dgaughran said:
Your newsletter looks fab. I love the template, design, palette, content, everything. It's a really smart approach - especially the post-teasing on social media. Love that.
Thank you!
Do you get people unsubbing directly after or does that all look normal? And can you share typical open/click rates on a launch? I'm guessing this approach gives you fab open/click rates with all this extra engagement.
I almost always get 2-5 unsubs after sending a newsletter, but I also almost always get 10+ new subs after each one. Despite pushing my newsletter every month, I always have someone on Twitter/FB say, "I had no idea you had a newsletter!" I also usually get someone saying that "You always have neat stuff in there, I guess I better subscribe," so there's a little bit of people waiting to see if the follow-through stays consistent in terms of newsletters.
(It should also be noted that I have an extensive social media based, with 20k+ Twitter followers and 20k+ FB subscribers when my two pages are combined.)
My open rate is typically about 50% when I do the basics and have no major announcement. When I do have a major announcement, I spend a little more time pushing the newsletter (i.e. "Newsletter subscribers will be the first to find out the title of my newest book!") and those will have an open rate of closer to 75%. I also know from tracking links that when I send out a static link to my newsletter, I usually have about 25 new clicks of people who are just reading the newsletter based on my link.
Click rates are typically between 13-25%, depending on content. My last few newsletters have skewed higher than my averages (30-40%) because I've added more exclusive content (launched a new short story and gave the first 500 responders and free copy, announced a book sale, etc.)
I'm pushing 2k subscribers--I've done a few culls to keep MailChimp free, but suspect I'll pass the 2k mark within a month or two. 1500 of those subscribers came from the last seven or so months, when I started sending out monthly emails rather than sporadic.
I suppose the main unknown on the "new release only" v "regular newsletter" approach is whether a regular email is a turn-off for those already swamped by email. I know that I personally prefer less emails, but I wonder how common that sentiment is.
I definitely prefer less emails, but I also found the "new release only" emails to be boring--I often never bothered to click them, because I knew that when I got these newsletters from authors, it just meant another new release. Which means while I was informed of the release, I also didn't care enough to find out more. I also found that many authors would only send 1-2 emails a year, and they either automatically went to my spam folder from email algos or something, or they'd be authors I didn't really remember subscribing to, so I deleted and unsubbed immediately.
Instead, I approach my newsletter the same way as I see news/geek blogs compiling newsletters. I keep the content pretty with a template and images, and I focus on adding more content than just myself. This current newsletter is a little me-centered, in part because this is one that has an actual big announcement in it (first time the book's been on sale ever). Most emails feature at least 3 articles that are just of interest to my readers--they're about sci fi or YA topics, or are just entertainment. Adding articles that aren't me-centered enables me to keep the content interesting--even if people know me and know my books, they'll still open the newsletter based on the fact that they know it contains more general interest topics.
My evidence for this is totally anecdotal, based on my own preferences in emails. I click open io9 and Cracked.com subscriptions because I don't know what I'll find, but I do know it's geared to things that I want to know more about. I sometimes click open daily sale emails (like BookBub) and sometimes don't, depending on my mood--I don't know what books are there, but I do know they're on sale--it's timely information. An author's newsletter is hit-or-miss on opening for me; it's just an "if I have time and am not on an auto-delete spree from too much in my inbox." So I geared my newsletter more towards the general-interest content with the timely information; I consider the ten extra minutes it takes to compile a handful of general interest articles to be a worthwhile effort to put my books in front of the readers' faces. I'm aggregating content to use my books as the advertisements.
