If no one’s said it to you before, building an email list is vital to your author business. Your email list is digital real estate. You own your list and can’t have it taken from you, unlike your social media followers.

Sure, it can be great to have 10K+ followers on your Instagram account. But if something happens and you get kicked off the platform, or worse, you get hacked and suddenly lose access, guess what…that’s it for you. If you lose access to your account, you lose access to your followers.

This means you lose access to your shmoney! Don’t let anybody’s social platform interfere with you getting your bag. 

You don’t own your followers because you don’t own the social platform. While it’s great to have a ton of followers and influence, you need to make sure you get all of those individuals on your email list.

Not sure where to start? Here’s a few ways to get started.

1. Make your email list an exchange of value.

While I don’t advocate for giving anything away for free, I do in fact believe in an exchange of value. What’s the difference? 

The former is the act of you working hard and giving away the precious commodity of your time away, without any respect for the value it withholds. The latter is a reflection of your understanding that you’re not simply giving something away, but you’re providing gratuitous value in return for something just as precious: someone’s email address.

This exchange can include a variety of things. You can offer a sample of your novel. You can offer an entire novel. Or perhaps a novella or short story. You can offer a pronunciation guide. Or a map of the world. Deleted scenes. Bonus content. A discount on a bundle of books.

Anything you value can be offered in this exchange for an email address. Your reader will be more than happy to join your community when incentivized with digital chocolate in the form of something exclusive no one else but your tribe gets.

2. Host a book giveaway for your email list.

Nothing makes readers happier than getting books for free. And while a book giveaway can be done through an endless amount of ways, one that works well for authors is social media giveaways done by partnering with influencers.

For example: You could partner with one (or several) influencers in the Bookstagram community to set up a giveaway of your novel. Doing this allots for several benefits: you would now be able to get visibility through their platforms; you would see a huge spike in followers on your account; and you would get a flood of subscribers on your email list.

Each influencer has their own rules, boundaries, and advice you should take notes from, but it’s most often for the best benefit of the author. I highly recommend a social media book giveaway to see a boost in newsletter subscribers.

3. Partner up for a book box giveaway.

Much like a book giveaway, you can partner with social media influencers to do a book box giveaway. 

If you don’t know what a book box is, they’re book subscription companies. These companies ship out a book each month to their subscribers. These are usually highly popular books that are globally beloved and distributed. The boxes often contain goods like bookmarks, book sleeves, character art, candles, mugs, tshirts, and other fun swag as well.

You could partner with an influencer to have them promote your valued offer for an exchange of their email address while gifting one lucky winner a book subscription, whether for one month or several.

Note: Do your research before you choose this option. I’ve done this kind of giveaway and while it’s an awesome treat for the readers, the process can be a pain depending on where the reader lives. You’ll want to check with the book box company first to see when their next shipment is going out and how long the box will take to arrive to readers, especially if they’re international. Count the cost, the time, and determine if this route is a fiscally responsible one for you at this time.

4. Newsletter swaps with authors in your genre

Newsletter swaps are mostly common amongst self-published authors. This strategy is quite the effective one. Not only does it allow you to make new friends, it also gives you access to the platforms of authors who write in the same genre as you.

This is almost a slam dunk for your books. If an author is promoting your book to their email list, by default the assumption is that they trust your book is good and know their audience will read it. It also compels their audience. Readers will instinctively believe your book is similar to that of the author promoting it. This means there’s a high chance they’ll like your book and inevitably opt in to have it for themselves. 

Note: This means the book you’d be offering for the newsletter swap would be one you’re offering for free. Not selling.

Newsletter swaps are one of the best ways to perform an exchange of value while using a trusted platform to increase your subscribers and readership. Authors swap with authors they trust. Not to mention, if you swap with an author once, you can swap with them again.

Building an email list is as easy as it is difficult. And getting readers on your list is only the first part of the process. You also have to keep your readers engaged with your emails so they stay primed for when you publish your next release. It requires an investment of time and effort on your part, but trust me, this kind of work is worth it.

Tell us in the comments: do you have an email list? What do you do to keep it active?

Stephanie BwaBwa is a Jesus-centered Fantasy Fabricator. She’s a YA Fantasy Author, Entrepreneur, creator of the fantasy universe Elledelle, and Co-Host of the Indie Author Lifestyle Show, who’s enjoying building a legacy through the lens of story. You can usually catch her going for a walk through a park, or simply binging Disney+ with too many snacks. Get in contact with Stephanie directly at: stephaniebwabwa.com.

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Your Mindset

The first step when you edit an email is caring enough to do so. Emails are commonplace. We deal with them all the time and so we are used to writing a quick note and hitting send before we even check for misspellings. People who don’t edit their emails see it either as a waste of time or they simply aren’t sure what to edit for.

Whether it’s an important business email or your current work in progress, editing needs to become a habit. By continually editing everything we write—even emails—we will make editing less daunting.

Three Simple Steps to Edit an Email

It doesn’t have to take long to edit an email and it’s way easier than editing a novel. But there are still certain steps you should complete to make sure your emails are error-free. Those steps are rereading, revising, and editing.

Rereading

First, read through the original email and your email before hitting send. In this step, you’re checking to make sure you included everything you needed. Did you attach that file you mentioned? Did you answer every question in the original email? Reread at least once to ensure your email contains everything it should.

Revising

Now, you revise the wording of the email to account for tone. It isn’t enough to have the right information in your email. It needs to come across in the right way. Look where you could change your wording to be more direct or perhaps to soften a harsher tone. If you’re in doubt about the tone of an email, wait 24 hours and read it again with fresh eyes. Then you’ll know whether it needs revising.

Editing

Finally, you complete one last readthrough to correct any grammar, punctuation, or spelling errors. In this step, a grammar checker can come in handy or at least make sure your email’s spell check is on.

Top Three Email Mistakes

If you still think it’s a waste of time to edit an email, I encourage you to at least check for these three common email mistakes. 

1. Getting someone’s name wrong. My email address contains my name which means you will need to spell it correctly to get an email to me. Yet, very often people misspell my name within the email body. 

As Dale Carnegie says, “A person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Check that you’re emailing the right person and double-check the spelling of their name everywhere. Something that simple can make a big impression in professional and personal correspondence.

2. Incomplete information. How many times have you had to email someone back to repeat a question they didn’t answer from the first email? It’s a waste of everyone’s time and it can be avoided by rereading the original email and your reply to ensure you have addressed every portion of the email. 

3. Formatting. Unless you intend to be yelling at someone (which, let’s face it, should not be done over email in the first place), there is no reason to use all capital letters. Simple formatting choices such as writing in capitals or italics can make emails difficult to read or give off the wrong tone. Keep it simple with your formatting to ensure your emails are read the right way.

Whether it’s a quick email to a friend, a professional email for business, or something in between, editing your emails is critical to good correspondence. Just remember to reread, revise, and edit carefully.

Jeanette the Writer is a freelance editor and writer based in Dallas, TX. When not at the computer, you can find her crafting, teaching a scuba diving class, or posting pictures of cute cats on Instagram. Visit her website for more info and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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