Ep 117: Writers, Your Emails Are The Letters Readers Want to Receive

This episode is your friendly reminder of why email is important for writers. It's easy to get lost in the sea of apps calling for your attention, but at the end of the day, getting your email at the top of someone's inbox is where the connections happen. AI can't replace your voice and your words connecting with readers. When you lean into email, whatever your write there can easily be repurposed for other platforms, but you want to make sure you've set up your email. With email, you own the list and an algorithm can't take that away from you, but there is the challenge of making sure emails are delivered directly to inboxes. If you're feeling overwhelmed and not sure how to get started, Stephanie Oswald, Ph.D. is offering the Unbound Story System program. Get on the waitlist here. 

 Welcome to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. If you've ever felt the pull to write your truth, to shape the chaos of real life into something meaningful and to share your journey with the world, you're in the right place. We're your hosts, Elizabeth and Stephanie, writers, coaches, and entrepreneurs who believe in you and know how important it is to find a writing community to guide you on your path to self-publishing.

You’re invited to connect with us by joining our Embodied Writing Experience where you’ll get a writer’s retreat directly to your inbox on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays each week. Whether you’re working on a memoir, a novel, or journaling for yourself, this is an invitation to slow down, tune in, and write with embodied intention.   

Join our Embodied Writing Experience where you’ll get a writer’s retreat directly to your inbox on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays each week. This is an invitation to slow down, tune in, and write with embodied intention.   

Work 1:1 with Memoir Coach Elizabeth Wilson. Book a session here.

Feel Good Marketing with Stephanie. Book a session here.

If you prefer to watch our conversations, you can find all of them on our YouTube channel.

You can find us on Instagram and Threads

Transcript

Elizabeth Wilson 0:01

Welcome back writers to the Inspired Writer Collective Podcast. Now, we're towards the end of our spring season, so we have just a few more podcasts for you and then we're gonna be jumping into a special series in June that is behind the scenes with a publishing author, AKA me. I'm releasing my memoir at the end of June, so those are gonna be much shorter episodes behind the scenes, like what's happening each week, what does that look like for you as a writer as you're approaching, um, your publication day, what pre-launch may look like, pre-sales, all of that. So please stay tuned in June if that's of interest to you, and then we will have our summer short episodes in July before we start bringing back guests and everything again in, for the fall season, which will kick off in August. So I hope that this message finds you at a good time. Today we're gonna be talking about building your email list, building your platform, what that looks like, especially from an email list perspective. We're gonna talk about why it's important to keep your readership engaged in the content you're sharing, and yeah, just a little bit of the ins and outs that we've learned as we've navigated this so Stephanie, why don't you kick it off for us?

Stephanie 1:17

All right. Well, this is a topic that I'm just really falling in love with more and more every day, especially as I'm building my Unbound Story system, which I've talked about in a previous episode about how there doesn't really need to be a break between your creative flow as a writer and what you put out there into the world to connect with readers. And one of the best ways to connect with your readers is through your email list. It's where you can show up and connect with them more personally. The long form content, people will stay with you longer. They're often more engaged. You can share longer pieces of your work, and it's a great way to stay top of mind. When people are scrolling on social media, they may be following you, but they may not always catch everything that you post. The algorithm dictates this, that, or the next thing about what they see. Whereas with your email list, you own your list, you own the platform, you own every aspect of it, which is really one of the most beneficial things for you, especially as an independently published author, but even traditionally published. If you follow traditionally published authors, they too have to be in charge of their email list in some form. But it's just a really great way to create a relationship, more of a conversation with your readers.

Elizabeth Wilson 2:58

Yeah, I've been digging into this, I mean, as this morning, right? So I've launched the pre-sales for Lonely Girl, and doing those through Square, and Square collects the email addresses, right? But then I have to figure out how to get them moved over into my Kit, which is one of the common email marketing platforms, one of the way that you can manage your email list. And so what I've decided to do is send an introductory email that's not in the email list yet, but to everyone who pre-ordered the book, I'm sending a thank you email. I'm reminding them, like, and telling them how important it is to me that they've chosen to support me and the book this way. Um, and then I have a, an instant access kind of product that goes along with it, which is my Lonely Girl soundtrack. Now, they're getting that already on their Square receipt, but they may be missing it. So I'm putting that directly in that email that I'm thanking them in, and then I'm asking them if they will join the email list in order to stay up to date on Any sort of live book signings I'm doing, um, podcast appearances I'm having where I'm talking about the book, well as behind-the-scenes stuff about what it looks like to l- to have the lead-up into publishing. And of course, this will continue down the road. I want to be able to reach these same people again once I have a second book, and I absolutely want to be able to reach out to them again for reviews. We talk a lot about how important reviews are for indie authors, and if you've already lost connection with those people that have purchased your book, it's much harder to get those reviews. You're not gonna have that when they later buy your book on Amazon. You'll have no access to them. Um, but the pre-sale can be a really great time to get those email addresses and make those connections and ask for those reviews in, in a follow-up for those that opt onto your list. The one thing to be mindful of is in automatically adding anyone to your list, you can get into some messy stuff if they haven't consented or been informed that they're being added to your list. That's why I've chosen, in this instance, to simply send them a one-off email that has all of that stuff, again, that I've promised them already from the pre-sale experience, and then asking them to opt in to the email list to-- in order to stay connected with me throughout this pre-sale process in the hopes that I can continue to provide little nuggets of insights that continue to keep them excited about the book 'cause at the time of this recording, it's still, you know, six weeks out from release day, so they're not gonna have their hands on the book for another couple of weeks, but I want them to still be excited about it.

Stephanie 5:42

Well, and you bring up some great points. One is picking your platform. How are you going to manage your email list? And like Elizabeth said, Kit is a great platform for doing that. It's one of the most common that people use. There's also MailChimp and Flodesk, and if you do a website, uh, sometimes through your website service provider, whoever that is. Uh, for example, ours is through Squarespace. They have a feature where you can set up an email list. We definitely recommend Kit, and I know that's a pretty common one across the board that a lot of people recommend because it tends to have more deliverability into inboxes, which can also be a tricky part of the whole process with email that even though you have this list of people is where are you appearing in inboxes. So there's some nuances that you eventually have to work with and play around with to make sure you're not being marked as spam. Um, which is really important to, again, also make sure that when you do set up an email list, that you have a website, uh, because then your email is more likely to be delivered because it's coming from a verified domain as opposed to simply a Gmail account. Now, if you have a really small group of people you're emailing at first, you can start with Gmail, but it's generally recommended that once you get to a point where your email list is growing, that you have a domain that, that it's coming from. And then the other piece is making sure that people give their permission because you don't wanna get in trouble by just all of a sudden adding every family, friend, and person that you know to the list saying, "Oh yeah, they're gonna wanna hear from me." Um, no, they may love you dearly, they don't necessarily wanna be added to your list. When we think about the list that we've built, one of the things to think about too is that, you know, you decide how often you want to email. Do you wanna email once a month, once a week? We do a couple emails during the week because we have different things we're talking about. It's podcast on Monday. Elizabeth does her memoir on Tuesday. I do the embodied writing experience on Thursday. And so that's another thing to decide as well.

Elizabeth Wilson 8:15

Yeah, and I found Kit to be helpful. Now, as a-- author email list, I am using the free Kit, which I think caps me at 1,000 emails. But that's fine for me for starting out at this point, and you can always upgrade and get access to some different features. So there's a little bit less of like some of the automation and things. But the great thing about having your list on Kit versus trying to facilitate it through like your Gmail account, even if you have like a @domainname.com email address through Gmail, um, is that you can divide your list. So right now, I have my ARC readers in there- Then, and that way I can bulk email them, like the, the cover design art that they may wanna use for promotion or any updates that they may wanna include, um, links and things that would be helpful for them. And also those, like, just timely check-ins where it's like, "Okay, we're two weeks to release day," or, "We're on release day. Please post your reviews." That way I can do that more seamlessly. Those can be scheduled ahead of time even with Kit, and that makes it very easy to just email a subset of your list. Just like I'll have a separate tag or classification for those people who have, you know, purchased through the pre-sale. And then I also just have people who are enrolling into the list through the website, so those may be people that have not bought the book yet. It depends whether they get You know, when they buy the book, they get the pre-sale tag. If they don't, then, you know, then I- there's a different part of my list to market to. So I know which parts of my list need the email about, "Hey, write a review of my book," 'cause I know who's seen the book. so it just helps you to direct your emails a little bit more, um, precisely to those who are gonna wanna read that content, and therefore they're a little less likely to unsubscribe or to stop opening your emails. Um, there, there is, like, a bit of a finesse to this, so we're not gonna sit here and pretend like this is an easy thing. It is a definitely another thing to learn and figure out. Like, what is it that people wanna hear from you? With Kit, you, or any of these, like, um, email management platforms, you get data. So you can see the percentage of open rates. You can see the, the click rates. You can see what's landing with people and what's not. Um, and that helps you go along and cater your emails to what people are actually seem to be interested in, like what gets them to open it, even what frequency makes sense. Um, while there is some value for, like, the email algorithms to have some consistency in your emails, like not wanting to inundate suddenly with five emails and then have nothing for a month, um, you At the end of the day, like, the consistency isn't the most important thing, especially when we're talking about a smaller, like, author email list. It's simply, you know, when do you have something of value to share that the majority of your readership is gonna be interested in?

Stephanie 11:14

Well, and the great thing about having your email land directly in someone's inbox is it really increases that opportunity for connection and for them connecting with your story. And so whether you have a book coming out or not nurturing that relationship with your readers and the people who are engaging with you is one of the great things about email it's old school letter writing that you're connecting with them in this really authentic way. And it's a way too to show your human side to not have it be influenced by AI and you can come from the heart and talk about what you care about. It can be about your book, it can be about other topics that are of interest to you, and show your humanity, which is what I think people really connect with. And readers are curious about what writers do behind the scenes or, what your origin story is. How did you get started? How did you decide how to write the book? And where your ideas come from. It might seem small to you, or it might seem insignificant, but all those little pieces are, like breadcrumbs along the way that draw them in, make them feel like they know you, make them feel more connected to you. And you can share things like What maybe didn't get into the book or maybe you've published short stories someplace or all the different things that you've done that have brought you to where you are. And that's the fun thing about email is that you have that opportunity to show up in a authentic way. And not that you can't do that online, but a lot of that can be missed more often by people who are following you, and the algorithm changes all the time. And with all of the changes that can happen, your email list isn't gonna go anywhere when something shifts and all of a sudden you're not being shown to your audience on one platform

Elizabeth Wilson 13:30

mm-hmm.

Stephanie 13:31

so that's something to think about as you think about email.

Elizabeth Wilson 13:36

Mm-hmm. Well, and I have a couple of points I wanna make. For one, the one I just thought of is remember when TikTok suddenly went away, and people were all of a sudden panicked because they'd lost their connection to their customers?

Stephanie 13:46

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 13:51

of if-- even if you have a great following somewhere, that platform disappears, so does that following, so does access to those people. You know, they may or may not Seek you out to try to find you somewhere else, more often than not, probably not. Um, one of the things too, Stephanie, that you brought up is, like, that authenticity factor. know personally there are some things, because I have, you know, a public facing Instagram and TikTok and everything like that, that I only share so much on those public forever forums where that information could be out in the world. There's a different level of vulnerability that I can explore when I'm sending it to an email list, right? Where I can disclose with a little bit more security, like, more pertinent details of my life, or where I feel more comfortable talking about my family and the imp- the impact the book has on those relationships, which people are super curious about. But I'm not gonna be sharing that in a public forum where that, where it, like, lives on forever. So that's another, like, I think piggyback off of what you were sharing. Um, and then, like you said, the algorithms are always shifting. I know Facebook especially is one where nowadays if you do, even if you follow someone, if you do not engage with their posts regularly, they could put up a new post and you are not gonna see it. You're just not gonna see it. It doesn't matter that you are friends with them, it doesn't matter. Um, the algorithm's not gonna show it to you. So it's this whole, like, circus of trying to put up content that's, you know, will encourage people to engage so that when you post your important sale, your, your call to action, your big ask of, you know, "Buy my book," or, or whatnot, that they will actually even see it. I mean, it's a whole big game you have to play. Whereas if you can find a way to

Stephanie 15:44

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Wilson 15:48

in order to draw them in for your email list, then, you know, that's really ultimately in the long run the way to go. You can play the short term, you know, cat and mouse game of the social media, but it's always changing and like you said, Stephanie, like, there's a, a bit of a more evergreen aspect to your email list. I, I follow several authors who have been, like, guests and stuff on this podcast before, and some of them don't even, like, send emails even once a month. You know? I'll, I'll get an email from them once in a blue moon and I'm like, "Oh yeah, that person. I wonder what they're up to now. Oh, they've got a new book. Oh, that's cool. Oh, they converted their book into an audiobook. How awesome." know? And, and that's fine. Like, don't, don't take it on as this intimidating thing that now you have to post to Instagram X number of times, and you also have to do this and then do this and send an email every week. It doesn't have to be like that. Um, you, you can do, you know, big pushes at times that make sense for the kind of book that you're offering or other services that you're offering along with it. Or, you know, put out something when you know you're gonna be doing a series of live events and, you know, you don't know if anyone on your list may live in those areas. You can put that out. They may have friends that live there and, you know, forward that email along. All of that is g- great way to use your email list in order to your influence, grow your audience, and also strengthen the depth of the relationship that you have with those people.

Stephanie 17:20

Well, and I love that you mentioned how authors you follow are not always emailing, but then when you see an email, you're like, "Oh!" And it sparks that curiosity, and I think that's really cool about email, and especially in this age where we're so inundated with information. And yes, your email inbox probably feels like another space where you're inundated with information on a daily basis. But to me, I think about it as a letter from a friend especially if you've connected with a writer personally in some way, or you've read their books and you feel connected to them, that it can have that feeling of connecting with a friend, And then you can engage with it in a different way, and I feel like the engagement is different. You're more drawn into what they've written and what they're sharing as opposed to a quick like, "Oh, yeah. Okay. I saw them," flashing by on my screen as I'm scrolling. And so that's something to think about. And Writers, if you're feeling overwhelmed by this, this is something in my Unbound Story System program that's coming up that, that I'll be di-diving into and helping, shift mindsets or helping with the tech side and all of those pieces. So if you're looking for support those are pieces I offer to you because you don't wanna wait until you're getting ready to publish or you're getting ready to put your book out there. You want to have a long runway for this process.

Elizabeth Wilson 18:50

Well, writers, we hope you got something out of this discussion today. Um, there are now newer features in Apple Podcasts where you can send us a message, and we can actually respond to you. So much like email, we would love to hear from you.