Episode 107: Making Sense of Your Author Newsletter

Authors are always told to prioritize author newsletters. But why is that and how should one go about building and engaging with an audience via email?

In this episode, we dive into the basics of author newsletters, how to build a community, and also how to up-level your game if your newsletter has gone stale.

Episode Resources

Join Lainey and Paulette’s author newsletters to see how we do it :)

San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference (in February 2025) that Lainey mentioned.

Artists Against Antisemitism organization - and auction

Weekly Writer Support Group - hosted by Lainey Cameron and Charlotte Dune

How To Guides:

Nick Stephenson, Kindlepreneur - Email for Authors: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide to Grow Your Audience

Jane Friedman - Email Newsletters for Authors: Get Started Guide

Bookstr - How to Create the Perfect Author Newsletter: Do’s and Don’ts

Best Source for Help:

Newsletter Ninja, Tammi Labrecque - Books, courses, Author Think Tank Facebook Group

Services Mentioned

Virtual Post Mail - service that Lainey currently uses for her mailing address (and mail scanning)

BookSweeps - for list builder giveaways

BookFunnel - for author co-op giveaways

Universal by Design - for email giveaway list builders

Data and Analytics:

BookBub - The State of Author Newsletters: Data from 500+ Authors

OptinMonster - Email Marketing vs. Social Media: Is There a Clear Winner?

MailChimp - Email Marketing Benchmarks and Metrics Businesses Should Track

Books Mentioned

Newsletter Ninja: How to Become an Author Mailing List Expert by Tammi L. Labrecque

Be The Gateway by Dan Blank

Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon affiliate program, which means Lainey earns a tiny commission (maybe enough for a coffee) if you buy something after clicking through from a link on this website.

Episode Sponsors

Women Writers Women’s Books - Contact Barbara Bos - email barbarabos@booksbywomen.org - for info on sponsorship of the Women Writers Women’s books website, Facebook group and social media

Paulette’s new series collection! Get three multi-award winning books read in 43 countries--all in one page turning collection!
Sit back and get ready for some love, spice and fantastic writing in The Bold Journeys Series Collection. It includes three standalone reads, plus two bonus stories:

• Love, Only Better (Book 1)

• What We Never Say (Book 2)

• What Eyes Can't See (Book 3)

• Bonus Stories

  • Ho, Ho, Hanukkah: A Kyle and Rebecca Holiday Story

  • The Breakup: A Barbara and Joe Prequel

Note: next sections are mostly created by AI for your convenience - so please forgive any typos or inaccuracies!

Summary

Lainey Cameron and Paulette Stout discuss the importance of author newsletters as a marketing tactic, emphasizing their effectiveness over social media. Lainey shares her newsletter engagement rates, noting that one email generates 10 times the clicks of 90 days of social media posts.

They highlight the necessity of using email platforms like MailChimp and MailerLite to avoid spam issues and comply with GDPR. They also discuss leveraging reader magnets, running ads, and using pop-ups to grow subscriber lists. Substack is recommended for creative outlets, offering more discoverability.

They stress the importance of segmenting lists, using automations, and maintaining a consistent sending schedule.

They discuss the optimal frequency for sending author newsletters, recommending monthly or bi-monthly updates to avoid overwhelming subscribers. They note that Substack users expect more frequent updates, possibly weekly.

During book launches, sending multiple emails is acceptable. They emphasize the importance of consistency and testing different content formats. They advise against relying solely on publishers or social media platforms, as these can be unpredictable. Both stress the value of a newsletter in building a direct relationship with readers and recommend lots of resources!

Outline

Introduction and Purpose of the Episode

• Lainey Cameron introduces the episode, emphasizing the importance of author newsletters as a marketing tactic.

• Lainey mentions the episode will cover topics like building a following, choosing technology, and discussing stats.

• Lainey shares her own stats from her newsletter and social media to illustrate the effectiveness of newsletters.

• Lainey welcomes Beth and Wendy, who are joining the live session.

Paulette Stout's Personal Updates

• Paulette Stout shares her busy life, mentioning her return to full-time work and its impact on her book writing.

• Paulette talks about launching her Series Collection, a digital box set of her books, and the marketing strategies involved.

• Paulette discusses reaching out to book influencers and signing up for TikTok and Instagram tours.

• Paulette mentions the impact of election years on book sales and how it affects reading behavior.

Lainey Cameron's Personal Updates

• Lainey Cameron shares her recent move to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and the beautiful writing conference held there.

• Lainey talks about her progress on her book, including feedback from her critique partner and making changes to the ending.

• Lainey mentions volunteering her services for auctions, including one for Authors Against AntiSemitism.

• Lainey encourages listeners to check out the auction for valuable services and feedback opportunities.

Why Authors Need a Newsletter

• Paulette Stout explains the importance of a newsletter as a direct way to connect with readers.

• Paulette emphasizes the control authors have over their newsletters and the ability to build a relationship with readers.

• Lainey Cameron encourages unpublished authors to start their newsletter early to build relationships with future readers.

• Lainey highlights the unique position of authors who are still writing and not yet published, making them interesting to potential readers.

Book Bob Data and Newsletter Trends

• Paulette Stout shares data from Book Bob's study on author newsletter trends, including the distribution of self-published, traditionally published, and hybrid authors.

• Paulette discusses the frequency of newsletters, with 41% sending monthly, 26% sending bi-monthly, and 12% sending weekly.

• Paulette mentions the different types of content included in newsletters, such as updates, cover reveals, and book recommendations.

• Paulette and Lainey agree on the critical importance of having a newsletter as an author.

Lainey Cameron's Newsletter Data

• Lainey Cameron shares her own data, comparing the engagement rates of her newsletter to her social media posts.

• Lainey explains that one email newsletter generates more responses than 90 days of social media posts.

• Lainey provides specific engagement rates for her newsletter and social media, highlighting the effectiveness of newsletters.

• Paulette Stout adds that different list sizes and engagement rates can vary, depending on the approach and content.

Types of Newsletters and Content Ideas

• Paulette Stout discusses the different types of newsletters, including narrative, short articles, and visual content.

• Paulette emphasizes the importance of being authentic and true to oneself in the newsletter content.

• Lainey Cameron recommends picking three consistent topics to include in each newsletter, such as updates, personal anecdotes, and book recommendations.

• Lainey suggests using social media content as inspiration for newsletter topics, making it easier to create engaging content.

Email Platforms and Compliance

• Lainey Cameron explains the necessity of using an email platform for sending newsletters to large lists.

• Lainey lists some popular email platforms like MailChimp, MailerLite, ConvertKit, and Constant Contact.

• Paulette Stout discusses the importance of compliance with GDPR and other regulations, including having a physical mailing address and sending from a domain name.

• Lainey and Paulette agree on the value of email platforms in handling compliance and ensuring deliverability.

Pop Ups and Automations

• Lainey Cameron stresses the importance of using pop-ups on websites to encourage newsletter sign-ups.

• Lainey shares statistics on the conversion rate of pop-ups, which can be as high as 4-5%.

• Paulette Stout discusses the convenience and effectiveness of automations in sending welcome emails and onboarding sequences.

• Lainey and Paulette agree on the benefits of automations in engaging new subscribers and maintaining a connection with them.

Sub Stack as an Alternative

• Lainey Cameron introduces Sub Stack as an alternative to traditional newsletters, highlighting its benefits like discoverability and ownership of the list.

• Lainey explains that Sub Stack works well for creative outlets and sharing short pieces of writing.

• Paulette Stout shares her experience with Sub Stack, noting its narrative style and the convenience of automated sending.

• Lainey and Paulette discuss the potential of Sub Stack for authors who want to engage with readers through creative writing.

Building and Maintaining the List

• Paulette Stout shares strategies for building the newsletter list, including running ads, using reader magnets, and participating in giveaways.

• Lainey Cameron emphasizes the importance of treating giveaway subscribers as new contacts and introducing oneself in the first email.

• Paulette and Lainey discuss other methods for acquiring subscribers, such as old-school sign-up sheets and author swaps.

• Lainey highlights the value of in-person events and book clubs for collecting email addresses.

Measuring Success and List Management

• Lainey Cameron explains the importance of looking at statistics like open rates, click rates, and unsubscribe rates to measure the success of a newsletter.

• Lainey shares industry averages for these metrics and the importance of comparing them to one's own data.

• Paulette Stout discusses the use of tagging and segmenting to organize subscribers and track engagement.

• Lainey and Paulette agree on the value of understanding and using data to improve the effectiveness of the newsletter.

Leveraging the List and Engagement Strategies

• Paulette Stout shares her approach to leveraging the list, including tagging subscribers and surveying them for feedback.

• Lainey Cameron suggests using the list for soliciting ARCs, offering special deals to core subscribers, and engaging readers in conversation.

• Paulette and Lainey discuss the importance of building a connection with readers and making them feel valued.

• Lainey emphasizes the value of inviting responses from readers to deepen the relationship and build a community.

Frequency and Consistency of Newsletters

• Paulette Stout and Lainey Cameron discuss the ideal frequency for sending newsletters, aiming for once a month.

• Lainey shares her personal experience of sending newsletters inconsistently due to other priorities.

• Paulette and Lainey agree on the importance of consistency and setting realistic goals for newsletter frequency.

• Lainey emphasizes the need to prioritize the newsletter and make it a regular part of the author's marketing strategy.

Frequency of Newsletters

• Lainey Cameron advises against sending newsletters more than once a month, suggesting once a month or once every two months as optimal.

• Paulette Stout agrees, noting that frequent newsletters can lead to unsubscribes and that a monthly cadence is generally well-received.

• Paulette mentions testing different days of the week and using time zone swaps to ensure timely delivery for global subscribers.

• Lainey highlights the difference between newsletters and Substack, where weekly updates are more common and expected.

Substack vs. Newsletters

• Lainey discusses the expectations on Substack, where weekly updates are more appropriate and less frequent updates might feel too distant.

• She suggests that Substack might not be suitable for those who only send quarterly or monthly updates.

• Paulette and Lainey agree that frequent updates should provide value and not feel like constant pitches or sales messages.

• Lainey emphasizes the importance of testing different frequencies to see what works best for the audience.

Book Launches and Increased Frequency

• Lainey points out that during book launches, it's acceptable to send more frequent updates, even daily, to keep readers engaged.

• She advises against the fear of sending too many emails during a book launch, as it's a crucial time to build excitement.

• Paulette agrees and mentions sending extra emails for limited-time sales or important announcements.

• Both emphasize that as long as the content is valuable and not abusing the privilege of the reader's inbox, it's acceptable to send more emails during significant events.

Importance of a Newsletter Platform

• Lainey stresses the need for a reliable platform to send newsletters, whether it's an email service or Substack.

• She advises choosing a domain name and being consistent in the content and frequency of the newsletter.

• Paulette recommends testing different content formats, such as video, long-form, short-form, and images, to see what works best for the audience.

• Both agree that a newsletter helps build a direct relationship with readers, which is crucial for long-term success.

Independence from Publishers and Social Media

• Lainey warns against delegating the relationship with readers to publishers, as publishers can change or drop authors.

• She emphasizes the importance of having a direct line of communication with readers through a newsletter.

• Paulette adds that social media platforms can also disappear or change, making a newsletter a reliable way to maintain connections.

• Both recommend checking out resources on their website and other reputable sources for more information on newsletters and email marketing.

Closing Remarks and Live Audience

• Lainey thanks the live audience, including those watching on Instagram for the first time.

• She mentions that the live session will be available for replay and encourages viewers to check out the resources on their website.

• Paulette and Lainey sign off, looking forward to the next month's session.

• The meeting concludes with a final thank you to the audience and participants.

Transcript

Lainey Cameron 0:15

Hi, this is Lainey Cameron, and I'm here with my co host.

Paulette Stout 0:20

Paulette Stout. Here we go.

Lainey Cameron 0:23

And this is actually going to be, I think, a really fun episode. I know some people are going to say, Oh, my God, author newsletters. I don't want to do one of those. I get so many of those in my mailbox, and I don't read them. So why should I put energy into creating one of this for other people? So I have one of these for other people. So, and I know that because I've heard it from my program 12 Weeks to Book Launch Success, we had a whole session on this topic where I had to go convince people that they needed the newsletter and why they needed the newsletter.

Lainey Cameron 0:50

So we're going to spend some time on why your newsletter is your best marketing tactic as an author. And I stand behind that. It is the marketing tactic, if you only have one, that you want to have as an author. And so we're going to talk about all kinds of good stuff today. How do you build your following? What technology should you use? What topics should you talk about in your newsletter? We've got lots of stats. I'm actually going to kind of share some of my own stats from my own newsletter to show you and my own social media to show you why I believe it's the best thing you can do as an author.

Lainey Cameron 1:23

But with that, I say, let's get into our personal updates and get going, because I think this is going to be really valuable, both to people who don't have a newsletter yet, in which case we're really going to help you with, like, why you need one, what you might want to talk about, what technology you might want, but also, if you have one, how do you get better about doing this? And so I think you'll find that interesting. We're also going to talk a little bit about sub stack and why you might want to do sub stack versus a newsletter. So let me just say hi to Beth and Wendy, who I see are joining us live already. Hey Beth. Hey Wendy. It's great to see you. So, oh my goodness, you've got a lot going on in your life right now. You want to tell us, like, a little bit about what's happening with you.

Paulette Stout 2:01

Yeah, for sure, it's definitely been crazy. It's funny, when I went back to work full time in May, I think I underestimated how much time and like energy and creative space that that takes up for and taking away from my book writing. So it's definitely been a little bit of struggle.

Paulette Stout 2:20

But despite that, I was able to recently launch my Series Collection, which is a digital box set of the book. So if you sell on Amazon, they you can't say it's a box set. It's not in the box so they have all these like alternate names for things. That was something I learned, because this is the first time I did a box set. So it's not a box set to Series collection. So that's out in I was a little excited to do that and give the opportunity for people to potentially catch up with my series before my fourth book launches in February. So it's kind of, even though, you know, I'm selling a book, there's always, like a marketing angle to it of why you release when you release it in what order and in what format. So that was that.

Paulette Stout 3:06

The other piece was, I've been reaching out to book influencers and other podcasts to be on, and that's going well. And I signed up for two tours, one on Tiktok, one on Instagram. So I'll be able to share with everybody later how those two went after the fact. And I've got all my fun things that I put in book boxes. And, you know, maybe we can talk about that one time, two book box to not book box pros and cons. Maybe that's an episode or something about launches or something. But I like book boxes. I think they're fun. I like seeing them on social media to make me feel all kind of excited. So I do book boxes. I have all kinds of stuff in there.

Paulette Stout 3:42

Um, I and then just one little thing I wanted to mention about book sales is, you know, election years in the US are notorious for, really, you know, nose diving book sales for everybody. So if you are seeing that, you are not alone, that's kind of like a normal industry trend. Even book releases from traditional publishers tend to steer away from this kind of election cycle period, and then, you know, depending on how you feel things went, you could be in like warning right now. So it depends. So all of that stuff influences people's reading behavior. So I know I was just like my book group last night, and I were talking, and people are trying to get back into reading, just to kind of get away from all the post election craziness, so hopefully that'll be bound opportunities for sales. But I like reading preferences kind of change during election year, so if experiencing lower sales than you normally do, that's not unusual. So Lainey, you've had nothing going on in your life?

Lainey Cameron 4:41

Yeah, so I think I had to go look, because the last month so much has happened, and I had to actually go look at like, where was I last month when I did the podcast? And the answer I was still in California. I was packing up my mother to move her to Mexico, and we, since then, have arrived down here in Mexico. So I'm broadcasting from San Miguel de Allende, which I'll just make you all feel bad. It's beautiful. It's like 75 degrees. It's lovely. Come on down. We've got a beautiful writing conference in February every year called The San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference. You might want to consider coming down. It's a beautiful break from the winter in most places in the States.

Lainey Cameron 4:43

So I am here at San Miguel de Allende, and we found a place for my mother to live, and we are moving her in. We get the keys later today. So phenomenal progress on the personal side. And then I had shared last month that I was struggling or not struggling, I had an interesting dilemma on the end of my book where I had reached the 80% point, and I had gotten some feedback from someone who's a critique partner who's been helping me, kind of at each stage along the way that she felt like it was a great ending. It was done, and I had 20% of the book that I still wanted to revise and release, so I made great progress on that. I kind of played around with it.

Lainey Cameron 5:49

Sometimes, when you get feedback and it kind of doesn't sit right. And actually, Laura Drake, the person who gave me the feedback, and she said, just go sit with it for a few days. And that is the best advice. And sometimes, after that, the best thing is just to play with, what if I did it like? What would it look like if I did the thing they're suggesting, and you're not committed, you're just playing around, going, Okay, if I did it, how would I do it? And then you kind of get into it. And that's what happened here for me.

Lainey Cameron 6:11

And I'm now, I basically decided there would only be two scenes after where I was, and I'm now working, as of this morning, on the last scene of the book. So it's very exciting. I'm working on the very last scene, so huge progress there. And then another thing I've been doing recently is I've been volunteering my services and several options. WF, WA, women's fiction writers just did an auction.

Lainey Cameron 6:33

And there's also an option going on right now from authors against antiSemitism, which I'm sorry, artists against antiSemitism, which I would really encourage people to go check out. By the time you listen to the audio, I'm afraid it will be over. It finishes on November 20, but there are great services in there that you can bid on from agents. You can have agents review your query. You can have them look at your writing. There's manuscripts, full manuscripts, reviews. I have an offer that I'm actually doing a free, well, not free. You can bid on an online class for up to 10 people, where I will teach you one of a range of different topics, including I can teach you things like book marketing, 101, what to do pre publication, what to do with your newsletter, building your author brand, all kinds of cool topics. So I would encourage folks go check out this auction.

Lainey Cameron 7:18

We'll make sure the links are on the episode page, because there's lots of great stuff for writers there, and often you can get feedback from book marketing experts or services or classes, from book marketing experts that you wouldn't have access to normally, right? It would cost a lot of money, and you just wouldn't have access to some of these agents to get them to review your query, for example. So I'm just going to point out that Artists Against Antisemitism great opportunity right now for writers.

Lainey Cameron 7:39

So with that, let's get into our email topic. And one thing I want to point out is there are some great resources on the episode page for this which is going to be on our website, bestofbookmarketing.com. You'll hear us reference a few different articles, and you might be going like, Oh, what is that article they're talking about there? So they're all listed in the resources section on the website. So if you just go to the website, go to this episode, every article we talk about is listed there, and you can get the links to what we're talking about. So just in case you're listening and going, like, what did they say? What was the article? So let's get going. Paulette, over to you. Why the heck we have a newsletter?

Paulette Stout 8:14

Why the heck should we have a newsletter? So I think I'm going to talk about a few of the basics, and then I'd love to just dive into the book Bob data a little bit, just to ground people in. We all hear stuff, you know. If you're newer in the author community, you may not, but if you've been around for a little bit, everyone you know, you hear stats about newsletters. It's kind of nice to just look at the data and see what the community is doing.

Paulette Stout 8:35

So reasons to have a newsletter is, it is your way to connect with your readers. It's your direct way to connect with your readers that no one can take away from you. So if you you know, if you are traditionally published, and you're going through your publishers website, if you are, you know, independently published or hybrid published, and you are kind of relying on just the book sales, but you're not really trying to connect with readers.

Paulette Stout 9:01

It's a really important part of building your author platform and having people understand who you are, what you're about, what you care about, and then also creating that kind of reciprocity with them. You know, giving. We'll talk about this a little bit later, but it's all it's about just fostering that relationship with the people you hope to read. You can learn about them, they can learn about you, and hopefully that will build some fans over time. So it's, it's, you control it. It's on your terms. And, you know, we'll go through all the details. But it's, it's kind of like the number one thing that you can have in your quiver as an author to, you know, get the word out about the work that you've spent so much time creating.

Lainey Cameron 9:42

And I like to encourage you authors who are not out yet, so you're maybe you're not even calling yourself an author yet. You're calling yourself a writer, right? And you're not yet published. That is exactly the moment to put your newsletter together. And um, Dan Blank does a lovely job of talking about in in this, in his book, Be The Gateway. He talks about the idea that the way to build relationships and to have people feel like they were there with you on the journey before you were big, before you were published, before your work was in the world, and those become your super fans. So the people that will join your newsletter now when you're three, four years from being published, are the people who will be raving about your book to everybody you know, they know, because they're going to be like I was there before Paulette's book came out, and I knew what Paulette went through.

Lainey Cameron 10:23

And one of the things I hear from kind of authors are not out there yet, is but I have nothing to talk about, and I just want to point out that to the rest of the world, you are a rock star. And why do I say that? I say that because did you know that of the people who set out to write a book, less than 3% of the people finished their book. So for every 100 persons, people who set out to write a book, only three are ever going to finish the book, and even less are going to publish that book. In fact, of everybody who starts out writing a book, it's 0.66%, less than 1% of the people who ever put the book into the world. So that just makes you very, very special in the eyes of most people, just the fact that you are taking on the act of writing, and that you are writing and going to put a book into the world makes you interesting by default.

Lainey Cameron 11:10

And when you write a newsletter, you're writing it as a person, not as a corporation. And I had a really fascinating conversation, actually, last night about this with our writer support group that meets on Thursday nights. And one of the things that we were talking about is the tone of newsletters, and this idea that, like, you're not a sales machine, right? No one wants to get newsletters from a sales machine, that the only time you ever sell send a newsletter is when you have something new to sell. I've got a new book, and then you send them a newsletter six months later, when you've got another new book, right? That's acting like a company that is there to sell stuff, and nobody wants to follow you that way.

Lainey Cameron 11:43

They want to follow you the person collect, the interesting person who has interesting things to say to the world. And yes, as a result, they're interested in your books, and they want to hear about your books. But I just, I like to remind people that when you do a newsletter, you're writing as a person, not as a corporation. I know, I think it gets a little confusing, because we talk about, you know, authors are businesses, right? You should run your author life like a business. You should run it like a business. But I think we get a little lost in that, sometimes starting to think that the tone of a newsletter should be like a business. It's not, it's a person. You're a real person sending this newsletter, and people want to hear and they're interested in you as a real person. So just a little thought there, if you're not out yet, it's a great opportunity to start.

Paulette Stout 12:18

And I want to address, yeah, I want to address a comment from Beth in the chat about, you know, she has friends that have not yet published and cannot convince them to start the newsletter. So just a little bit of like background for me. I published my first book in November of 2021 and I began my newsletter in like, April of 2021, so it was a good you know, six months before my book came out, I had nobody. I had very small lists. I started, you know, very small with, like, people I knew. And then I created a reader magnet and did ads, and, you know, kind of started building the list over time. And it takes time, and we'll talk about a lot of these different things, but you do not have to wait until you're published to begin your newsletter and to be building a platform. So I just want to pop into the BookBub studies. That's okay. Lainey.

Lainey Cameron 13:09

Yeah, go for it.

Paulette Stout 13:10

So there was a study that BookBub did with author newsletter trends, and this was from 2023 but it's still pretty recent, and a lot of the information is relevant, so it just gives you a sense of what others in the writing community are doing in terms of the newsletter. So we've got of the people who responded to this study, just so, you know, you've got 73% are self published, 20% are traditionally published, and about eight are hybrid. We've got people with, you know, we've got about court, a little about a third with one to five books, and then about 9% with 50 plus books. So there's a big range, and it's a pretty even distribution of like, five to 10 books, 10 to 20 books, you know, so the number of books is pretty consistent.

Paulette Stout 13:54

There's lots of people in different genres, from romance, Rom Com, fantasy, historical fiction, women's fiction. So it's like a nice little cross section of authors here. So the study shows that people who do send emails out on a regular basis, about 41% send them once a month, and then about 26% send it two to three times a month. 12% send them every week, and 11% kind of just sends a few times a year when they have updates. So just to give you a little bit of a sense of, you know, the frequency and the community and, you know, people include all kinds of different content, and we'll cover a lot of the different content types, from updates and cover reveals and all kinds of things. But just wanted to kind of level set us a little bit as we begin our conversation on you know, there's lots of different ways to handle author newsletters, but the fact that you need one is, like, pretty critical.

Lainey Cameron 14:52

Yeah, and I'd love to share some of my own data, so I did a little bit of digging. I went and I looked at some of my own data. And I've said on the podcast before that I get a much beter response from one email newsletter, as I do from 90 days of posting on social media. And think about the level of work that's involved in doing 90 days of posts on, let's say, Instagram, or, God forbid, Tiktok, 90 days of videos on Tiktok, it's a lot more work for me than Instagram versus, like, creating and signing one newsletter, right? Like, I get more results, but I want to actually share, like, the details of that.

Lainey Cameron 15:22

So I'm going to get a little deeper. To get a little geeky data here for a second. But I think it's really interesting to understand this and the dynamics of why that is. And so we'll start with the premise that I have about the same number of followers on Instagram right now as I do have on my newsletter. I've got about 8000 people in my newsletter, got about 8000 followers on Instagram, so it's about the same, okay?

Lainey Cameron 15:41

And if you look at the engagement rate on Instagram or Tiktok, the average engagement rate on Tiktok, according to the big statisticians, you know what they're talking about, is about 4% and the average engagement rate on Instagram is under 1% it's actually 0. 7% so if you have 8000 followers on average, less than 1% of those are going to be engaging with your content already. Content on a regular basis, or actually engaging with your content at all, okay? And that's why it sometimes feels on social media like you're sending things into the void, because you kind of are a lot of the time, okay?

Lainey Cameron 16:12

And so if you look at that, and you dig down under that, oh, and by the way, Facebook is even worse. Facebook is point 0.5% so the average engagement rate on Facebook of your followers is way less than 1% okay, of those who follow you are going to engage with your stuff on average for everybody who's out there. Okay, so here's what gets really interesting. So if you take that engagement rate idea, so I've got eight thousand followers on Instagram, approximately, and you take that engagement rate, my engagement rate is good. It is better than the average. Okay, so the average is 0.7% my engagement rate ranges from 5% to 30% plus, depending on the post, the type of content I'm putting out there, on average, it's about 10, 15% okay, so 15% of my followers are engaging with my content on a regular basis, and some of my posts get 1000s of views. Some of my reels get 10- 12,000 views, okay, but on average, the number of views that my posts get with 8000 followers is hundreds, not 1000s.

Lainey Cameron 17:08

Okay, it's less than 500 on average views for each post. Okay. Now I know some people listening to this, going, Whoa. 500 people see your stuff. That's really cool. And it took me a lot of time and energy to build that Instagram follower following, okay, but on average, a few 100 people see my posts, and over 90 days, with a few hundred people seeing my posts, and I'm generally posting six times a week, I'm going to end up with 19 link taps. That means 19 people actually tapped on something and linked onto one of my links and looked at something on my website, or a special offer or anything that was an actual link that I put on my on my Instagram, okay, for example, for my profile, okay.

Lainey Cameron 17:47

So if I compare to email, if I send one email, my open rate ranges from 18 to 50% okay, and it's a big range, because I have different types of lists. So actually, my core list of people who I started with before I was published. They're about 55% open rate. They open the thing. There's about 1000 of them. When I have something special to offer, like, I'm going to offer, like advanced reader copies or something, I'm going to send it just to that list first, right? They're my special people, but I also have a lot of other people that I got through giveaways and other ways of getting on my email list. And that's about 7000 people on the list, and they're going to be more like this, 18 to 25% open rate, still above average for the industry. I'm very happy with that.

Lainey Cameron 18:25

But what that means is that with one email, I get 10 times the number of clicks from one email that I get from 90 days of posts on Instagram. And part of it is because not everybody sees your stuff on social media right when you put something out on Facebook. Let's say a Facebook page, less than 5% of those who follow you are going to see that, okay, versus if you can get a 40, 50% open rate on an email 40% of the people who are on your email list are seeing that.

Lainey Cameron 18:51

So it is very different in terms of who sees it. Is very different in terms of their propensity to actually engage and respond and do something, versus you sending them an email versus you putting something on social media doesn't mean social media is worthless. So if you're listening to this, going, Why does anyone even do it? To me, social media is about building community. It's not about selling and it's not about that direct trying to, like, get them to buy your stuff. It is building a community, whatever that community is for you. And if you want to build community, social media is great for that. But in terms of selling books and getting people to engage one email, 10 times the clicks of 90 days of social media. There you go. That doesn't convince you that one is more valuable than the other. I don't know what will.

Paulette Stout 19:29

Yeah,and I just wanted to make a couple points about some of the data that Lainey shared. So, you know, Newsletter Lists of all different sizes, Lainey has a pretty sizable list. I I cull my list every few months, and I take off people who are not opening. So there's all different kinds of approaches to how you manage your lists. And so because of that, you know, the open rates and engagement rates might be different. You know, if you have a very large list, you know, some of the percentages Lainey gave are like really incredible, because the list is so big, and that kind of corresponds to a lot of activity. So you may have a smaller list, and your metrics might be very different than what Lainey is saying.

Paulette Stout 20:11

So like, for instance, like, I have your My list is close, is about 2000 on it now, and I get probably, like, from like, 45 to 65% open rate, and I tend to have a lower engagement rate because I'm kind of not asking them very much each month. Like, I'm not really, like, there's a few things I'm giving them to click, but it's more kind of, like, information sharing. I'm kind of not asking them for anything.

Paulette Stout 20:33

So for me, I'm not worried as much about on the average newsletter some of the engagement because, you know, I'm not really asking them to do very much, frankly, so cool. So, so let's just pop into the types of newsletters. So there's all different types of approaches you can take when you're creating your newsletter. One is like a narrative that you kind of have a longer story even either that what's going on in your life right now or, or you're doing writing samples of your work. You know you can do them short. You know the tone can be, you know, playful or serious, or, you know, very topical. You might want to comment on things going on in the world. You might want to stay away from it, you know. So you know, you make it true to yourself, you know, because this is supposed to be reflection of you. When you're building an author platform.

Paulette Stout 21:21

People want to know who you are authentically. So I wouldn't worry about, you know, manufacturing content and articles and things that you don't you're not really interested in yourself, because that's going to come across that those are not things that are genuinely exciting you. And to laineys point, you're a big F and deal. Sorry, folks, you are. And if any little thing you're doing would be interested, like, I got this jar behind the jar over in this I have this little I did this jar, and it was just a way that I kind of boosted my own self esteem. And I write on little stars, and I stick them in a jar where I feel like I do something great in my author life, and I put that in my newsletter with links to the supplies, you know. So you can do all kinds of different types of content in your newsletter that's meaningful. So be yourself, for sure.

Lainey Cameron 22:08

I recommend, when I teach my class, one of the things I recommend to them is to pick three topics that you can do in an ongoing basis. So whether it's like, for example, Katherine Center does a great job of like, three good things. So every month she features three great things that happened in that she saw. And she it's a very broad topic, right? It could be movies, it can be things happening in the world. It can be music, it could be books. It could be anything she wants. But every month she has that consistent piece in her newsletter, three good things. And I think it can be helpful if you just pick a topic, and I would say up to three. And then each month, you just say, Okay, what do I have in this topic? Or each week, depending on how frequently we'll talk about that, how frequently you're doing a newsletter. So that could be a really easy way to kind of keep it focused. Like one of the three can be your dogs, like Dan Blank in his newsletter, does his kids? He does like a photo of his kids. Every newsletter and every user has like Kid photo of the month. Or, I can't remember if his is the weekly or monthly, but kid photo of the month, let's say and so, like, it can be whatever you're passionate about, going back to you are interesting as a person.

Lainey Cameron 23:07

I think we try to get so specific about, like, Well, you shouldn't show your dog because, like, it's not about your writing, yeah, but it is about you as a human. And people love dogs, and they can relate to dogs, so why the hell not if you want to show your dog every month. Show your dog every month. I mean, don't completely forget to talk about the fact that you're an author and make sure one of the topics is kind of new releases of what's going on with you in your writing life.

Lainey Cameron 23:29

But I do think you know if you can pick some topics and repeat them, the other thing I learned to do, and I kind of taught myself this, I was finding it hard to find content each month, and I was like, racking my brain and going, like, what am i minus is monthly? And what am I going to put in? Going to put in this month? And then I realized, you know, because I'm on social media, because I'm in, I'm on Instagram, I'm kind of sharing things as they happen, right? So, hey, I'm in an option this week. Hey, I just moved my mom into her new place. Hey, this happened in my life. That happened in my life. And I'm like, wait, it's a lot easier for me to just look back at my last 30 days of Instagram and say what was important, and then just pick those things out and put them in my newsletter. And I do not have an issue at all with that overlapping, because let's go back to the fact that of the 8000 people on Instagram, less than 5% see my stuff. So a lot of people respond to my email and say, whoa. I didn't know that. And I know they follow me on Instagram too, and so I don't worry at all by doing that, that I'm somehow like repeating stuff for them, and it made it so much easier for me. I can just look back at, like, my last month of social media and say, oh, right, those three things, let's pick those and feature those this month. And so it just made it so much easier than trying to think, kind of rack my brain each month and what I wanted to say.

Paulette Stout 24:32

Yeah, and that's and Lainey waits is an amazing point, which is follow the same structure every month, like you can test different things. So So, for instance, I have kind of like a narrative section up top that could be some kind of existential musing, or it could be something really practical. It kind of varies. It could be something very it's kind of the thing that's top of mind for me that month. And then I have very short articles with a lot of visuals that you know where, where I'm going to be if I've been on podcasts, if you're doing. Interview, if I'm in a in a promotion with other authors, if there's a friend, you know, if there's books I want to recommend, like those that can kind of rotate through there, I do do a giveaway every month, which is kind of my way of supporting other authors in the community. So I have a sign up sheet with authors, and I just have, like, every month I give away a book, you know, and that's a nice way to add value for your newsletter subscribers, and also to support and help promote books of other authors. So there's all kinds of things that you can do from a content perspective.

Lainey Cameron 25:35

Oh, building on that I liked in Jane Friedman's article, which is one of the ones on the blog, on the episode page, she raises this idea of book ends, which is kind of, what do you start finish your newsletter with every time? Now, it got me thinking, because I don't really do this, but she was like, Have a fun bookend. So like a consistently fun thing that you end it with. It's the same kind of fun book end each month, whether it's a quote or a picture of your dog or a picture of your kids or whatever that fun book end is at the end. And then she also suggested, especially if yours is getting a little long, to make sure you got like, some kind of orientation or table of contents at the beginning. And I always do that. I always start with a line that says in this newsletter, and I tell you what's in it, to try and get people interested to actually read it, as opposed to, like, open it, read the first line and leave. And so hopefully that first line, which says, here's what's in this month's newsletter, is enough to get them to go down and actually read some more of the rest.

Paulette Stout 26:23

Yeah, I do that in my pre header and my like. So when you have an email architecture of an email, you have a subject line which, you know, that's what appears in your inbox, and the pre header is that line of copy that you usually see in a preview pane. So that's where I usually put in this in this issue, for me, is just so people know, right at the top, you know, and I always like to make sure book giveaway sit there, because people want an opportunity to win a book. So thinking about the architecture and the structure of emails, Lainey, let's spend a couple minutes talking about the platforms and the software that people use to send the emails that they create.

Lainey Cameron 26:59

So let's start with the really basic thing. If you're just starting out and you don't have a newsletter, you cannot just send it from your regular Gmail, okay, or Hotmail, or wherever you are. I mean, if you've got 10 people you want to send it to, great. But once you get beyond 11, we're not going to send it from our regular email. And the reason for that is you're going to get marked to spend. Your email address is going to get banned. It's actually not allowed. There are email best practices. You're not going to send big group emails from your regular email address. You're going to need a piece of technology that lets you send emails to lots and lots of people at once, and that's called an email platform. And so there are several. There are some of the best known ones would be MailChimp, MailerLite, Convert Kit, Constant Contact. These are all kind of the same thing. They're all email platforms with different prices and functionality. And yeah, prolets pointing out GDPR is another big one here. GDPR is a set of standards from the European Union that say you can't just take people's data and use it. You can't just stick people on your email list that never signed up. You have to give people a way to unsubscribe if they don't want to get your emails anymore. It has to be one click at Google.

Paulette Stout 28:04

You have to have a visible address, a mailing a gift of a mailing address in your signature at the bottom,

Lainey Cameron 28:11

Yeah, physical mailing address. And you have to have now, for most of the now, because of Google's new roles in terms of receiving emails, you also have to be sending from a domain name, so you can no longer do it from me, author@gmail.com on these email platforms, you actually need to have at Lainey cameron.com at paulettestout, or at paulettestoutauthor, or whatever your name is.

Lainey Cameron 28:30

So some of those are just rules that you have to be able to meet over time. You're going to get in big trouble if you don't, and your stuff will just stop getting delivered and won't go to anybody. So you're going to need a platform. And the good news is, some of these platforms are free to start. So like MailChimp and MailerLite, both have free versions. For MailerLite, it's up to 1000 subscribers. For MailChimp, it's up to 2000 subscribers. So that's cool that you can start for free. The thing you need to know is, some of them, especially MailChimp, they scale very rapidly on the pricing after you get bigger than that. So it's great that it's free up to 2000 subscribers and 2001 you're suddenly paying money. And two, you know, 4000 to 5000 you're suddenly paying big money. And so just be aware of that you really want to think ahead. It's great. And by the way, you can move your mail list. So like, don't hesitate if you think MailChimp is the easiest, simplest way to start. Go do it. It's not a big deal. Later, you can export your list and move to another platform if you need to. It's actually not as hard as you think. And we're going to talk a little bit.

Paulette Stout 29:27

I just to answer one question that came up in the comments here. Was like, why do you need a physical address? It is part of the law, like, you need to have a place so that people know where your business is, that you're that you're a real business so, but you know what Beth mentioned in her comment here is that she's a PO Box, and that's what I have in my PO box at my local post office here in the United States, you get a street address. So it doesn't say PO box in your address. It says blah, blah, blah, Avenue, town, street, zip code. So it doesn't look like it's a PO box. But. It is, and that's what I use to get some of my business mail for my author business, and also to have an email address that's not my home on your email signature. I do not recommend putting your own home address there. There are some online PO boxes that you can find like I don't have a specific to recommend right now, and really check in so make sure they're legitimate. But there are some places, if you just need, like, a dress, that you can kind of get, you know, pretty affordably.

Lainey Cameron 30:28

I have that. So I live outside the US, right? So I need a place to receive mail in the US, so I have a virtual mailbox where it all gets sent to a place in Covina California. So you'll, you'll see that's the email, the address on my emails, and then it gets scanned, and I can see it all online. So it's both where I receive my physical mail, but I never get the physical like, they can forward it to you, but it's all virtual, right? They receive the physical mail, and it's scanned, and then I get to see it online. It has a cost. It's like $35 a month. I mean, I'm using that for my whole life, for everything, for my bills, for my personal stuff as well, but that's valuable, and it works for me. And actually, story, I got an email back from my email newsletter from someone who has now become one of my most avid followers, who was very excited because they lived just next to Covina California, and they wanted to talk about where I am, and I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm nowhere near CovinaCalifornia. I'm in Mexico. But it was kind of fun that they got very excited, but where my virtual mailbox was located.

Paulette Stout 31:22

Yeah that's so, that's really funny. So, so a couple things, when you get one of these platforms, a lot of stuff we're talking about is kind of like built in. There are requirements, there are laws, there's, you know, so these, these platforms, are already set up to handle a lot of these things, the unsubscribe, the mandatory, you know, all these different things already built in the system and makes it a lot easier for people, especially if you're not too tech savvy to manage all this. So if it sounds like a little overwhelming, you do need to have the address like we just talked about, and that you have to do separately, but pretty much anything else you'll need to do to remain compliant with the law around email marketing is going to be handled by any of these platforms that you would subscribe with or, you know, use the free the free plan first.

Lainey Cameron 32:06

Exactly. That's kind of what you're paying for, right? Is for them, yes, them to follow the laws and make sure you're compliant.

Paulette Stout 32:12

Yes, so I see a note here about pop ups and automation. So what do you want to do first?

Lainey Cameron 32:18

Yeah. So actually, last night on the writer support group, we had a conversation about this and people don't have pop ups. And I said, Oh my goodness. Okay, so people, you need a pop up on your website to encourage people to subscribe to your newsletter. Now it could be that you're offering them a piece of content or a download or a free chapter or free book that's called a reader magnet, or it could be that you're just encouraging them to subscribe to your newsletter. I have a newsletter. Here's what you'll get if you subscribe to my newsletter. Tell them what, why they should subscribe. Just to give you an idea of the stats on that if you stick a pop up on your website.

Lainey Cameron 32:48

And I'm bringing this up because last night, people were saying, I don't like pop ups. I don't want to do this. And I was saying, Oh for goodness sakes, get over it. So if you stick a pop up on your website, you will get about a, um the average for pop ups is a 4 to 5% conversion. That says, for every 100 people who get the pop up on your website, four or five will subscribe to your newsletter.

Lainey Cameron 33:10

Now, what I was hearing from other writers was, well, it's in the banner on the bottom. People can find it if they want to find it. Okay? So if four out of a hundred are subscribing, if you put it in their face, how many do you think are subscribing, if you don't put it right in their face? One in 1000 maybe?

Paulette Stout 33:25

Zero!

Lainey Cameron 33:26

Like, because people are coming to your website, because they're interested in you, right? If they landed on your website, it's because there was something that got them there that you did, right? You're writing your work, whatever it was they clicked through from your social media, I don't know, but somehow they got to your website, and now you're not even showing them that they could be part of your newsletter. You're assuming that they will go search for it in the photo ahead or wherever. You got a one in 1000 chance that anyone's going to do that. So make it in their face. It is not that hard to click away a pop up. I mean, don't make it obnoxious, right? Don't make it bright yellow, flashing like, blah blah, whatever. Just invite them to join your newsletter. It's and then one click and it's gone. But you need a pop up, otherwise you are not going to convert people from your website. .

Paulette Stout 34:08

And there's a few ways that you can do pop up your your plan that you get with your web provider might have tools that just make you allow you to have pop ups. I have a crappy hosting situation. I'm just there. I've been there for years. I ain't moving so there most of the email platforms. When you talk about these type of integrations, you go into integration setting, it'll give you a line of code that you can then just kind of plop into your website in a specific place with whatever you're using, and usually the pop up will work fine.

Paulette Stout 34:39

So I have probably my website. I can't even figure out where it is and how I get back to it, so I gotta get check and make sure I'm still working. But it was there at one point. So that's one thing. The other piece is automations. I am so huge on automations. Y'all like I moved up to a page here in my email plan because of the onboarding on. Information. So what this is, is the ability to send email messages to your you know a specific group of followers, you know new people on you. You set up what the requirements are at certain intervals, and they just happen automatically. It is not anything you have to worry about. So when people set up a newsletter list, they have a little confirmation email that happens for my subscribers, then they go into an automation sequence of four emails, and email just talks about me, all about my writing. It links to my books. It links to free reads. It links to things that are just a way to deepen the engagement with them right from the beginning. If they unsubscribe during your sequence, they weren't for you, and it's fine, better you don't have to pay for that person.

Paulette Stout 35:40

So don't ever feel bad about people unsubscribing from your newsletter list. It's just saving you money. Be like, Thank you. You know, I'll meet you again down the road in another life. Um, let them go, go with God. Um, and then by the end of that, it's kind of like, okay, you're not going to start getting whatever my monthly email. I send it monthly, and it's just a way for people to deepen the engagement with you from the beginning, and also to kind of make sure that the right people for you.

Lainey Cameron 36:06

Great. Let's think, automations I do, I actually only do one, like when someone joins my list, I send them one welcome email, best practices, three or so or more. But I actually only do one, and it works for me. And so also, you know, there are roles, and roles are just like with writing roles, like sometimes you follow them, sometimes you decide you have a reason not to. For me, I have one automated email that goes out that welcomes them to my list, tells them how they got on my list to start with, if they came through, like a giveaway or something. And that seems to be enough. I have a decent enough I don't, I don't have a high unsubscribe rate, and so it kind of works. I think as I have more books, I'll probably do a bigger series, so I can introduce them to different books. And different parts of my writing.

Paulette Stout 36:50

Yeah, that's that, yeah, that's part of it for me, because I want to be able to they, they kind of, they're entering my little ecosystem of my universal book. So it's giving me an opportunity to send different titles and to kind of get my vibe a little bit. And so, yeah, so I do four and they go one, one a week for like four weeks, and it triggers once I use a lot of tagging in my newsletter platform. So once I tag them, they're a subscriber, it triggers the letter and the next one go, like, five days later or something, and then so on. So it just, it kind of just happens automatically. And so when I was starting out, that was the best practice to have email automation. So I kind of was like a rule follower, and I went and did it.

Lainey Cameron 37:36

And this is actually a great moment to talk about Substack. And then I think we're gonna go do our little sponsor segment, and then we're gonna get into, like, what you can talk about, how frequently should you send your newsletter? Some of those topics. So let's talk about Substack. So Substack is kind of like, I describe it as if kind of a blog and social media newsletter all had a baby, and it was like a combination of all three. And Substack is interesting in that it is not only free, but you own your list, so similar to an email list, as opposed to social media, where you do not own your list, right?

Lainey Cameron 38:08

If you create a list of people who follow you on Facebook, you don't own that list at any moment, Facebook could close down your account, right? But Substack, you do own your list, you can actually import a list from wherever of people that you want to bring into your sub stack. It's free to you and your subscribers, but you can have a paid tier, right? So you people are encouraged, can be encouraged to subscribe and to pay for your sub stack if you want. What I see with sub stack is it works really well when you want to use it as a creative outlet, when you're actually using it to share your writing. So you're writing short pieces, you're writing essays, you're sharing your thoughts on what's going on in the world. I think it's less effective if you want to use it more as a here's an update on my life, kind of newsletter, or here's what's going on with my books and my latest book sale. I don't know that Substack works as well for that, but I've seen it work very well. And I've heard from other writers that it works really well. If you want it to be a creative outlet for you, right? It's basically a way to engage with readers around your writing. It's just short pieces as opposed to long pieces, but it can work really well.

Lainey Cameron 39:08

And I've heard several writers say that they find Substack nourishing. It actually nourishes their creativity. It's a way for them to create and write and share with readers on a regular basis. And yeah, you have that option if you want to actually start making money from the thing that is substack. That is your newsletter. You can but you have to think about, what are you offering of value? But also maybe people want to support you. It's an interesting way for them to support you and to actually say, Hey, I support you as a writer, and I'm going to give monthly to enable you to keep delivering this valuable content to me.

Lainey Cameron 39:35

So it doesn't have all of the analytics that you would get with a mailing platform like, say, MailerLite. But the upside is it has more discoverability. So what I mean by discoverability is, if you're writing a Substack and it's doing well, it will get proposed, potentially, to other people who are following similar sub stacks. As in, you might want to follow Beth's Sub stack too. And so whereas your newsletter, i's probably only going to get discovered if you promote it, right, if you encourage people to get on your list. Substack does have that inherent discoverability, which has some real value to it, that you can grow your list through the community that is sub stack. So I think it's different, but it can be the right choice for people, and I would say especially if you want to be creating content, writing essays, writing pieces on a regular basis and sharing them. If I were writing that kind of newsletter, I would start that on sub stack today, over another mailing platform.

Paulette Stout 40:32

Yeah, and it's interesting. It's all and it's all about, you know, all of the things you talk about on this show, just any episode. It's all about what works for you. So, you know, give it a try and see if it works. And there's a lot of automated things that you know that happen with being able to just output the thing and it gets sent automatically. There's a lot of convenience that people like about it, like for me, because it's a very narrative style, I haven't kind of connected with a lot of the Substacks that I followed, and I usually just unsubscribe after a little bit, because it's just, it's, it's too word dense for me, for what I'm looking for my inbox. But it really is a great option for a lot of people. So it's, you know, just look like if I say, you know, go and try it out for yourself. But yeah, oh my god, it's already 45 minutes in Lainey, yeah, yikes.

Lainey Cameron 41:17

And I will say that I would do, you know, today, I would do Substack over starting a blog on your website. For sure. If you're considering starting a blog on your website, look at Substack instead, because I think it'll be more effective for you.

Lainey Cameron 41:29

Okay, so we've got a little sponsor segment. We actually have a new sponsor who's coming starting next month, but for this month, we thought we could talk about two things. One is, I just wanted to give a little call out to Barbara Bos and the Women Writers Women's Books, website and group, because Barbara has been amazing at supporting this podcast and sharing it and letting us share it in those communities. And if you're not part of the group right now, that is Women Writers Women's books, you might want to go join that. It's a great group for writers, lots of insights and articles and ideas. And then there's also a reader facing website that you can sponsor. And it's a nice way to build awareness. Just there's many different tactics for building awareness, but if you're speaking to kind of a women centric audience, this can be a great way to build awareness for your book, Barbara offers sponsorship opportunities on a couple of month three month basis. Again, we'll put some of the we'll put her email if you want to follow up on the website, on the Episode notes, but just wanted to give a little call out. And then the other thing is, I want to hear more about this box set, Paulette. Is this a good Christmas present, like holiday gift?

Paulette Stout 42:34

It is. It's no, it's digital. It's digital. Y'all, but I do have print books. Where are they? So what it is, it's the first three books of my series, and it's all digital in one file, so you can kind of just go from one to next to next. So it is lovely matter. It is what we never say and it is what eyes can't see. And my book four is coming out in February, so I thought it would be just kind of fun to put a little put all the books together one file, download it on your book, and it's about, it's over 50% off with the books class separately. So if it's interesting to you, if you like contemporary women's fiction that has spice and is like about something like social issues and things, especially in our world, you know you might want to try one of my books.

Lainey Cameron 43:18

There you go. And you know, I love your books. I think I've read them all right, the prequel, the reader magnet.

Paulette Stout 43:27

Oh yeah, my reader magnet, yeah. So definitely I can, I'll get you that. I'll get you that. And the holiday story is a cute holiday story, so you can check that out on my website.

Lainey Cameron 43:33

It's free if you're interested. Oh, cool. I love holiday stories.

Lainey Cameron 43:41

So let's talk a little bit about how you build your list. So, so you've decided to invest in whichever platform. Let's talk more about kind of the traditional newsletter here for a second, with mailer light or whatever. So how do you get people onto your list?

Paulette Stout 43:54

So for me, there's, there's a few, like, really important ways, first, always put in your front and the back matter of your books, if you have control over them, you know links to find you. And you know even in the end of your audio books, you can put like a little note to follow you. Join your newsletter, find more about you, go to your website, that kind of thing when you're out. But the main way that I have joined is actually run ads. I give a book away, which is one of my free books, my holiday story, my prequels. I have two prequels and a holiday story, and I just give them away for free. And I run, I've run Facebook ads, and those have been extremely successful for me.

Paulette Stout 44:35

You can target them to the tribe of people that you think would enjoy your books, and it's free, and people respond really well, and then once they get on, then they maybe sample your other books, they say, in your community, and hopefully, over time, they become a customer and a fan. So I'm a big I'm a big proponent of, you know, having something that's quality that's associated with your book, so it should be related and similar to the type of content you're creating. In your book. So if you're giving something away, if you write, you know, epic fantasy, and you're giving away a romance reader like those people are not going to be the right people. So make sure that it's kind of connected.

Paulette Stout 45:10

Sometimes my reader magnets end and they I kind of include part of the first chapter at the end of them, so they'll want to know what happens next, and hopefully go buy the book. So running ads is a big thing. There's also services where you can, you know, pay, you know, they'll, you'll be in a big group with authors, potentially, and they're giving something away, and people sign up to, you know, get whatever. The thing is, they're giving away a Kindle. They're giving away something and you get a lot of veans. So there's lots of different ways that, promotionally, you can get newsletter. You know, sign ups. The question then becomes, are these quality subscribers? For you? Are they just trying to get the freebie, or are they doing it? And that's for me, that's why I typically go through and every three or six months, you know, I call whoever is really, like, really disengaged. They haven't opened any of the last 10 new letters. I don't feel like paying for them, so I just, I just dumped them off. So there's lots of different philosophies around that. Um, I don't know if anything you want to talk about some of the other areas.

Lainey Cameron 46:15

Yeah, I mean, so, so when we think about these kind of giveaway scenarios, so like, one company that does that is BookSweeps. Another is Universal by Design, and then you could do it with BookFunnel, right? Quite a few are put together by authors, more like author co ops, using book funnel, you know, with any of those. And I've had good success with those, and I know Paulette, you're kind of like, not less convinced, but with any of them, you really want to split them into a separate group that you can see your statistics for those giveaway subscribers and see whether they are better or worse than your average subscriber and what kind of response rate you're getting, what kind of engagement rate you're getting, what kind of open rate you're getting, and that will help you decide whether it's worth doing these things again, right? Because if you do something like book sweeps, it has a cost to it, right?

Lainey Cameron 46:59

So you pay some money, and they put you in a giveaway with some number of other authors, maybe up to 40 other authors. And the the winner, the the entrance are basically saying, I will join these newsletters from these authors in order to get entry tickets into the giveaway. And so, you know, they're doing it because they might win free stuff, right? They're not joining a newsletter because they care a lot about Lainey Cameron's writing, right? And so, you know, my take on that is you have to treat them like strangers. So the first email you send to them, you have to tell them why they're on your list. You're on my list because you entered the book suites Barbie Giveaway Last week. Okay, you could really tell them exactly why they're on your list so that they remember and then introduce yourself like you just met them at a cocktail party and they have absolutely no idea who you are. Hi, I'm Lainey. This is what I write. This is why I write. It's so nice to meet you. And I think it's very important that that first email is that tone of like, I'm so pleased to meet you. Let me tell you a little bit about who I am. I'd love to get to know you, versus like, here's my books. Come buy them now, for this person who has no freaking clue who you are, why are you sending me a promotional email. And so I think these things can't things can work, but I'll tell you that right now, I'm kind of at that 8000 plus range, and once I get over 10,000 I'm going to enter a new tier and have to pay more for my email service, and it's going to go up quite considerably. And so I'm not doing those giveaways right now because I'm like, I don't want to push myself into the next tier of having to pay more. Maybe I'll go do a cull like you do Paulette and actually go back.

Paulette Stout 48:24

Yeah I, I know that there's people with, like, 30,000 people on their list, but they never taken anybody off. And I, I just don't see the value in paying for some people. I know that one point they might be but I just, I just my, my approach is to take them off. One thing I did want to mention is that, because I have used book sleeps before, is that they are changing their model, and they kind of suspended some of their giveaways, and they're kind of reconfiguring it, and they're starting new so don't have a real clear visibility into what this new program is, but just keep an eye out for that. If that's of interest to you, that you may go to look for one, and it may not be available right now, because I think they're they're we, and I think it's a great idea to kind of continually refresh your model. What's working, what's not working, make it better. So hopefully it'll be a good it'll be a win for authors when they when they resume.

Lainey Cameron 49:12

And let me just mention a couple of other places where you can get subscribers. So we've talked talked about reader magnets, right? Which is this idea of offering something either to the people who read your book at the back of your book, or people on your website pop-ups. Don't forget old school, okay, so you go to a book club, either online or in person. Old school is literally like, have a sign up sheet where people can write their name and email address and you add them to your list. I know it sounds prehistoric, but it works. People actually like respond when, when you start sending emails to them. And so you know, if you're doing an event at the local library, if you're doing an online presentation, if you're going to a book club, if you're going to book fair, you're going to holiday fair, don't forget like physical get people to write their email down for you. It actually works.

Paulette Stout 49:58

Make sure they write clearly, though. Because I've gotten some weird scribbles, and then I go to put them in the database, and then they'll bounce back, so just make sure you can read them before the person leaves your table. Um, one more thing, really quickly, author swaps. You know, you go in someone else's newsletter invite people to join yours. You know, you do that for someone else. So it's that's another place, and just doing your own joint promotions, kind of following a model that's similar to book funnel or to book suites, and just doing it with your own author group or club or friend or critique group or whatever. You know, you can kind of organize all these things we don't always need to depend like on another business or service, and you can just do it for free yourself. So how do we know if the newsletter is any good Lainey?

Lainey Cameron 50:43

so we're going to look at our statistics. This is where I'm a big data geek. So if you don't come from a marketing background, you may not think, you know, numbers and statistics, but email is one area where the numbers can tell you a lot, right? You can see whether your open open rate is going up or down over time. You can compare your open rate to the industry average. So the open rate is of the people who received the letter the newsletter, how many actually open it? Right? Can't guarantee they read it after they opened it, but at least if they opened it, they had a chance of reading it if they didn't open it, like, well, you don't know, no idea.

Lainey Cameron 51:14

And so, you know, I think it is helpful to compare to industry open rates. And so I was actually going to, I went off and got you some statistics last night, just so I wasn't making them up. And MailChimp did a study where they looked to all of their users of MailChimp. So this is not specific to authors. This is all industries. And they found that on average, the open rate was 35% so that's all subscribers to MailChimp, all industries. And actually, I found another report from a whole other service that also said about 35% is the industry average across all industry all and then for writers, specifically, so artists and writers, it actually tends to be a little higher. It tends to be more like 40, 42% on average, is what the different studies are saying. And so you want to look at your open rate.

Lainey Cameron 51:57

And then we talked earlier about this idea of clicks, and what percent of people click but it really depends on whether that's a goal for you and whether you're encouraging them to click on something. So if you're doing like, a Substack, for example, where it's very narrative, or you're doing a newsletter that's very narrative, and you're sharing, like, you know, your thoughts about the election and what's going on in the world, you may not be inviting people to click anything, right? Like, there may not be an invitation for them to click something. So maybe click rate isn't the best way to measure, But if you are inviting clicks, you should know that, on average, 2% two to 3% is a pretty solid average good click rate. So that says out of 100 people who get your newsletter, two or three will click on something in your newsletter. You're doing pretty good. And I know that sounds low, but that's actually the reality is you're actually doing pretty good if you get two or 3%.

Lainey Cameron 52:45

And then you do want to aim for an unsubscribe rate that is not too high. So that's the people who click that unsubscribe button, which is like, I don't want to get this anymore. And in general, MailChimp says their unsubscribe rate that sounds really low to me, is point 2% but in general, with Google's new roles, I think it's point six five that you need to keep it under. Otherwise you get flagged to see the point 6.65. So you definitely want an unsubscribe rate. That is, you know, lower than, well, lower than 1% for each newsletter, right?

Paulette Stout 53:17

Generally, there's one five. I want to make one little point about how you can organize your your audience. A lot of the free plans, you only get one audience. So Lainey had talked about putting some of these people in a different audience. If you don't have a second audience, you can always use tagging feature, like I'm sure all these platforms have tags. So I always tag people. So I and what I do when I send my newsletter, because I know I have this core group of people that are super engaged, and then I have a group of people who are way less engaged, and they don't, they know me less well. I send out my newsletter twice every month, and I send one specifically to the super engaged people, and I send a second of the identical email to the less engaged people, just so I can compare the data, like, how engaged are the low engaged people compared to the high engaged people, and what are the click rates like? So I had a suspicion that my open rates were being kind of tanked by some of these people who, like, aren't really very engaged. So I, for me, that's a way that I can kind of keep track of my data in a way where I don't have to pay for a second audience, and then I can make decisions based on what I see.

Lainey Cameron 54:28

That's clever. That's clever. And I see that Wendy mentioned in the chat here, Tammi L. Labrecque's book, Newsletter, Ninja. And actually it's listed on our resources list, on the episode, page, because page, because I love her books. She's got two now. But even more importantly, Tammi is the loveliest person, and she has a Facebook group that is the best place to follow what's going on with author email newsletter marketing. So there was some stuff that happened, like, oh God, was it six months ago where Google changed a lot of things on deliverability, and now you had to have a domain name and you had to. Change some things in your settings on your author platform. For some platforms like mailer light, oh my goodness, Tammi went to the ends of the earth to make sure that everyone was okay. And like, to the level of like she was doing screenshots and getting feedback on everybody's screenshots and whether they got their settings right or they still needed to fix things. She is amazing. I thoroughly recommend her two books. Tammi Labrecque, I'm probably saying her name slightly wrong. Newsletter Ninja. And also, if you can get on her, her Facebook group, if you're interested in getting a little more detailed on newsletters, that is the single best source, I think, to stay up to date.

Paulette Stout 55:31

Awesome. So we want to talk a little bit. We've already talked a little about list management, so I guess we can skip over that a little bit and go right to what's how do you leverage your list? How to Use your list? This is something I feel like I feel like I can do better at too, because I I do a lot of tagging. So when I have a new subscriber come in, I tag them where they came from, like what reader magnet they used, and you know, so I know where they came from. I know what they read, so I can use all that information later on, like they've read my holiday story, if they read the first book, but they haven't read the second book. If they've come in through the back matter of my book, I know if they come to the front matter of the book, if I got them, you know.

Paulette Stout 56:07

So I kind of keep a lot of tagging information, so I need to do a better job of that. I also survey my list sometimes to see what do you like about the newsletter. What do you not like? So when I did it, like, what type of books do you read? You know, most people were reading print or ebook and very low audio, which made total sense to me, because the few times I've done audiobook giveaways, but they always like, click the damn links. So I'm like, but they've already told me they're not really huge on audio. So that was kind of funny. And if that's something that you need to pursue, then that's another thing to keep in mind. Oh, I want to get more. Get more audiobook listeners into my newsletter thing. And then you can feel about, okay, maybe I'll do an audiobook magnet to kind of get more audiobook listeners into my ecosystem.

Lainey Cameron 56:53

Yeah. I mean, I think your list can be a great place to solicit, like art creators, right? If you have an advanced if you have advanced review copies and you're trying to get reviews, that's a great opportunity to go out your list and, you know, invite them, whether they'd like to be part of that. Like I said, I kind of have my core list and then my everybody else, and I tend to offer some things that are very special just to the core list, because I know they're the True, true fan sense conceded the people who are most engaged with me, who feel like they really know me, and I feel like I know them. Um, literally, when I go through my list, like I can actually go, like, I know, like, I know these people. Um, the other thing I've been doing segmenting wise, is really trying to segment writers out of my list so that I can send things just to the writers. And so that's been a big, big thing I've been working on over time, trying to make sure that i i can make offers that are for writers, not to readers, right? I don't want readers getting cluttered with all my stuff for writers on book marketing.

Lainey Cameron 57:43

So those are some of the things you can do. You can also invite them to respond, right? Like it does build connection and community if you invite them to respond to you, and obviously you have to be willing to deal with that, right? If you ask them to respond to the email, to actually reply to the email, as opposed to collect something. But it is a great way to build relationships. You'd be surprised that someone responds with a two line response and you respond to them with a one line response. You have a much tighter relationship with that reader than you could possibly have from them having seen your newsletter and seen stuff on social media. So you know, trying to engage them to actually respond can have value as well.

Paulette Stout 58:19

I think the last topic that probably people are interested in is, How often should I send this thing? How often? How often do you send yours? Lainey,

Lainey Cameron 58:27

Oh, this is such a good question. So my goal is one, once a month. The reality this year is I had three months where I was super sick and I didn't send it for three months, and I just looked this morning, and it's been two months in a week since I sent one. So I'm trying for once a month, but I'm also kind of granting myself grace we talked about this last month. But sometimes, you know, as hard as you try, it's not going to be what you wanted it to be. And this is one of those examples where I just prioritize other stuff. So you know, it's, I'll tell you, it's the most important tactic, and then I haven't sent one in two months. But you know, I won't have a book right now, right? I'll probably have a book next year. I will get back on my once a month schedule next year as I'm getting closer to having a book. And so it's not the end of the world.

Lainey Cameron 59:07

I will tell you that if you go more than two months, I do think you start to have people not remember that they were on the list, and get a higher unsubscribe rate. So, you know, I don't recommend going out more than two months. You know, some people do it quarterly. I guess if you announce that it's quarterly and you get people used to the fact that it's, you know, per season, spring, summer, fall, that's okay. But I would say, in general, three months is enough for people to ask why the heck they're getting this newsletter, and why are they on your list? So I would encourage you to think about once a month, or once every two months. Max. We talked about this in a previous episode, that I think multiple times per week is way too much.

Paulette Stout 59:43

Like, much that's the fastest way to get upstairs. In my book, you send me things that often I don't even want. I don't even want one once a week, like, if you have a super engaged people like, I used to follow Lucy score, and I'm sorry, Lucy. I love you, Lucy, but no. Like, I don't want to hear from nobody, like, once a week and more and that kind of thing. You know? Christine, Lauren, I'm no sorry too much, you know. So it's all about the community. They have a rabid fans. I'm not one. So they're writing kind of for a different audience than what I am to them. I'm more like a casual reader, and that was too much for me. I said mine once a month on the first Sunday of the month, and I've tested like, different days of the week, which you can do. You can test different times.

Paulette Stout 1:00:25

A lot of the different programs have time zone swaps. So if you, let's say you want to send it at 7am you know, Eastern or seven in the morning, you can click this little button and it'll send it 7am to all your subscribers. And regardless of where they are in the world, you'll need to kind of back up a couple days to make sure, because of time zone differences, like, especially for Australia. But I should just send it at the same time everywhere. So it gets, you know, wherever you are, but I send it that's when you get it, you know. So it'll be in, you know, evening, afternoon in Europe, and the next morning, probably, and, um, in Australia and other places. So yeah, if we will go back to that study we talked about the beginning, the overall majority of authors had them once a month. So if you're in that zone, you're really where most people are, and you're totally fine.

Lainey Cameron 1:01:15

And this is another difference to sub stack that I think in Substack, people are more used to seeing things once a week, sometimes even twice a week. But certainly weekly Substacks are pretty normal. And I think those who love sub stack, which is not collect but those who enjoy sub stack and really reading things on sub stack, are quite used to a once a month, once a week cadence. I almost think like if you did sub stack and you only do a once a month cadence, it's actually a little too distant. I would encourage you to think about doing maybe once every two weeks, at least, or ideally once a week if you're doing sub stack, because that's kind of just the the nature of what's expected on the platform. I mean, like kind of thing, test it, see how it goes.

Lainey Cameron 1:01:52

But I would say if you're gonna, if you're gonna do once a quarter, I'm not sure Substack's the right platform for you, and even once a month, once every two months, I don't know if you want to do twice a week, substack might actually be a great platform for you, right? Like, hopefully twice a week, it's not a sales newsletter, right? It's going to be writing and updates and interesting things. So I do think that's a difference with Substack. And I don't know, I think you can do every two weeks. I think that works. I agree that once a week in a regular newsletter feels like too much to me, for most writers, right?

Paulette Stout 1:02:23

Like, unless you're rocking it out and you're in a different city every day, or a different show, or you have, like, a vibe you're talking about, like what your kids ate for breakfast and like, who the dog spilled the cereal, you know, like, unless there's some kind of, you know, tonality that makes it makes sense that it's more frequent, I think that. And then again, you're not asking things of people you are giving. So if you're in this giving space, I think a more frequent one could work, because it's not like you're pitching and you're asking and it's coming all the time. And then there is an exception that

Lainey Cameron 1:02:56

We haven't talked about, which is when you're in the middle of a book launch, right? I also see this where people are afraid to mail their list, right? So I don't want anyone listening to this going, Oh, I've got a book launch. I can only send once this month. You got a book launch. We throw the real book out the window. We might send a series of six emails around a book launch, for example. And so, like, don't feel like you're constrained that you may only send once a month if you have a cadence. The value of that cadence is that readers get used to hearing from you, and you build a relationship, and they know who you are, and now you've gained the permission to send them more things when you have something important to say, like a book launch. So it's okay, not three days in a row, but three emails, right?

Paulette Stout 1:03:34

And if you're so like again, if I'm having a book sale, I'll occasionally send an extra email, especially with a limited time only for a few days. I might send a couple emails during this, like super duper sale week or whatever. And again, you know, to laineys point, they know you're not abusing the privilege of their inbox, so as long as you don't abuse that privilege, you know definitely when you have something legit going on, that's time sensitive or that's a value to them. You know, you can read by books for less you know, that's a value to your news regarding subscribers, and that's one of the reasons, probably what they subscribed is so that when you have a sale, they'll know about it. You know, it's kind of one of those expectations. So, yeah, definitely email us, y'all when you have something important to say.

Lainey Cameron 1:04:16

So, to wrap us up, because we've got a full hour here, you need a newsletter. It's going to be your number one newsletter tactic. You need a platform to use for your newsletter, whether it's one of the email platforms or it's sub stack. You're going to want that platform. You're going to need a domain name. And then you have a lot of choices, right? You choose how often you want to send it, what content you want to feature and encourage you to be regular in in what you do in your content so that it's not random every time, but you have choice. But these are, these are the kind of the basics of you need those things in place, and it's the one tactic that I think Paulette and I would both say it's worth your time to do this.

Paulette Stout 1:04:53

Definitely worth your time and definitely test the content. You know, because I, I've tried video, I've tried long form, I've tried short form, I've tried lots of pictures. I've been so like play and like, What do you enjoy doing? You know? If, if this is a chore for you, then make it simple. If you really enjoy it, like I do, like I geek out at making graphics, then I make mine really visual, you know. So make it work for you.

Lainey Cameron 1:05:16

and do not delegate your relationship with readers to your publisher. That is a big one, right? This is one of the reasons you want a newsletter is you're not going to be with a big publisher and say, Oh, I don't need to do any of this. My publisher is taking care of it, because two years down the road, when that publisher drops you off a cliff like a hot rock, you're going to wish you had an email newsletter.

Paulette Stout 1:05:38

The readers, where are they?

Lainey Cameron 1:05:40

And I say that not just because that's the reality of why you want to direct communication on the list of your readers, so that you have choices, right? And you are not dependent on your publisher, because even the best publisher, there are good days and there are bad days, and there are good books and there are bad books and there are things you don't control around them keeping you on.

Paulette Stout 1:05:58

So yeah. And I think the other thing that we didn't mention, I can't believe it didn't come up, is, you know, social media platforms can disappear too. So if you feel like, oh, I have, you know, ex followers on this platform, and then they don't want something to post and de platform, you then you've just lost your connection to all of the people that you've built in that community. So or if you choose to leave a platform and then you lose all those connections. So a newsletter is the thing you control, regardless of what the algorithms and the corporations and everyone else is up to. So highly, highly recommend check in and out and going to our website look up those resources. There's great articles from Kindlepreneur, from Jane Friedman, from BookBub, Newsletter,Ninja, those are great resources there. We always have good resources on our episodes, but we have, like, a lot this time, so definitely go to the website and check those out.

Lainey Cameron 1:06:49

There we go. Well, thanks so much. Thanks Beth and Wendy and the people who are watching us live here. We also have live watchers on Instagram for the first time, which is kind of fun. So thanks so much, and we'll be back next month. Bye, everybody. Bye.