Tips to Improve Newsletters Part II: Design

Designing an author newsletter can be a daunting task. Whether you‘re a seasoned veteran or a firsttime author, it‘s important to create an effective newsletter to nurture the author/reader relationship and expand your audience. 

Ready to roll up your sleeves and dive in? Cool. Let’s do this.

K.I.S.S.

A simple design works best. As JSB mentioned in the comments of Part I, many of us suffer from newsletter fatigue, so don’t confuse readers by adding more than a few key features. A minimalist style keeps the focus on the content.

Email services like MailerLite or MailChimp offer multiple templates that don’t require any tech skills to customize. Most are drag & drop.

Header Image

A high-quality header image sets the tone for your newsletter. I use the same header as my website, so readers instantly recognize the email is from me.

Catchy Headline

If your headline allows the reader to think, “Meh. I’ll read it later” chances are they’ll never get around to reading the newsletter. An irresistible headline encourages the reader to open your email as soon as it hits their inbox. Headlines aren’t easy. I still haven’t mastered them, but I have learned a few tricks.

  • Make readers feel like they’ll learn something. Example: How to Decipher Crow Language
  • Or focus on actionable steps. Example: Befriend Crows in 5 Easy Steps
  • Or solve a problem. Example: 6 Ways to Spend Less Money on Crows (if any of you ever receive an email with this headline, please forward it to me. LOL)

Once you have your header image and headline, it’s time to focus on your content.

Content

As I mentioned in Part I, give more than you receive. The majority of your newsletters should not ask your audience to buy anything. Condition them to click links, yes, but not a purchase link. For example, to match one of the above headlines, I could include a link to a live feed of crows building a new nest. Which, by the way, often includes weaving metal wires into the base to strengthen the foundation.

By giving more than you receive, you build trust. After all, you wouldn’t shove your book(s) in the face of someone you just met in person. Correct? Same principles apply.

The content should be concise, focused, and relevant to your theme. For a refresher on theme, read Part I. One of the easiest ways to lose subscribers is to overwhelm readers with too much information. No one will take the time to read a lengthy newsletter. Instead, fulfill the promise in your headline. Nothing more, nothing less. If you have more to say on the subject, save it for next time. The perfect length for a newsletter, so it’s worth your readers’ time but not time-consuming, is about 3-4 paragraphs.

Call To Action

At the end of your newsletter, include a clickable call-to-action button with compelling language like “Watch Live Feed” or “Download Free Book.” One of my favorite calls-to-action is “Hit Reply.”

Before the CTA, I ask a question. A few examples are:

  • Tell me about your favorite childhood pet.
  • Have you ever seen a bald eagle up close? What about a golden eagle? What was that experience like for you?
  • Have you ever been whale watching? How’d you feel when the whale breeched?

Note the words in bold. When you ask readers to hit reply, you are initiating a friendly conversation. Not only do you get to know your readers but you’re nurturing the author/reader relationship. And you’d be surprised how much people appreciate an author asking them anything, even if it’s only, “How’s your day going? You doin’ all right today?”

Too many authors toss out orders without giving two sh*ts about the people who read their books. Things like, buy my books, review my books, tell all your friends about my books, preorder my new release, follow me on every social media site and share all my posts. I saw your review on Amazon, but why didn’t you also review on BookBub and Goodreads and B&N and Apple and Google Play and Kobo?

Sadly, I’m not exaggerating as much as one might think. Not long ago, I unsubscribed from a well-known author’s newsletter after she told me to buy two copies of her new book, one for me and one for a friend. Seriously? I don’t care who you are. I’m not buying two $20 paperbacks because Miss Bigshot Author ordered me to do it. In fact, I stopped reading her books altogether. I’d rather support authors who appreciate their readers. How ’bout you?

Another author messaged me on social media to tell me she thanked me for my help in the acknowledgments, then had the audacity to say, “Buy the book to see your name.” If that wasn’t bad enough, she then asked if I could buy it that second — not later that night or in the morning — I had to buy the book right then. And, get this, send her a screenshot of the confirmation page as proof of purchase! The nerve of some people.

Ahem. Anyway…

By asking a simple question at the end of my newsletter, I’ve received some truly heartwarming responses. Readers just want to know they’re more than a sale to us. They want to be seen. Don’t we all? So, be genuine, be kind, and show your humanity.

Okie doke. Well, since we didn’t get to onboarding sequences and other time-savers, stay tuned for Part III.

Amidst a rising tide of poachers, three unlikely eco-warriors take a stand to save endangered Eastern Gray Wolves—even if it means the slow slaughter of their captors.

Restless Mayhem is available at all online retailers.

5 Tips to Improve Newsletters – Part I

When I bought back my rights to my Mayhem Series, one of the first things I did was to revamp my newsletters.

So, let’s discuss five tips that improved my newsletters. Hopefully, they’ll work for you, too.

 

  1. Consistency

Readers like to know when they’ll hear from you. Whether you send newsletters weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly, sticking to a schedule improves opens and click rates.

  1. Choose a Theme

The biggest complaint from writers is they don’t know what to put in their newsletters. As a result, so many end up being “Buy my book!” emails. Once I chose a theme, my newsletters became a breeze—even fun—to write.

Base your theme around your genre. If you write in multiple genres, it’s a good idea to segregate your list into genre groups. For example, a newsletter about fictional characters might not go over well for your nonfiction fans.

Because I write Native American metaphysical thrillers exclusively now, I share fascinating animal facts and tidbits about the Natural World. Once I based my newsletters around a theme, my opens and click-through rates improved tenfold. And it can work for you, too!

Open Rate

An email open rate is the percentage of subscribers who open a specific newsletter. Tracking open rates will give you a better understanding of how often your audience look forward to your emails, how successful your subject lines are, and what type of content is the most effective. Most email providers supply open rates for you.

A good email open rate falls between 17-28%. The average is 21.5% across all industries, according to the Email Marketing Benchmarks Report of 2022. For Media, Entertainment, Publishing, the average is 23.9%.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

A CTR is the measurement of how many subscribers clicked on a hyperlink, call-to-action prompt (CTA), or image within your newsletter. The main goal for you is to measure engagement. By tracking click-through rates, you can gauge how your audience responds to your content. If you’re getting low engagement, it might be time to rethink what you’re sharing. Believe it or not, a good CTR is 2.9% for Media, Entertainment, Publishing.

Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR)

Most authors don’t pay enough attention to CTORs. It’s a mistake to ignore this valuable information. A click-to-open rate measures the effectiveness of your content. Because it’s based on the number of unique opens, CTOR is a good indicator of how interesting your content is to your subscribers. If your links, layout, copy, and overall content are interesting, your readers will want to click through to learn more.

Some email providers will show you the CTOR, some will not. To measure your CTOR, divide the number of unique clicks by the number of unique opens. For example, 100 clicks divided by 180 opens = 55%. As with all the metrics listed above, the CTOR fluctuates per campaign. A good CTOR for our industry is 12.4%.

  1. Write to One Reader, Not Thousands

Adopting the right mindset makes all the difference. If you try to please everyone, your newsletter will come across as cold and impersonal. It’s also stressful. My #1 tip is to write to your ideal reader only. If some subscribers don’t enjoy your newsletter, they don’t belong on your list. Chances are, they won’t buy your books, either. That is, if you’ve themed your newsletters to match your genre.

  1. How to Choose an Ideal Reader

Search your beta reader list or ARC team or readers who reply to every newsletter. One name should rise to the top. Or, better yet, use the same ideal reader you write for—you do have someone in mind while writing, right?—and craft each newsletter as a conversation between you and them. Not only will your newsletter sound sincere, but everyone who reads it will feel like you’re writing to them. It’ll read like a warm hug to a friend.

  1. Give More Than You Take

By sharing interesting tidbits, recipes, oddities from a certain era (whatever theme you choose), you are training your subscribers to click. Most of the time, you aren’t asking for them to buy anything. For example, in one of my newsletters I shared fascinating facts about eagles. If they clicked the prompt, it led to a live feed of an eagle’s nest. See what I’m saying? I rewarded those who clicked with the chance to watch mother and father eagles care for their young.

By training your subscribers to click links in your newsletters, when you release a new book, they’ll be more likely to click again.

In my next post (Part II), we’ll dig into the ins and outs of designing the layout of your newsletter, and why it’s important. If there’s still room, I’ll include how to set up an onboarding sequence. If not, there will be a Part III. 🙂 Sound good?

Do you write newsletters? What’s your theme? What’s your #1 tip? If you’re a reader, what type of newsletters are your favorite?

Using Magnets to Attract Readers

Using Magnets to Attract Readers
Terry Odell

Reader MagnetSince everyone’s probably busy with holiday prep (unless you’re like me and your holiday is over), gift giving is or was part of the mix. Today, I’m talking about gifts authors can give to readers. Reader Magnets.

Saturday, Patricia Bradley’s post addressed newsletters. Unlike social media, newsletters lists are one tool we can control. We “own” that content. If a social media platform disappears (anyone remember MySpace?), we’ve lost that audience and have no way to get in touch with our previous followers.

A reader magnet is designed to reward people for signing up for your newsletter. It can be a short story, a full-length novel, a sampler—anything that connects to your genre and would have subscribers wanting more. When someone signs up, they’re given their gift.

How should you deliver these magnets, and what form should they take?
My preference is always to make it as easy as possible on both ends.

First, you need a signup form, preferably a dedicated/landing page on your website. That way, you can link everything to that place.

Next, you want as many paths to your signup process as possible. I start with a simple signup link in my email signature line. I have signup forms on my website as well. And the dreaded popup. Everyone says they hate them, but they work, as I discovered once I got over my personal prejudice and added one.

But what I really came to talk about was the magnet itself. I have one main magnet—two short stories set in my Blackthorne, Inc. universe, featuring the head of the company.

I chose to deliver it in three formats: epub, mobi, and PDF. That way, the end user gets to choose the format, and you’re likely to satisfy more readers. Nobody wants something they can’t read. Although Amazon now wants manuscripts delivered in epub, the mobi format is still out there and (last I heard), lets readers sideload onto Kindle devices.

My least ‘favorite’ format is PDF. It’s a picture. You can’t do anything with it, and reading on a small device like a cellphone is next-to-impossible for me, especially if the offering is more than a few pages. But the takeaway here is you are not necessarily your reader, so I offer it for those who like it.

How do I create these formats? I use Draft2Digital’s free formatting service. They don’t require you put your book for sale, and they do a fine job of converting a Word document into mobi and epub. For PDF, I simply take my Word Doc and do a “Save As … PDF” and it works fine. D2D will convert to PDF as well, but for whatever reason, if you have a color image as your ‘cover’, it comes out in black and white.

BookFunnelNow that I have these three formats, I need a way to deliver them to my subscribers. I use BookFunnel. I’m sure many here are familiar with the platform, but in case anyone isn’t here’s a little about it. You need an account, which is easy to set up. Their basic plan is $20/year, so yes, there’s an initial investment, but I’m a firm believer in Do what you’re good at, do what you love, and hire out the rest. One of the perks is that if you’re using their service, and a reader is having trouble with the download process, BookFunnel will help walk them through the process, so you’re out of that time suck.

Once everything’s ready, here’s my basic workflow:

You use the signup form from my website. You’ll get a confirmation and a link to the BookFunnel page for the magnet. You download the book, and you’re added to my newsletter list.

If you’re not already signed up to receive my newsletter and want to see how it works for me, you can try it for yourself here.

(And, since it’s a new provider for me, if there are glitches, I want to hear about them.)

Another pathway to your magnet is BookSweeps. They offer a lot more, but today is magnet day. Readers can find your magnet (along with thousands of others) and when they decide they want it, they’re taken to the book’s page at BookFunnel (since that’s what I’m using) where they can download it, but they have to agree to be added to your newsletter list in order to get it.

But I digress. My focus was supposed to be the magnets themselves, so that’s it for today’s post. If you have questions, leave them in the comments. Feel free to mention other magnet delivery systems as well.

fudgeYou are now free to resume your holiday activities. And if they include food prep, here’s a recipe for a five-minute fudge you can throw together in no time.

This is my last official post of 2021. See everyone on the flip side, and have a wonderful holiday season!


In the Crosshairs by Terry OdellNow available for pre-order. In the Crosshairs, Book 4 in my Triple-D Romantic Suspense series.

Changing Your Life Won’t Make Things Easier
There’s more to ranch life than minding cattle. After his stint as an army Ranger, Frank Wembly loves the peaceful life as a cowboy. Financial advisor Kiera O’Leary sets off to pursue her dream of being a photographer until a car-meets-cow incident forces a shift in plans. Instead, she finds herself in the middle of a mystery, one with potentially deadly consequences.


Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.” Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.