Let's break down how writers can grow their readership through emails. Here are some author email marketing tips for building and nurturing your readership.

Building an Author Community Through Emails

Compiling an email list is an effective way to take stock of your readership. In relation to your work, you can see who is willing to communicate with you frequently. If a reader has given over their email address to their author, it means they want to hear more from them.

With an email list, you want to:

Get people to interact with your content.
Ensure you retain your current readership.
Reach new readers and followers.

For the first of these points, you need a good open rate for your emails. This refers to not how many people receive your emails but how many people actually open them and click on the links, etc. In order to build your author community through emails, readers need to interact with and view your content. By ensuring:

Strong branding
Consistency
Interesting content

You want to nurture your current readership with email marketing as well as reach a new audience. So you have to be sure you are appealing to your target audience and giving them what they want.

Author Email Marketing Tips

So, how exactly can you run a successful email marketing campaign anyway? Here are some essential author email marketing tips.

Build Your List

If you're going to run a solid email campaign, you need to build your email list. Here are five author email marketing tips on how to get names on your email list:

Have a landing page on an author's website. Your author website should be optimized for search engines so that it shows up highly when people Google your name. Consider adding other elements to your website, like a blog and a place where you can sell directly.
Make good use of social media. TikTok is an especially valuable tool for authors, with BookTok being an incredibly popular place for readers to discover new work. Promote your email list on social media, and don't forget the hashtags!
Use author events to make connections and spread your email list around. Offline events are particularly good for this, as you can talk to your readers in person.
Collaborate with other authors and help promote each other's work.
Set up a custom email address and sign up for a platform that lets you send out bulk emails, like MailChimp.

The Right Amount of Emails

So how many emails should you be sending anyway? If you want to build your author community through email, you need to be consistent in the amount you send. Sporadically sending emails at random times will make people forget about you. But it's really important that you don't overload your readers.

Send at least 1 email a month, and probably not more than one a week (not including your welcome email). Really, 2 or 3 a month is enough to send. As for when you send them, pick a date or day that you will consistently send things on so that people know they are coming.

High-Quality Copy

In order to nurture your readership, provide them with a well-written copy. The copy is basically the body of your email. Plan carefully what you are going to say and check for typos. Tell a story with your content to capture the reader's attention.

Also important is your subject line. The subject line shouldn't be overly long but should make the reader want to open the email. Consider posing a question in the subject line.

Valuable Additions

What else can go into an author's email? Here are a few author email marketing tips related to specific content:

Put in good reviews of your book to help promote your work.
Put together a newsletter that covers a variety of topics related to your writing.
Send out recommendations for books and other authors.
Include images of cover designs and illustrations.
Have a section where you reply to readers' questions and comments.

Generating and Reviewing

Two things you have to do in order to have an effective email campaign are:

Keep coming up with content.
Review what is working and what isn't.

For the former, keep brainstorming. It can be daunting to have to write new email campaigns regularly. However, in order to nurture your readership through email, your content has to be interesting. AI tools can be helpful for generating ideas. You should also consider brainstorming with people who have given you valuable feedback on your work before.

In terms of reviewing, look at the data. Study the data analytics to see which of your emails are popular, how often they are being opened, and who is actually engaging.

Nurturing Your Readership With Email

When you're building your author community through emails, you want to ensure you keep the relationship between you and your active readership strong. While you will be constantly striving to get new readers, it's important that you don't neglect your longtime followers. It's particularly important to pay attention to your fans, who give you regular positive interactions. These are the relationships you particularly need to nurture, and you can nurture your readership with email. We've looked at author email marketing tips; here are some further tips on how to strengthen and solidify your relationship with your reader.

The Magic Words: People like to hear please and thank you. Always thank your readers for their support. Make it clear that you value them and that they interact with your content regularly.
Ask Them: Your readers are your target audience, so ask them what they want to see in your email campaigns. It can be as simple as asking them what features they enjoy and what they would like more of. You could even send them a short survey (just don't make it too arduous to fill out).
Give Back: Show your appreciation to your readers by offering something in return for their loyalty. It could be a code for a discount or, a free item, or even a sneak peek at your next book.
Commit: We've already talked about being consistent with when you send emails and how often. It's necessary to commit to your readers and fulfill that commitment. So if you tell them you will have something in particular in your next email, that your book will be out at a certain time, or if you make any other promise, you need to stick to it. Show your readers you value them highly by committing to providing good content.

Final Words

These author email marketing tips and guidelines can help you grow your readership while nurturing your current fanbase. You can build an author community through email with high-quality content and consistency.