed anyone up for my newsletter -- and I'm more ruthless than you about unsubscrib..."
Hee! Thanks for the comment Josh, and I am relieved to know that you don't write a newsletter every week. I'm going to try to do monthly, but really there's not always anything to say. You don't necessarily have news every month. (Well, I don't. You may!)
My OH, who works with computers in the day job is doing the technical administration of the list, and we never talk to each other so I will probably just not know when someone unsubscribes. Which sounds ideal :)
He says that you don't have to choose a password - it will automatically assign you one. In that case I'm not sure why you need one at all, but as per the aforesaid not talking about things, I don't think I can face asking! Thank you ever so much for trying, though! I am honoured :)
I've never signed anyone up for my newsletter -- and I'm more ruthless than you about unsubscribing when someone does that to me. I do sign up for author newsletters though I am an irregular reader of them.
You'll occasionally run into this weirdness: people unsubscribing from a list it was their idea to join and then and marking it "spam." :-D But that definitely happens. I call it the Bad Day factor. I asked a couple of readers once why they did it -- not for stalkery reasons but because in both instances they were people who had written me personally and we'd had nice online conversations -- and they'd been on my list for years. Both of them said they were having a bad day (or going through a rough patch). My newsletter just happened to be the dog they needed to kick.
So I don't take those personally. Actually, I don't even see those anymore because I have someone to manage my newsletter for me now. She has much better ideas for content than I ever did.
I started to sign up for yours but it was asking me to create a password, etc. and that's more commitment than I wanted to make. ;-)
Maybe that's something that can be tweaked?