Do mailing lists/newsletters improve your sales?

[Amber]

And that's the question. It seems to be The Thing Authors Are Supposed To Do. Get newsletter subscribers. Offer incentives to get people to sign up. This is supposed to increase sales. Does it, or does it mostly attract swag trolls?

I have no desire to get any author's newsletter no matter how much I like his or her books. Am I weird? (Yes, but I mean, is my lack of interest in newlsetters weird?)

[♥️♥️ Lanae]

I think it comes down to if youre interested, or better still, invested in an author enough to want to stay up to date with their writing, publishing wise or blog wise.

I say this because I actually DO read the newsletters that good reads emails me, and although not always, I sometimes even click the links for interviews of authors i know of or that im not yet familiar with because the headline interests me.

I don't think youre weird at all. Lol

But maybe you just dont feel all that invested in an author (yet)

[Lynne]

From what I've heard, it does work. I haven't got round to doing one, though.

[♥️♥️ Lanae]

Lynne wrote: "From what I've heard, it does work. I haven't got round to doing one, though."

Care to elaborate a bit?

Is it the swag that entices (potential) readers?

[Justin]

Great question Amber, it ties in with mine about MailChimp. I always here people say as an author you need to build a mailing list and send out emails or newsletters. I'm not a fan of them but I do follow some because I like the information they post. I'm tempted to start doing a newsletter myself to see if it helps. I say it's hit or miss for certain people.

[Lynne]

Sorry, I meant the newsletters themselves work. I don't think offering incentives to sign up does. You need to only sign people up who are genuinely interested in hearing from you. Sure, then you can make them special offers, which may encourage others to join, but primarily, you sign up people who are interested in what you do anyway. This technique works, so I'm told.

[♥️♥️ Lanae]

Lynne wrote: "Sorry, I meant the newsletters themselves work. I don't think offering incentives to sign up does. You need to only sign people up who are genuinely interested in hearing from you. Sure, then you c..."


That's actually an excellent point. I think you should withhold the goodies for INSIDE the newsletters and maybe offer a standard incentive for all first time subscribers. So maybe offer the same short story or bookmark, etc for first timeers and then all the other promotional ideas for those who stick with it??

[Lynne]

I think that would be better. Better still, have them sign up because they want to, not because of an incentive.

[Johanna]

Great post. A newsletter is of my "things I believe I should do as an author" list, but there seems to be so may of these, it's hard to know what I should be investing my time in!

[Jason]

I have a newsletter. It has about 290 subscribers so far. I get subscribers by offering a free copy of Chains of Prophecy, keeping people up to date with my writing, pimping out other authors, and sometimes adding a little bit of extra stuff. I don't know if it's translated into sales, but people don't drop me after getting the book, so that's something :)

[Amber]

Jason wrote: "I have a newsletter. It has about 290 subscribers so far. I get subscribers by offering a free copy of Chains of Prophecy, keeping people up to date with my writing, pimping out other authors, and ..."

You have two books out now, or three? I'm curious if the free one for subscribing is getting buyers for the next. You have LOT of subscribers. But you can't tell if there's any impact? I guess that helps my research if the answer is no ...

[Jason]

Five, total. Two in the series. Yes, that's the goal, but we'll see how it goes as the future books come out :)