Podcast: Play in new window
We have the fabulous Margaret McGriff back to talk about newsletters for authors! From why people want to hear from us (no really) to what we should talk about, and how often, and what to do when our newsletters flop, she’s got great help for the writer facing down that terrible newsletter.
Video (from Twitch and YouTube):
<p>Writing is only part of a writing career -- no one warned us that we would need business acumen and entrepreneurship to be an author. Whether you're traditionally published or an independent self-publisher, it's good to have a leg up on accounting, marketing, time management, and other key skills.</p><br><p>These recordings of live discussion on craft and development, on business best practices, on explorations of fascinating and inspiring real life cool stuff, and more will help you along your writing journey and career development. Join Laura VanArendonk Baugh as she shares what she's learned and what she's learning. (Or join the weekly live discussion with your own questions!)</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.</p>
Transcript:
Laura
All right, now we should have picture and sound, let’s try this. Yes, hello, everybody. And we have friends in the chat. This is great. Yes. Tonight we have Margaret back. And as you can see, I didn’t even start with the me screen. We got to get to all the Margaret all the time tonight. So we’re just jumping straight in to all the good stuff. And I’m sorry, let me make sure the phone is muted. What jerk didn’t have her phone completely turned off? That definitely wasn’t me. Sure it wasn’t me.
Laura
OK, so Kate WorkAppropriateGoth Bridger ShyRedFox like everybody. Awesome. Great. So one super quick reminder. Today is June the 1st, at least in my time zone. And so probably should look at your author snapshots. Just saying, no pressure, no judgment, just a little hint. There you go. And and then, yeah, now it’s all about newsletters, so. If you guys, I’m just going to pump Margaret for information until we run out of time, but if you guys have questions, please throw them into the chat because otherwise I’m going to monopolize because that’s how I go.
Laura
Oh, Amy’s got her snapshot done and she’s getting to feel smug about it. It’s completely denies smug about awesome. So I, I think I’m just going to I’m just going to lead in with Laura getting to feel smug now that Amy is giving me that opening when we had our Patreon and Ko-Fi (I’m trying really hard to train myself to say coffee) and the subscriber talk. And one of the things that came up was how important it was to have your own mailing list and be able to communicate to people directly and not through social media or something like Ainu.
Laura
I didn’t even prompt anybody to say that like that came up. It was unscripted. And so so there we go. So this is the good follow up with now that somebody who’s not me has again affirmed how important a mailing list is or, you know, some means of direct communication. Let’s talk about that. So, Margaret, I’m sure you have heard absolutely every excuse and whine and complaint in the book. But just in case! She’s like, there’s nothing, you have not heard. There is nothing.
Margaret
No, no, nothing whatsoever.
Laura
By the way, I just need to throw out PJZooFit in the chat, says, quote, Margaret, you are my hero. End quote. So that is all. Yes. So you could start there. And she says she’s going to have questions too, so great.
Laura
But yeah. So big, big thing I think a lot of us start with is, why do people want to hear from me? Like, I make my imaginary friends fight each other for my amusement? What on earth am I going to do? Like to talk to people? Not about my characters. So. So hold my hand.
Margaret
Yeah. Yeah. See, that’s the thing, right? If we want to write books for others to read, we have to get comfortable with telling people about our said books. Right. And I’m not going to lie. The icky feeling never totally goes away, but I think newsletters give you that practice. At least you don’t have to say it out loud. It’ll kind of help you practice actually writing it out and getting used to talking to people, you know, because you you have to be able to market yourself.
Margaret
And part of marketing yourself is telling people about your book. So, like, you can’t just put your book out and people will magically appear. Maybe like 12, 15 years ago, maybe, maybe. But now you really have to make that effort to not only stand out among the twenty million books coming out, but you have to be comfortable telling people about it and talking about it and and telling people about your story. And one of the great things about email is, is that if somebody took the time to type in their precious email because you know how we all are about emails, right? We don’t just let any and everybody email us. Right. So if they took the time to type in their email, you can feel pretty confident that they actually do want to hear from you. Right. If they downloaded your freebie, you can be confident that they want to hear from you and you can’t get that same kind of confidence or that same kind of 100 percent guarantee with social media. Right. A lot of times we follow people and we only remember we follow them like they just get lost in the ether.
Margaret
We just saw the one thing and we kind of forget. But email, we check our emails every day. There are stats there that say that people still do emails and people still check their inboxes. So you can be confident people want to hear from you. So do you ever get that nagging feeling and be like, you know what, these ten twenty one hundred, three hundred people gave me their email address, so I’m pretty sure they want to hear about myself.
Laura
I am totally taking that thing that you said and using it on me. No, it’s not that I have to write an email to people. It’s that I get to take my time to carefully craft my words and not pitch to their face. Like that’s completely better for me.
Margaret
Exactly. And what makes it easier that I find too because a lot of objections that people have with email newsletters as well. I don’t have anything published yet. Awesome. Because the pressure to sell has totally been taken off your plate. Now you just get to just talk about your characters, talk about your favorite things, talk about your hobbies, talk about the books you’ve read and there’s no pressure to sell a thing, you know. So by the time your book does come out, if you are consistent with that newsletter, by the time it comes out, people are like, I have it bought already. Well, already in my cart, already on my on my Goodreads list, because you’ve built that relationship right.
Margaret
So actually makes the selling so much easier because you spent the time developing that relationship as opposed to somebody who waits. So the book comes out and then you’re like, oh my God, now I have to sell to people and people like I have no idea who you are. So it just it makes the pressure and it makes the overwhelming the stress so much harder when you do have something to sell.
Margaret
Right. So if you don’t have a book published yet, that’s awesome, because when you get to have fun, you get to relax. You get to be you, you know, until your book is ready to come out. And I can take a year, two years before my first fantasy book came out, I took two years. And those two years, I’ll send an email every month and I would talk about the book. I talked about the journey.
Margaret
I talked about books that were similar to mine that I made sure I read, you know, so all these things that you can include in your newsletter to establish that relationship so that by the time your book comes out, everybody’s like, good, I’m on board, I’m sold, you know, or let me be on your team or.
Laura
Yeah, you know, like, no, I good don’t have to. It’s not that I have to sell them on me and it’s like, no, you don’t have to sell them your book.
Margaret
Exactly. Exactly right.
Laura
PJ has a question, which is a really good question. I just did this last week, so I need you to tell me if I was right or not. OK, I have a blog and a newsletter and they are connected as far as audience. So if I blog about something, is sending a newsletter considered too repetitive or is there no such thing as too much promotion?
Margaret
No, it’s not repetitive because different people choose to read on different things, right? So if I don’t purposely go to your blog every day and know in the back of my brain that has 20 million other things going on, when your blog post comes out, nine times out of ten people aren’t going to go directly to your blog to find it. So if you email me and there are people that I follow all the time on Instagram, they email me. Oh, that’s right. I saw their blog post on Instagram, forgot to go look it up because, you know, Instagram only gives you links in your bio, but they email me and it’s like, oh, cool, it’s right here. I want to read this anyway. So, no, it’s not repetitive at all.
Margaret
In marketing, they say that it takes what we call seven touches in order for someone to remember. So seven touches means seven different ways to promote the same thing.
Margaret
Right. So you got blog. You got newsletter, you got Instagram. You might have stories. You might have YouTube, because our attention spans are like this big. Right. So we have to sometimes be repetitive. It’s repetitive to us. But where we get inundated with so much information on a daily basis, it’s not like we’re only seeing stuff from you all day, every day we’re getting all of this other information. So we might have seen it on Monday and said, yeah, I wanted to read it, but I forgot.
Margaret
Oh, so-and-so emailed me, though, so it’s literally like right here I can click the link to read on my phone and we’re good to go. So no, it’s not repetitive at all.
Laura
Some authors who emailed me to to tell me that the blog post is up and like this is what I’m talking about the blog. Here’s the link. I’m like you sneak. I see what you did to enhance the deliverability of your email by making me click a link in it like, yes, that was clever. So I’m totally doing that. So yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s a whole pile of worms on increasing your deliverability and all that kind of thing.
Margaret
And yeah. Yeah, that can get a little bit complicated.
Laura
So but the short version, having a link in your email that people actually want to click on is a good thing, so. All right, cool. Yeah. Guys, feel free to throw in questions because otherwise I’m just going to keep her. OK, just go. OK, so one of the things I struggle with and I’m I know it’s not just me, I’m just the poster child for tonight because I sit down and I’m like, oh, I have so many things going on in my life.
Laura
Like, I’m so busy, I’m so distracted, I have eighteen, whatever. And then I sit down and I’m like, newsletter. Huh? Yeah, yeah, And it’s the exact same thing that occurs to me, at least, it feels like when people are like, hey, welcome our new member, Laura, introduce yourself and you’re like. I have two hands…., have you even what what does that.
And so do you have like do you use a structure? Do you have you know, I try to write things down that I think are interesting and then then I have them when they come around a bit. But do you have a — like I have themes for the show because otherwise I’d never have topics. So I have themes for the show. Do you. Yes. Structure for newsletter. How do you do that?
Margaret
I do. I do. And I really just have a structure for my content overall and that’s kind of like another big can of worms. But it kind of plays into it because I usually plan my marketing a month in advance. So I usually start with an overall theme. So for example, I’ll talk I’ll think about in April, I’ll release a secret library. Right. So I know April, it is all about Secret Library. So it is going to be about Secret Library and my email newsletters, which I sent out a couple of emails, but my email newsletter is also going to be secret library things.
Margaret
But I already know that in March. So throughout March I’m thinking of ideas and I have segmented topics like repeated topics for each of my newsletters, kind of like sections, because who’s trying to reinvent the wheel? You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. Right? So I already know what my is look like. So if I come across something, I literally go on my Google doc and I’m like, talk about this thing or I see a funny video.
Margaret
OK, put the link to that video in there and Google Docs, because I can access it from any computer on my laptop, my desktop, my phone. So wherever I find it, I can just look it up and put it in there. Right. Some of the time it comes down to sitting down to write it. It basically has written itself right, it’s like my intro is usually something that’s personal that I’ve already shared on IG because I already have the theme right.
Margaret
Let just go to my IG caption and I’ll copy a piece. They tweak it a little bit, put it in there, because, again, not everybody follows me on Instagram, you know, so Emi Seeker like
Laura
A weight that’s come off my shoulders when I’m like, yeah, I can repurpose content to
Margaret
listen, listen. And repurposing is life, OK? So like if you want to have book reviews in your newsletter and you’re like you do bookstagram. What was the last book you reviewed on bookstagram? Copy that one, tweak it a little bit. I may go to the book and pull a quote or something from Amazon and Link and you’re done like it doesn’t have to be you don’t have to recreate the wheel. You don’t have to reproduce brand new stuff every single time. You know, I think the only thing in my newsletter that I produced from scratch is my writing updates because and that’s easy because I know what I’m doing right. I know what’s happening.
And that’s really it. Maybe the personal thing if something relevant comes up, but normally that’s repurposed from Instagram. My book reviews are repurposed from Instagram. I have links to cool stuff that I found online. So those are kind of things that keep track of stuff. It’s like a video or meme or a link to something or a friend’s book comes out. I just go my little Google doc, make sure you talk about this thing and that thing and the other thing.
Margaret
So, yeah, that that’s kind of like my system. I think the structure of having my email newsletter sections planned out ahead of time kind of lets me know when I sit down to write, OK, this goes in this section, this goes in this section. This goes in this section. And it takes me about an hour, hour and a half and we’re done. So that kind of helps me with the whole what do I write about anything, you know?
Laura
So I’m going to interrupt you just long enough to say, hey, guys, I’m really sorry I screwed up the stream. Margaret will be back in a minute. I just accidentally disappeared your face. But it will come back. It’s already back. It’s just I think it’s getting up. Yeah. And I was going to switch the video here so that I could bring up your newsletter that you just sent out so we could talk about. Sure, you’re in it. But I’m kind of scared myself when I.
Let’s see if I can. OK, let me see. Yes. Margaret up here without. Without losing you again, hold on. I’m really sorry I did I did OK. I did do this before we went live, but that was without you in the Zoom and apparently it’s being finicky.
Margaret
That’s OK. We can totally talk. Just imagine me in Tony Stark’s garage with all the Iron Man things in the back. And we’re good.
Laura
We’re good. Oh, yeah. Like, OK. Oh, whoa. There’s a lot of Margaret.
Margaret
Oh, hey, that’s me. All right.
Laura
We go right here and you can point over it, whatever you would like to. OK. All right. All right, and so, yeah, and P.J. says, I just realized that if it’s the tenth time I posted something, it might be the first time someone else is reading it, which is exactly, exactly the point you were making. And then Bridger says that we had a Laura-ception, which was totally the case because I got a little excited and hit the wrong thing, so.
Laura
All right. All right. So, yeah. Can you see the the your newsletter? Yeah. Yeah. It started out like this really pretty header. So I’m just going to be a little bit jealous of all the things.
Margaret
All right, listen, Cannava is life and in convert kit, once you do a template, I don’t have to upload that that header, the header or the footer. I don’t have to upload it every time. So convert kit is life when it comes to templates like that.
Laura
So pretty and on brand, and makes me think summery thoughts.
Margaret
Branding is important. Branding is totally important. So yeah. So that first section I always start with something personal. I look at my email news list as kind of just one person that I’m talking to. So instead of getting that overwhelmed, like I have to be this authorly person that has all of these fans, it’s like, no, we don’t have to do all of that. It’s as if I’m talking to a friend because I do consider the people on my list, friends like we’ll email back and forth.
Margaret
They will share things about themselves. I will ask them to share things about themselves. It’s a conversation. It’s a relationship. It’s not. I’m just handing you this newsletter with stuff I want to engage them in, kind of talk about the things that they might be talking about. So I just happen to take my first vacation after a whole year of COVID, and I’m pretty sure everybody can relate to, like, either going out for the first time, going somewhere or getting ready to do so.
Margaret
That’s what I kind of opened up with. And the key with that is I don’t just make it about myself. I’ll start out with myself. But then at the end, I say, you know what? You need to go and take a break. And what something that you’ve done that makes you happy. Or if you can’t travel, find something, go somewhere. So that way you can recharge. So I always want to make sure that I’m giving something inspirational and positive to my new subscriber in that first section.
Margaret
Now, that second section totally off of IG. That was an IG post that I did about the three different characters that happened to be in Secret Library. So I didn’t say, you know, the Secret Library characters in there, but I started off with those three things and asked them which one they are inviting them to, to e-mail me back if they want to. And then at the very end, kind of like your commercials where you get to the end of the commercial that tells you what the product is.
Margaret
And that’s where you get to click to buy from Amazon and the paperback and all that stuff. So that section is always dedicated to oh, and then reviews to that like the screenshots show people. Now this is the fun part. This is where the. Did you see this? Now I get to have fun and put in like so you Laura with your memes like this will totally be cute. Right. So I put in a little means because as I said in my header, a Marvel fan all day. Every day. Right. So nine times out of ten, I’m going to talk about something Marvel related in this section. Right. People know that. So they kind of expect it. Right.
Margaret
So and I had like three people email me just to say LOL at this scene after getting the newsletter. Awesome, right.
Laura
Because yes. Yeah, it was a great scene.
Margaret
And then the book review is one that I did again. It was straight off of Instagram. I just shortened it a little bit because I tend to be rambling on Instagram. I just shortened it a little bit. And that’s that section, right then my writing updates come next, those kind of write themselves because I actually know what’s going on. And then at the bottom, I participate in promo reviews like our newsletter swaps.
Margaret
So those kind of go in at the end of the newsletter and then you have the footer there that’s always there and also links to my books and all that wonderful stuff. And that’s it. But literally in my Google doc, I have each of those sections kind of like laid out, so I’ll just put in little notes or anything that happens to them. By the time I come to sit down and do my newsletter and I know I’m talking about.
Laura
So the key here is to not sit down and go now what? but to be accumulating throughout the month. Anything that makes me giggle, I should write this down kind of thing. Speaking of things that make me giggle, we have to take check in with a chat for a minute, because we have two chatters who are terrified of, you said, I consider my subscribers my friends, and we have two chatters who are terrified of their subscribers. So we need to have a little talk about this. Oh, OK. Also, Grace is being bullied by her chickens, and there’s like a whole thread about how many chickens and rapidly escalating chickens. And that’s the new punk band name. And let’s just.
Margaret
Oh, my God.
Laura
Delightfully out of control over there. So we’re going to leave. We’re going to hope that Grace and her chickens get sorted, the effort to help with that. So that’s good. But for our for our chatters who are not as comfortable with their subscribers, probably doing the same thing I do, which is, But they’re going they need to think that I’m an adult.
Laura
What is like like like do you write to a person that just happens then to go to many people? Do you think of speaking to a collective audience? What’s what’s good? How do you how do you do this?
Margaret
I think of one person and that one person should always be who your ideal reader is. I think if you try to think of a collective or even worse, everybody, you know, then that’s too much pressure to kind of appease everyone, you know. And I look at it as by the time you read my header, you already know what I’m about. Right? So if you are a DC fan and can’t stand Marvel, nine times out of ten, you’re not going to read the rest of the newsletter.
Margaret
And that’s cool, because my ideal reader loves Marvel. My ideal reader loves quick reads. She’s someone that doesn’t have enough time to read stuff. So that’s why I make the sections easy to read. That’s why my titles are color coded so she can quickly skim it and she can read it later. It’s really important just with anything marketing in general. I say before you start doing anything you really need to nail down your ideal reader is I’m talking about you.
Margaret
There’s no there’s no level of specificity that you can get on this person. Like you need to have a clear vision of who this person is. And this is who you are writing to as you become more established and you start getting things like, you know, Amazon reviews and people interacting with interacting with you on Instagram, then you get even a better idea of who this idea reader is. And then you can go back and kind of tweak things.
Margaret
And, you know, because I came into this and I’m like, well, I like Marvel. I don’t know how many people will necessarily like Marvel the way I like Marvel, you know, and then when people were like, this is kind of like Avengers. And this is kind of like, you know, that one movie where Thor lost his hammer. And I’m like, oh, my gosh, you get me right? So then I can say, all right, so now I don’t feel bad about Marvel references or I don’t feel bad about putting Tony Stark’s garage as my background. I mean, that’s just it’s me as all part of the brand is what I do. Right.
Margaret
So I think really and truly knowing who your ideal reader is takes that fear away. And something that my writing coach taught me early on was that, you know, don’t think of it as marketing, thinking it as geeking out with your favorite friends and you just happen to geek out about the same stuff like. Approach that with Instagram, approach that with email newsletter, and that’s what makes you kind of stand out, because if you get to the whole I have to be all authorly and it’s like it’s like almost like a company. There’s no personality. There’s no way to connect with anyone. Right.
Margaret
So don’t be scared of your email. New subscribers. You know, I love my subscribers and they shock me all the time because I have people who are like in their 60s reading my books about pirates, and they’ll email me and they’ll tell me this is the only way that I don’t do Instagram. I don’t do any of that stuff. But I look forward to you. You know, they’ll send me my my grandkids left, and I’m going to read this on the plane to see my grandkids or something.
And that’s hilarious to me because I didn’t envision that who that would be my ideal reader. But I can go back and take it to say, you know what, OK, I can include maybe older people who have more time to read. And the newsletters are even more important. I have to make sure the format is clean. I have to make sure it’s readable.
Margaret
I have to make sure that, you know, if it’s on the phone that it streamlines. Well, so all of these things kind of take into account of, you know, who my subscribers are. So don’t don’t be scared of them. They give you so much valuable information that you can just. Take with you and mark it and all that.
Laura
Kate says she started at the Internet baseline of cats because she loves cats, and she somehow ends up with the only people on the Internet who don’t like cats.
Laura
OK, those people aren’t real, Kate, they’re not real. No, like everybody lives on the Internet, loves cats like I think.
Margaret
Yeah, that’s there is this bookstagrammer, she’s amazing. And she’s reviewed some of my books. And I had her as an arc reader. And every picture she has, she has her dog or cat next to my book on top of my book. You know her the cat’s in her lap while she’s reading the book.
Margaret
I mean, it’s just really taking the time to find out where this person hangs out. And I think you will definitely find your people. You also have to be discerning about where you share your newsletter. Right. You have to make sure that you are marketing it to the right people. And I think that’s what kind of throws people off till, you know.
Laura
And I think I’m going to share a story about me because, well, it’s my Twitch stream, so this is the whole idea of, you know, I want to approach the newsletter as marketing, you know, and how skewed that makes our thinking. So last Thursday, I sent two newsletters last week because I’m trying to sort something out and like trying to poll my audience for for information. So that was that was a thing happened. But last Thursday, I’m working on my computer and suddenly there’s a bunch of cows in on my property.
Laura
I don’t own cows, but I did on Thursday. They just appeared. Right. And so, you know, my dad and I collected these cows and we put them in my my field and, you know, fenced them until people could know whether we got like, oh, my gosh, we got the owner of the cattle and we got police and we got animal control. The police closed the road and we did a cattle drive to get them home like it was a thing.
Laura
I got all of this, like, here’s the thing. Like that is completely the kind of thing that I would tell my friends. That is the kind of thing I did tell my friends. Like we have photos of the cows. Right. Of course. And. It did not occur to me until today that, oh, I could maybe put that in a newsletter like I don’t know if it would have occurred to me if we had not been having this conversation tonight.
Laura
And I’m just like, why would I not? Like I guarantee you, nobody else is sending the email this week going, you want to see pictures of baby calves that showed up in my yard for unpredictably, like randomly? Because like, that’s that’s a thing that I should take advantage of because I’m so busy thinking marketing thoughts like, you know, I don’t could just be like, hey, random cows, you know.
Margaret
So think about it. Right. It’s like a metaphor for your writing, because how many times you’re sitting here writing a manuscript and random characters just come out of nowhere that have no importance or planning and they just show up in your story and you’re like over the freakin book. Yeah. So what the heck am I supposed to do with you now?
Margaret
So my writing life is like herding mysterious cows that just show up on your lawn. Like I read that! I to say, like what what she’s even talking about? Like how does that even work? No writers will get it, you know, and then readers can be like. She put this in a story? To tell you, like, you still got to put this in a story somewhere, you know, like,
Laura
Yeah, and if nothing else, I’ve got pictures of baby calves. And I’m sorry, Bridger, you’re not real. Apparently a person on the Internet who’s not doing cat pictures. So now you’re a bot, Bridger. You’re not real.
Laura
OK, so we have another question from P.J.. Sure. I’m just going to read it verbatim. I struggle to have engagement with my audience. I have about a 12 percent open rate, but these people don’t unsubscribe. I have finally gotten over the agony of rejection when people unsubscribe because then my click rates would go up. But you have any tips to engage my audience so that they actually click it and read it. So awesome they won’t ignore me.
Margaret
Play with your subject lines. When open rates are an issue, play with your subject lines. I would say look at what you’re putting in your subject lines now and think of something totally different, totally creative. I know a lot of times authors will put you know, so and so’s monthly newsletter or something, you know, but let’s say you write a story about dragons and it’d be like, you know, unleash dragons, writing updates, and, Oh, there’s a book.
Margaret
What the heck is she talking about? Unleash Dragons. That would make me want to open it. Right. So I would play with your subject lines. I see. When open rates are an issue. Just try a different subject line, you know, so the next two or three news letters you send out. Have a different type of subject line and see how that does, you know, with your open rates, but nine times out of ten is usually the subject line and people do not subscribe because they have to go and open it to unsubscribe it.
Margaret
Right. So they’re not even going to open it. You know, and I would say with unsubscribes, never take that personally. I feel that I’d rather have a hundred engaged people that will buy anything that I put in an email than have two thousand people who never open one. The sheer numbers doesn’t matter. It’s all about engagement and it’s all about open, right? It’s all about click rate. So I would say try that.
Laura
Just to underscore that… Something I did because I was very happy with the number of my newsletter subscribers, but my open rates weren’t what they used to be. I had a lot of people sign up to get free stuff and then just never engaged again. And so I did a sunset e-mail where like, if you have not opened anything for me in the last year, you’ve got an email that said, do you want to stay? Do I unsubscribe for you? And I did save some people with that email, but I cut two thousand people off my list with that email. That hurt my soul. A lot. But also my my open rates jumped like 20 percent or something. I don’t remember what the exact figures were. That didn’t make as much of an impression as cutting those 2000 people.
Margaret
So I did a major purge. I want to say I did something similar and that I mean, I have a whole process because I’m such a marketing nerd. So I actually have when you get my freebie, you have to go through a series of like six emails before you even get to my newsletter list, because I want to make sure that when you get to that list like you are my people, right. And give people also an opportunity to get to know me and to get to know my writing.
Margaret
So one is a welcome email. It tells three things about me. Tell me three things cool about you. Second, email is thank you for downloading it. This is what’s going to happen next. I’m going to send you a free excerpt from Macario Scepter. You’re going to get one right after the other. You’re going to get three of them. So then that happens. So once they stay, they haven’t unsubscribed, then they get to my list.
Margaret
So I can be pretty sure that I have a good group of folks on my list. But I did do kind of like I went through. Convert Kit has literally a list that says cull subscribers. They’re basically they group people who haven’t opened your emails for, you know, four or five different emails or whatever. And I said something like, Do you still want to hear from me? I’m like, you know, I know your email inbox is full and I know it’s something, you know, so many crazy things. If email is too much, I’m always on Instagram. You can follow me there, the type of thing.
And I’m thinking like all these people going to drop off and they were people like I got like 80, 90 people, like stayed. And we’re like, oh my God, no. It’s just that, you know, like, got busy or, you know, I got overwhelmed. But, you know, if I don’t open up your monthly email, I just want to know in your books come out like, you know, that that kind of thing, like don’t take me off.
Margaret
But I did cut, like, about a good couple of hundred people off and yeah, that hurts some.
Laura
It’s like sawing off fingers.
Margaret
but at the same time you know that these are your core people, right. These are the people that want to hear from you. And like you say, you’re open rates go up and your click rates go up and all that lovely stuff.
Laura
And we mentioned deliverability earlier. And if I have more people, a higher percentage of people opening my email than that, make sure my email actually gets to more of the people on my list and it’s not ending up or in spam and all of that. So it’s one of those things that I did that cut to make sure other people could get that email but, oh, man, like I almost took up drinking. I just think it was ah, OK.
Laura
We have a question from Grace and OK, really good question. What do you think of that technique where you resend the same email but with a different subject line, but only to subscribers who did not open the first one. She tried it once and was surprised at how well it worked. But is it spam?
Margaret
No, because the people didn’t see the e-mail before. Now I’ve done it, I only do it with emails that I feel like, quote unquote, important monthly newsletters so much. If you didn’t catch it the first go around again, the second go around, no big deal. But sometimes, like some of my sales emails or I’ll have a segmented list of people that I call superstar subscribers, like they open up everything, but for some reason they didn’t open up anything I might respond to.
Margaret
And I’ll just put a like in case you missed it, you know, I don’t even I just see the same subject line, but I’ll put like, you know, in case you missed it, this kind of thing. And then I’ll see you a couple of more people opening it up. So it’s not a bad tactic. Marketing is all about testing. If you do it a couple of times and it works whole run with it. If you do it a couple of times and it’s like and you open rates aren’t that good, people are unsubscribing a little bit more, then don’t. You know, it’s all about finding what works.
Laura
Kate’s pointing out the email onboarding is another reason not to assume your subscribers are like me because she says I’d never make it through a six email onboarding sequence. You have obviously people who really want Margaret stuff. They’re willing to do it.
Margaret
You have to make it interesting, I think. And I and I tell you ahead of time. See, what I don’t like is, is when they don’t give you a heads up. Right. It’s like, OK, sign up for your I sign up for the newsletter. And I got all of these things. I usually say welcome newsletter, welcome email off the bat, and it has a picture of me and it’s here. Three things you should know about me. Tell me three things about you. And a lot of people email because they’re like, oh, I never like you here. Like all these cool things about people. Right.
Margaret
And then three days later, it’s the subject line is thank you. And it’s thank you for letting my freebie. I hope you enjoyed it. I would love to know what you think. Here’s what happens next. I’m going to send you free three free excerpts out of a book. Everybody wants three free excerpts out of a book, right? So the first each through each of those excerpts are from characters in the book. So it’s a different character, every email.
Margaret
Right. So it’s not the same kind of redundant thing. The first one like you saw my email is the treasure hunting nun. The second one is the pirate and the third one is the chosen one. So then after that, it’s another. Thank you for sticking around. Now you’re going to get my monthly emails. So I let people know ahead of time what they’re getting into. So that way, if you want an out, we’ll click them subscribe button and go.
Margaret
And then after that onboarding email. You don’t hear from me again until another month. The only time you’ll get multiple emails from me is when we get closer to a launch. And by that time, I’ll tell you, hey, Secret Library is coming out in April. I’ll tell you this, in January, I’m ramping up and here’s what I have going on. A, B, C and D, I might reach out to you if you wanto to do the cover reveal. I might reach out if you want an arc.
Margaret
So it’s letting your audience know what’s going to happen instead of just springing all this crazy on. All right. You just kind of, you know, be courteous and let people know like what to expect.
Laura
Communicating is is obviously key. Like just I’ve definitely signed up for oh, I’m interested in this free free download. I’m getting three emails a day for the first week. I’m like, stop, stop!
Margaret
It’s too much.
Laura
And it was they were coming from different addresses. Clearly they had shared my address around, so they were coming all connected to the same event or whatever. And I was like,
Margaret
yeah, I don’t like that. Just don’t I don’t like that.
Margaret
Like I say, I expected of my friends. So I’ll tell my friends, hey, I’m planning this thing. So I might ask you for a B and C, a D or I might even say in an email that’s not typical. It’s like, hey, I’m interrupting your email real quick because I have something important to tell you. And usually those emails are quick to the point. And then I’m out because I know people are busy and I’ve got things to do and I normally don’t email.
Margaret
You also know it’s just being transparent.
Laura
So is there a sweet spot for the number of emails to send? I think you’re doing monthly. I know some people do weekly. I actually know people who do daily. Bless their hearts. Yeah, always good. Oh, of. Weekly or monthly or I’m I’m kind of like semi quarterly. I don’t even know what I like. Probably that’s part of my problem, like I should have said. But what do you recommend?
Margaret
I think when you’re first starting, you need to find a schedule that works for you and I know this isn’t the common place, you know, you probably expected me to say it has to be X number, but everyone’s schedules is different. And the problem that a lot of authors and writers have is we try to do all the things that we should do, but we don’t have time to do such things. So what happens? You’re all gung ho.
Margaret
You get on the ball, you’re like, do these e-mails like once a week, every week. And then month three comes along and you are still burnt out and stressed and you drop the thing altogether and then you don’t do another email for like six months, you know, as opposed to, OK, I only have time to do a monthly email, which is neat. I only have enough time to do a monthly email. And if I need to send stuff more frequently, like for launches, I preschedule all of that.
Margaret
I take a day, I write them all out, I hit schedule and then I go on about life.. So look at your schedule. What do you have time to do?
Laura
God bless schedule in advance.
Margaret
Yeah. What do you have time to do? I know editors in particular that do quarterly, but her quarterly newsletter is chock full of stuff. Right? So yeah, I may only hear from her once a quarter, but man, she has good stuff in there that it’ll probably take me all quarter to kind of get through. Right. Or kind of absorbing all the tips and everything that she gets. Right.
Margaret
So take a look at your schedule. I am a big fan of doing a time audit, like really getting serious about your day from the time you wake up to how long it takes with you to deal with your kids, to how long it takes you to commute to work, come home from work. Maybe you like to do yoga exercise, put that in. OK, you need an hour and a half. Looks cool. Put that in. Right. Do something that works for your schedule because nine times out of ten, if you do something that you have time for, you will stick with it.
Margaret
And it’s all about consistency, consistency, email, marketing. Instagram doesn’t matter. It’s all about being consistent. So whatever that looks like for you, there is no magic number, there is no, if you if you send a new email newsletter every two weeks, then you’ll get a million subscribers.
Margaret
No, it’s all about what works for you and then being consistent with it. I’ve been doing a newsletter once a month every month for like two or three years now, and that works totally fine for me.
Laura
And you just are up front with people like during launch months, there may be more than one newsletter, so they’re not going to go out about. Yeah. Oh, so much, Margaret. All in one month or something. So OK.
Margaret
Yeah, I’ll say, hey, the this is launching, you know, like a Seeker library. I think I did a cover reveal one. And then two weeks after that it was to remind because its cover reveal and preorders. So I do one email at the top and then when it gets closer it’s like, hey, just to remind you that the preorders are still open, you’re going to get all of this swag. Here’s the link and I’m out. It’s like super short email. It’s not no big long production. It’s super sweet. And to the point, because that email has a goal, it’s about to get more preorders and to remind folks that there’s a PR coming or ending.
Laura
Is there a recommended length? Because I know sometimes you see the stuff floating around about three hundred words is the perfect length or seven hundred words is the perfect length. So, OK, no, it’s just be you. Awesome. I like that better.
Margaret
No, we put so much pressure on ourselves and all of these like it should be this, you know, like it really all depends. I do marketing as a day job for a staffing firm. And some of our emails are just a pretty picture. It’s a poster done. That’s it. Sometimes it can be a whole white paper. It all depends on who are talking to what the subject matter is. You know, it all depends. And sometimes it’s different people that we’re talking to.
Margaret
So only you know who your ideal reader is. If your ideal reader is someone who like let’s say like literary fiction, man, you can go on for pages because literary fiction is you can get all far and everything else because that’s literary fiction. But for me, on the other hand, I write books that I want you to finish in a weekend. I want you to stay up late for at least two nights and you can finish it in a weekend and then go on to the next book.
Margaret
Right. So I’m not going to have these long, very drawn out emails, you know, and being minutes once a month, it’s a little longer. That’s why I have like about five sections. But that’s it. You know, it’s it’s trying to get to the point because my ideal reader does not have time. If your ideal reader has time, then sure, you can go a thousand, two thousand, three thousand words if you want. You know, so good. No magic numbers, no magic pills, marketing, none of that.
Laura
Good to know. That makes me, I like the less pressure version of this. This is great.
Margaret
Let me tell you, it’s it’s and trust me, I’m I’m very type a, sort of type A me loves things to be perfect and it has to be just so. But at the same time, it’s like you have to be yourself and readers will connect with somebody you know who’s a person. You know, we think of brands that we connect to and makes us feel like there’s a person behind it. You know, it’s not has to be all stuffy and professional and what have you, you know, so and relax, have fun with it.
Margaret
And when you relax and have fun with it, it comes off to the reader who’s reading it. It comes off in the language you use and the pictures you use, the subject lines, whatever it is, you know.
Laura
So I don’t I don’t honestly remember if I’ve ever said this on the stream before, but one of the reasons that I wanted to do this kind of thing on Twitch as opposed to, you know, prerecording on YouTube, is I actually have a degree in video production from back in the dark ages of CRTs and linear editing and all of that. Like seriously nonlinear editing was the new cool thing on the horizon. Look it up, kids! Anyway, where was I going with this.
Laura
If I were to sit down and be like, I’m going to record a video on how do a tutorial video or something, I get so wrapped up in getting it right that it doesn’t get, done and perfect have to be equivalent, by forcing myself to do something live. As you all know, life stuff happens by video and I have to just run with it. And it is that means that stuff actually gets done because it’s going out every Tuesday, even if I have muted myself yet again.
Laura
But I have chosen a format that makes it impossible for me to stress about perfection, and therefore I am more productive. So I think there’s a whole life lesson right there in getting over myself. And yeah. So I’m just getting to realize that I hey, sometimes I can just send the wrong email and as long as I laugh about it with people then we’re good.
Margaret
Yeah. Man, I’ve, I’ve had emails where I’ve sent out like an email to like a hundred some odd people and the link is all kinds of wrong. And then I’m getting all of these different emails about the link is wrong. And of course you have a panic attack for about five seconds. Right. And then it’s like, OK, you know, the drunk elves behind my email sent out the wrong link. Here you go. Right. No harm, no foul.
Margaret
Right. Like the world is going to fall apart. It’s not going to you know, if there’s a typo or two in there, people are not going to, you know, unsubscribe in like droves, you know, whatever. But you’re a person. I mean, it’s it happens. You know, so.
Laura
And I’m going to go back to the unsubscribe thing. People are going to unsubscribe and I need to know that that’s not — yes, it’s about me, but it’s not about me. Right. Like, I actually got an email. I’m talking to my people, my readers about I’m going to start doing some serious fiction just as an experiment. We talked here about Vella and things. And I actually got an e-mail back from somebody who said that another author she read started doing serial fiction on the side and she quit reading that author because. I’m just like, I’m not taking away, like, the novels. I’m just also here’s another option. If you’re going to quit over that and you weren’t that committed,
Margaret
that’s not your people.
Laura
Oh, and then it’s just like, OK, you know, like, I can’t let that be about me because I would freak out if I let that be about me.
Margaret
Oh, absolutely. And let me tell you, I have some of the coolest and most polite people ever. I can — quite a few unsubscribe emails. They will email me and tell me they apologized that they had to unsubscribe because they’re just overwhelmed with so many different emails and newsletters. So I tell them, thank you for signing up. I hope you enjoyed the freebie if you’re on Instagram and it’s just easier for you to follow me on Instagram. I’m updating stuff on there all the time.
Margaret
And here’s my Instagram handle. Done. You know, so sometimes, like you said, it’s not about you. Sometimes people are just inundated with emails and people are just maybe they follow you on Instagram and don’t want to follow you on the newsletter because they’re getting what they need from Instagram, you know, instead of the email newsletter. So it’s 20 million different reasons, you know, you know, for unsubscribe. So it’s going to happen.
Laura
And you’re what you’re saying about communicating with them afterward, leave that door open! Like they might want to come back. Right. Like this stuff is going on and I need to clear my inbox so I can get my brain together and then I’m going to subscribe to things. So, yeah. So, Kate, the chat is appreciating your drunken elves and Kate’s having my shapeshifters for me.
Margaret
I can’t take credit for the drunken owls because I have a DM chat with some writer friends of mine. And whenever we do a typo, we’re like, oh, that drunk elf again. Like, that’s us. That’s just so. Yeah, yeah. It’s a thing. It’s a thing.
Laura
Well, I know that we have a hard stop tonight, so I’m going to pause and say, hey, chat, this is your final call for questions, because Margaret has important places to go and important things to do and we’re going to make sure that we get her out on time because I’m not not not letting her to come and not come back. Not wanting her. You got it. Got it. Got it. Resubscribe That’s what we’re doing.
Laura
So if you have questions, please get them in at this point. So also, this might be a good point while people are typing into the chat, to mention that there is a hint of something on the horizon that we could look forward to for newsletter handholding and moral support, do you want to do this?
Margaret
Yeah. So like we said at the top, like author newsletters, is a thing that so many writers are so many writers struggling with. Right. And and so I sat down and I’m like, OK, well maybe I can come up with an I did come up with that freebie handle that we talked about in our last interview. Right. That five stress of topics you can put in your newsletter. Right. Which is also on my website that you can grab.
Margaret
But I’m like, that’s not enough. I said, well, maybe I can do just like a mini course. Right. So while delving in and like I said, I’m too marketing for a living. I have gosh, I’ve been working professionally in marketing for like thirteen years. So like when Geocities and blogs were a thing.
Margaret
I had a Geocities site, okay?
Margaret
Yeah. That far back. And, and just in my last company, I’ve been doing their content and email strategy for the last six or seven years. And I was like, there’s so much more to the newsletter and there are so many pain points that can be addressed that this turned into like a five week email newsletter course just for fiction writers, because I feel like the stuff that’s out there is geared towards more nonfiction, which is understandable.
Margaret
Writing nonfiction solves a problem, but we are in the entertainment business and being that we feel entertainment is so subjective and like you say, people want to, why would people want to hear from me? And I address all of those kind of mindset things. I’m like, OK, so I’m going to put together a course doing just that. And they kind of walk you through why author newsletters are important, because they said we have a vague idea, like it’s kind of better than social media, but there are really more reasons why it’s important to coming up with that structure and having those ideas and preparing them ahead of time to how to know if it’s working.
Margaret
So when we had that question about my click rate is down, what do I do? You know, you can play with subject lines. If my click rate is not looking right, what can I do if my I have too many unsubscribes? Because that can be a thing. You know, unsubscribing is one thing, but if you have more people unsubscribing than subscribing, then what you can do with there and it kind of walks you through all of those things.
Margaret
And yes, it’s very handholding and very like I want to walk you through it and not be scared of your newsletters or be scared of the people subscribing. So, yes, I’m working on this course to launch by the end of the summer. So it’ll be a little insane because I’m doing that and working on a book to be released in the fall. So, you know, just send lots of coffee and chocolate over here and I’ll feel all kinds of better.
Laura
Yeah, I was reading your writing updates. You’re like, yeah, book two just come out. Book three is at the editor, I’m working on book four. And I’m like, well, just past the guilt. Double helping. OK, thanks.
Margaret
Hence the once a month newsletter because that’s all like that. That’s it.
Laura
That’s it. So Kate is sending coffee and chocolate in the chat so. Thanks Kate. I’ll just pass this along.
Laura
And Kate says — And this is totally not just Kate. Kate speaks for all of the for the community. My problem is just self worth. No one wants to hear from me. I feel the same way about all my social accounts and and she suggested, need to be slapped. I don’t think that really is going to help the self worth thing so we’re going to skip that part.
Laura
But yeah, that is that is exactly it because it feels so much like me. Me, look at me and. Yeah, I mean, I know you said I know you said your course is going to address that, but can we have the two minute version now?
Margaret
I can give you a nice one liner that I kind of use even for myself. Right. Because it doesn’t matter how long you do this, we have the doubts and like who wants to have this thing for me come from it of an angle of how can I be of service. Like people have been wanting books about pirates. They can’t find books about pirates. There’s like a handful, but we need more.
Margaret
My book feeds that, is serving you what you are looking for. Right. If in YA fantasy you hate that it’s always just the same type of characters, my treasure hunting. None is here to serve and entertain you. Right.
Margaret
So think of it as coming from a place of service. Think of it as coming up, a place to serve your fellow writers. The more you write and learn and make falls and stumbles, you can help your fellow writers avoid that.
Margaret
The more stories you put out there, you can have that one story that will resonate with someone that you wouldn’t even think that would resonate with them. You know, you are of service to them. So if you look at it like that and it takes the pressure off of, it has to be about me and being of service to readers and writers, I’m adding my perspective in my story to the collective because we all know we can never have too many books. We can never have too many bookshelves. Kindle is a wonderful yet dangerous invention because we can load like ten thousand books on there and take them wherever we go.
But. You’re being of service and just think of it that way, so when you have a little doubt what I am being of service to somebody, just one person, when I look at it like that, just one person enjoying my story, my mission is done. You know, everything else is, you know, frosting on the cake to me.
Margaret
So I hope that helps with the self doubt.
Laura
Exactly what you’re saying like. When I’m working on nonfiction stuff, I can point to and be like, this is my day job, this is what I do with, this is the knowledge I can share. This is how I can literally save a life with this knowledge. And in fiction I’m like, These are my imaginary friends. I have fun with them, you know, and it’s just it is a hard mental shift to be, and they can help you, too. And so.
Laura
So, yeah, I’m just going to I’m going to replay this. Somebody can clip it. We’ll save it on the twitch stream. I’m going to be pulling out the tape it to my computer.
Margaret
Yeah, just be of service. Somebody is having a hard day, like with my editor. Like when she’s having a hard day, she’s like, oh, just going to edit your stuff because Mari and Louis just make me laugh. Wonderful. My job is done, you know, my job is done, you know. So just look at it like that. Yeah. Just being of service to others.
Laura
OK, so people who are interested, you know, on that course on the horizon, go hang out on Margaret’s newsletter and stream and socials and stuff and we’ll see those when that rolls out. And PJZooFit points out, yes, you have something important and worthy of sharing absol frequently. And we all do.
Margaret
We all do.
Laura
Yes. So OK, I would love to pontificate on that just because that’s a thing I feel very strongly about and I would love to quiz Margaret some more, but unfortunately we do have a hard stop. So we need to. I’m sorry
Margaret
I said no, we do.
Laura
I’m sorry, I was talking over you. It’s OK. Yeah but yeah. So guys, we will we will let Margaret go this time. Next time, gadget.
Margaret
And next time you guys can have me longer. Trust me you this time is the just te summer has been so crazy. But I appreciate you guys having me. This is fun.
Laura
Oh I’m thrilled you came back and really appreciate this was this was great info. So we will save this and then. Yeah. ShyRedFox says thank you much Margaret with a little Purple Heart. Welcome and welcome. This has been really good info, so I thank you very much for coming and hanging out again. And so we’re going to go up there. I do not know if Alena streaming tonight. I don’t know. I’ll go find that. I mean, I think she is streaming, but I don’t know what her topic is. Let me be specific about that. So we might go raid Alena in a moment, but everybody have a fantastic week. Go start your Evernote list of things to put in your newsletter or whatever, and then we will see you next time.
OK, thank you Margaret and
you’re welcome.
Have a fantastic evening and all right. oK, all right, everybody, oh, that’s a great thing, I don’t know what’s going on the camera.
Laura
That’s fine. All right, this is fine. I’m going to hop us over to Alena. Everybody have a fantastic week and I can’t type and talk at the same time. I am such an adult. This is why I have to do things live, so I don’t stress about them. OK, ready. Hey, take care. Bye bye.
