You might have heard that having an email list/newsletter is super important. But what is this? 1995? Well, sometimes the old methods are the best. But before I get into why it’s really important for you to have a newsletter, let’s talk about what I’m not gonna cover here.

First of all, I’m not going to tell you how to run or even make a good newsletter. There’s already source for that, and it does the job a bajillion times better than I can. The book Newsletter Ninja by Tammi Labrecque, which I’ve helpfully linked for you, is a fantastic, well-written, and not-too-long book on things to include in your newsletter, how to run it, and more. I highly recommend it, just as it was highly recommended to by indie author awesome-guy, Eric Asher.

I’m also not going to advise on which service to use for your newsletter. There are lots of them out there, so you need to figure out which one would work best for you and your purposes. Personally, I use MailChimp, but I know some people who prefer Mailer Lite. As always, I recommend talking to other authors and asking what they use for their newsletters and what they do and don’t like about their newsletter service.

Right, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to why you need one.

It’s Better Than Screaming Into the Void ~ Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook—these are all great places to build a following. Even just one is great. And with all these, people can opt to be notified when you post. YouTube’s Subscribe feature is probably the most well-known of these. Buuuuuut most of these platforms aren’t really designed to encourage that sort of dedication. Again, YouTube is kind of an exception, but why do you think every YouTuber be like, “Smash that Subscribe button, yo!” in every video? Because it’s just an option. Most people don’t do this on most social media because social media is intentionally designed to be endlessly scrolled. These platforms don’t want you to tick off viewing updates like a to-do list because they want you to stay there…

Forever. And ever. And ever…

Ahem, so, basically, that leaves us screaming into the void of everyone else’s updates. You got a new book coming out? Awesome! Of course you’re gonna post in all the places about it. And maybe people will see it, or maybe they won’t. It’s up to the algorithm gods to decide who does and who doesn’t and where in their feed it appears, if it appears at all. This lack of control is unhelpful, to say the least.

Which is where a newsletter is helpful. It goes straight to your subscribers. Now, maybe they’ll delete the email without reading it, but it at least got further than a lot of rando social media posts did. And speaking of social media…

Your Favorite Platform Could Die at Anytime ~ Yup, those 10k followers you have on the TweetBot or Snapstagram or FriendFace or wherever could go away tomorrow morning. These sites won’t last forever. Servers crash. Businesses go bust. Or, heaven forfend, the same thing could happen to you that happened to CGP Grey. I highly recommend giving this video a watch. Not only is it entertaining, but it really drives home how little control any of us have over any of these sites.

Are you starting to see how important it is to have a direct line to people’s mailboxes? Again, your subscribers may or may not read your emails, but your foot is in the door.

You Control the Format and Content ~ This is the part that starts to get me excited. Longtime followers of this blog may remember me here momentarily going off the rails a few years ago about changes Instagram made to their platform. And, again, none of us have any control over that stuff. But you can format your newsletter however you want. Pretty much all email list services have templates to work off of, so you can just use those, or you can get really creative.

But even better, you control the content. All of it. You want to include your most recent favorite recipe? That’s up to you. Want to include a crossword? Go for it! You choose how you want to engage your peeps! And if you find that something isn’t working, you can switch it up. Your newsletter is your oyster.

This Is an Opportunity to Reward and Connect ~ Okay, real talk for a minute. It is a gift when people want to read your book because people’s time is valuable. They chose to spend their valuable time reading your words. Never forget that. If they leave a review for your book too, ditto, though an even bigger gift because those reviews feed algorithms. And then they also sign up for your newsletter because they want to stay connected. It’s friggin’ Christmas! Your newsletter is an opportunity to say thank you. Your subscribers were good enough to invite you into their email boxes by signing up, so the least you can do is appreciate them.

So be sure to give them something no one else gets. My newsletter subscribers get access to short stories that no one else does. I don’t even post them to my Patreon (that’s a separate system with separate rewards)—they have to be signed up for the newsletter to get the Exclusive Content password.

And by the way, you can use the box on the side of this page (or the bottom if you’re on mobile) to sign up for my newsletter and get access to those exclusive goodies. Do you have more reasons why an email list/newsletter is important? Let us know in the comments below 👇.

Thanks for reading!

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