Ep 152: Building Your Author Email List

In this episode, I discuss the significance of context in the author space, emphasizing the need for transparency in marketing. I also talk about that dreaded task: building an author email list. 

EPISODE CHAPTERS

01:37 - The Power of Quiet Reflection

04:09 - When Navigating the Author Space: Context Matters

10:02 - Building Your Email List: A Key to Success

15:04 - Commitment to Growth: Choosing Your Platform

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:39

Welcome back. I don't know. It's 2026. I didn't think it would ever happen. It still feels weird. Like New Year's Day was on a Thursday, i.e., yesterday. I'm recording this on a Friday. And I thought it was Sunday all day. I was completely perplexed. And I just like what is happening? So I don't think I'll know what day it is for at least three more days. But here we are. This is our first episode of the year. I am very excited because in the next couple of weeks, I have some really great guests coming on, as I always do. Next week, I'm going to be talking to Sarah Vacchiano. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll be able to see this. This is the cover of her book, Soft Launch, which I think is either out or almost out. It is not an understatement to say I devoured this book. I sat on the couch for two days, rarely got up, and just could not stop reading. It was, it's so incredibly good. And I can't wait to get a copy. I cannot wait to talk to her about that. And then the following week, I'm talking with Jeff Rake and Rob Hart, which I'm I'm again, can I use the word excited any more times? I don't think so, but I am. Jeff Rake is was the showrunner for, I think I'm using that term correctly. I think the showrunner is correct, but I'll find out. Uh, the show manifest, if you were as addicted to that as many people were. I've seen multiple interviews with Jeff that gave me a lot of questions and they were fun. His show Manifest came out like right after at the same time as Lost. So that's very relatable on an author level when you when your book comes out just a little bit after something like, say, Harry Potter or any of the Colleen Hoover books. Um, and then his co-writer for his first, I think it's his first book, which is titled Detour, comes out in about a month, is Rob Hart. And Rob Hart has written a number of thrillers, the most recent of which should be on my doorstep in two days. I'm very excited. So I'm anxious to have all those conversations and to bring you their thoughts and hopefully ask questions that no one else has asked. But for today's episode, I was, you know, it's interesting. When I am driving in the car, if I'm going a long distance, I will often listen to a podcast or an audiobook or just the radio or something. If I'm going a short distance, however, it's I it's usually dead silent. I don't turn on music, I don't turn on anything. I think it comes from as a mom of five, there were so many years when I just wanted quiet. And now that my kids are all older, I don't, now I kind of want noise more often, but maybe it's habit. I enjoy being in a quiet car. And I have a dear friend who actually really dislikes silence. And when I asked why, the answer was that this person grew up in a pretty chaotic household. And so they've come to equate chaos with peace, which is super interesting, but doesn't like quiet. And I, these quiet moments when I'm driving in my car, I don't have any expectation. It's not like I get in my car and put it in reverse and think, okay, figure out the plot line for chapter seven or figure out the outline for chapter 10 or some such thing. I sort of have no agenda. And because of that, one of two things, if not both, happens. Number one, I come up with some great thought, a great idea for a chapter, a great idea for a download, a great idea for a podcast, which is what happened today. And or I forget where I'm going and I go on autopilot and I just end up somewhere, like Starbucks. At which point I think, well, I'm here, so I might as well get a venti something or other. But today, when I was driving to UPS to make a return from the holidays along with the rest of my town, although I was so appreciative, they had such a process in there. They had a strict line for Amazon only returns, which was very long. And I was in that line, but they were very efficient and handled it very, very well. So I got in and out. It was great. And on the way back, I was thinking about what I'm about to say. So I have, and stay with me because the point is gonna come. I have an ad that I'm running right now on Meta. So Instagram and Facebook. And this ad is for my author email toolkit. And two things have happened since starting to run this ad that I wanted to speak about. And they're not about me, they're about you. So the first one is that I, one of the ad creatives that exists in this ad campaign is a it's text. It's bold and the background is really bright, and it says, How I sold 75,000 books without a publicist or posting 20 times a day. Perhaps you've seen it. I was very uncomfortable with this creative. It is a great hook. It is not, it does not have context. And if you're new to this, if you're not new to this podcast, I hope you already know this. If you're new to this podcast, let me make very clear that context is so important to me when I'm talking about this author thing. I have always been wildly transparent about like this author space and my experience in this author space, sometimes to the detriment, I think, of getting new clients and customers, because I'm not the person who's gonna say, do this one thing and insert miracle happening. That's never been my experience. And when people do say, this is my end result, whatever that is, and you ask for context, you often discover, okay, that was the end result. Great. It took 11 years, it took, I'm making these numbers, $20,000 in ad spend, it took a $25,000 publicist, it took 14 books, it took sleepless nights, it took bribing so-and-so. And none of that is necessarily bad. It's just not what people want to hear. People want to hear if you just do this one thing, you're going to get everything you ever wanted. It's just, it's as simple as this $7 download. So, what happened to me was I, this ad is running and I wondered how long it would take before this happened. But someone commented and said, What are the what is the book or books that you've written that has allowed you to have the result that you claim? And the woman, it was a woman who made the comment. It was on Instagram, and she was kind enough about it, because I've certainly seen comments on other people's posts that are like, you know, you're a charlatan, you're a this is a grift, a word I only came to know in 2025, and I would like to leave it there. Where, you know, there's great skepticism, if not outright cynicism, of the results. And so she was kind enough that she was just saying, like, what tell me, who are you? Basically. And I said, absolutely. I I've written six books, so that's the first context. Because within an ad, like I said, not only can other authors or creative people who are have something that they're offering not give context, but I really couldn't. And I try to give that context as best I can in the sales page or the checkout page or both or like anywhere, but it's not always possible to do in that initial hook where the thing would be three pages long. If I were trying to get all my caveats out of the way, like no one would even read the yeah, I don't even know if it'd be approved. It'd be, it'd be a book-length thing. So I said, absolutely, I've written six books. So, first context, they're all available on Amazon and every other platform, so you can go look. Also, please keep in mind, this is like literally what I wrote. I have been in this space for 20 years. Um, and none of this happened overnight. And email, because this is for my email toolkit, is not a magic bullet, but it has been paramount to my growth as an author and as a business person. So I haven't heard back from her yet. I, you know, we'll see if she replies to that or whatnot. But it's an absolutely fair question. And so where I want to go with this for you, who listening right now, dear friend, God, that felt very, is that Bridgerton, where they're like, dear gentle reader, whatever. Um, is when you see in 2026, because you're going to continue to see them, ads that promise, they don't even promise anything. Like I got a comment actually on that same ad creative that said, you know, this is, it wasn't very kind, but it said something like, this is outrageous. You're promising these results. And I was like, I've never promised anything. All I said was, I've sold 75,000 books without a publicist and without posting 20 times a day, both of which are true. I didn't say I sold 75,000 books in a week. And when you, if you ask for context, I'll give it to you. And it's all over my website and it's all over the rest of my social media, I might add. I'm to my detriment. So when you see something that's like, this is the magic bullet, this is the thing you need, look for context because it doesn't mean that the thing that you're seeing won't be valuable to you. It doesn't mean that the email toolkit or the writing thing or the suggestions on finding a publicist or like those things, if they are ethically created and disseminated, whether for free or not, can be very helpful. And it's important for all of us, myself included, to not allow ourselves to get caught up in, okay, but you like, is this the thing? Because in the author space specifically, there are no magic bullets. And even if you've gotten, let's say, a traditional deal with a big five house and a big advance, you're not in the machine. You are not set up for success from that point forward. The saying you are only good as good as your last book is has been reaffirmed over and over again by guests on this podcast, authors whom I've spoken with, posts I've read, you know, all the things. That is the resounding truth of this space. We are all doing this thing, one book, one paragraph, one plot idea, one email subscriber at a time. So I, if I get any message out in 2026 to more people, it's that one. Because the belief that it's otherwise for some people, for most people, is what holds most, especially new authors back. Once you're in the space and you start talking to other authors, you realize, oh my God, like I thought I was the only one. No, you're not. And then you realize, oh, this is such a great community. We're all just trudging through. Most of us have second jobs and we're just doing this because we love storytelling. We have a story to tell, we have a message to share, whatever the case may be. The second thing is that I've gotten a couple of different messages from people who have seen the author toolkit ad saying, Will this work if I don't have an email list? Which made me start thinking about email lists. Because as we go into 2026, if there's one thing that I would suggest that new or even not new authors focus on as much as I've ever suggested it, it's having an email list. And that is not even the crux of what I help authors do. It's so much simpler than people think, and it's incredibly important. And the reason, so the answer to the question is having email templates, understandably, I'm sure, isn't really very beneficial. Having email templates isn't probably understandably very beneficial if you don't have people to send emails to. And sending emails directly from like your Gmail or your Outlook or your AOL.com isn't the way you want to do it for a whole bunch of reasons. You want to use an actual email service, which does not have to be expensive. And if you ask around, everyone has a different suggestion. So some people will say use mail or light. Some people will say use MailChimp, use Convert Kit, use none of those, use Substack. This is the only way to go. It doesn't matter. Pick one, find a free one or an extremely low-cost one. A big one right now that you've undoubtedly heard many people are using is Substack. Substack is fine for getting started. It's not the magic bullet that a lot of people think that it is. It's not easy to get subscribers. It's not easy to keep subscribers, especially if you're starting from zero. And the biggest, I would say, negative of Substack is that you're building on rented land. So you don't own it. Right now, you do still own your list if you start with Substack, and it's free to start a newsletter there. I don't think it's easy. So if you build a newsletter on Substack and you have a bunch of subscribers, and then you decide to rebuild on an email service provider like MailChimp or Mail or Lite or Convert Kit or the like, you can take all of your subscriber email addresses and download them and move them over to the other platform. I don't know how long that'll last. It may be in perpetuity, it may come to an end soon, and you may have to be a paying member in order to download your contact names. The other thing that Substack can't necessarily do for you is without a little bit of tweaking, although I don't hold me to this, but it's my understanding that if you have like a chapter download or a tip sheet and you are offering that in exchange for an email address to get people to sign up for your email list, there's no easy way to do that through Substack. I don't think there are forms on Substack that then automatically deliver something to a person when they sign up to be on your list. So that's something that you give up by using a service like Substack. But what I see happening a lot is people thinking or fearing really is what's happening. It's like a FOMO situation. If I don't use this service, I won't build my list. And so they just don't, they don't build. And starting and growing an email list is incredibly simple. It's something I walk you straight through if you want to be walked straight through it in from manuscript to market, which is a program that helps you create your entire online author ecosystem. So your email list, your website, your social media presence, and walks you through my 12-day launch strategy. So if you're getting ready to launch a book or you want to relaunch a book because it has slowed in sales, and that's what the email toolkit is actually a part of is that entire course ecosystem. But setting it up just isn't that difficult. And I think it's so much more bark bark than bite. People get very overwhelmed. People wonder where am I going to find people to sign up? And how am I going to communicate with what do I even say? Which is why the templates exist to begin with. So not a be-all end-all, not a magic bullet. But if you have an email list created and now you're wondering, what the heck do I say? I what I do believe in are, and I don't maybe we can come up with a different word for shortcuts in 2026, because it sounds kind of like not super, I don't know, it's sort of like magic bullet. It's living in magic bullet territory. If someone has done something before you and they can tell you, avoid this and do this, and it will save you steps because I misstepped. To me, that's of value and of benefit. One of the biggest missteps I personally made was not starting my email list sooner. My email list is not huge. The idea that you have to have five figures of people, you know, 10,000 or more people on your list to have a profitable list is incorrect. I know people who have 400 people on their email list and either sell to them regularly, or a lot of those people are cross-promoting. And so they're doing just fine. And on the flip side, I know other people who have six figures on their email list and are really struggling because people are unsubscribing in mass, people are not connecting, people subscribed for one thing, but then the creator became something different. And so now the people are like, why am I on this list? So don't make assumptions about numbers and about platform. Let's make 2026 the year of simplicity. So one platform, take a platform. I don't care. Like I hear people saying, well, I was on Instagram, but I just wasn't growing. So I switched to Pinterest and I gave that nine and a half days. Nothing happened. Nobody repinned me. So I went to YouTube, but I only have four subscribers and they're all family members, and no one's watching anything. So I quit. And they're just running in this endless loop and not getting traction. So for 2026, commit to one platform, and that includes an email platform. Commit to one service where you collect emails and just grow it over 12 months. You might grow everyone's rates of growth are going to be different. And to me, every subscriber who joins my list, who genuinely wants to be there and who gets what he or she came for and stays for a period of time during which I'm still valuable, that is success to me in the area of my email list. I don't pay a lot of attention to unsubscribes. They happen all the time. I don't pay a lot of attention to what they call like churn rate, which is basically unsubscribes, like how many people joined and how many people unjoined. It makes me crazy because I don't know why someone lopped off. What I know is I've I want to keep building genuine community, keep being of value, and keep offering the different products that I have. And as you've probably heard a lot of other creators say, like 1% of my email list ever purchases from me. And that is fine. It is a community, however, that I love nurturing and providing value to. And that could be 200 people or it could be 20,000 people. So the I guess the biggest thing, speaking to email specifically and speaking to ads, because you're gonna see them. You're gonna see the ads that are like, I made 150. $50,000 writing this book in a weekend. And I like to believe that that's true. Because it just seems crazy to lead with something that's not true. Just remember that while we're all like, oh my God, that sounds amazing. And I want to do that too. And why wouldn't you? There's context behind that. So they might have written a book in a weekend. I don't know how you do that, but they might have written a book quickly that sold a lot, but they might have put hundreds of, like not probably not hundreds, but like dozens of thousands of dollars of ads behind it. Or maybe they have an enormous audience to begin with. Or maybe they partnered with an enormous audience that had their ideal readers. That audience was full of their ideal readers. This might have taken 10 years. This might be their 17th book. All those things. So find the value where you can, and just know that when you think you're doing something wrong, or that it's easier for everyone else, or that you're missing something, I can all but guarantee you you're not. You're perfectly normal. This is a slow growing space. And sustainability and consistency, patience and persistence are going to be your best friends. So strap in. It's going to be a long ride. So if you're asking, are we there yet? And you're not even out of your neighborhood, it's just going to be a real long trip. I personally am going to try to devote a lot of this podcast in 2026 to speaking to this, but not in a negative way. More so in talking to more and more authors who are at varying levels of C the Air Quotes success, what they've learned along the way that you can take with you on your journey, what's worked well for them, what hasn't worked well for them. Not because you should adopt or dismiss whatever they say, but so that you continue to recognize and normalize the fact that everyone in this space has a different journey. And every approach is both right and in hindsight a little bit wrong. And none of us really knows fully what we're doing. And there is a lot of luck and there is a lot of timing that comes into play. And I don't want anyone to stop telling their stories and stop sharing their wisdom and their learnings and their lessons because they fear that they're doing it the wrong way. So that's the overriding theme I planning for 2026. We've also got some really exciting things coming down the pike, one of which I don't think I'm allowed to talk about just yet, but I'm real, real excited. So hopefully I'll be able to announce that soon. Keep your questions coming and just keep writing. Happy 2026, everybody.