Results of the author newsletter survey.
The results are in from the recent Author newsletter survey. Due to restrictions only 40 people were able to comment but it gives a good idea of what readers think.
Do you read author newsletters?
It may have been better if I have asked do you subscribe to newsletters but the break out is:
- Yes: 55%
- No: 2%
- Sometimes: 38%
- Rarely: 5%
How often do you want to receive a newsletter?
The break out is:
- Monthly: 69%
- Twice a month: 12%
- When a book is coming out: 19%
What is the most important thing in a newsletter?
The top answers to this question were:
• Information on new releases, including background on the new book.
• Author information for readers to get to know the author.
• Giveaways/contest, excerpts of the book or freebies.
What kind of content makes you want to open and read the newsletter?
A variety of answers to this one.
• Cover reveals.
• Behind the scenes of an author.
• Information on the new book or book they are writing
• The blurb and some would like an excerpt
• News about the author to get to know them better
• Giveaways or contests or questions to answer.
• Updates on books
What do you want to see more of in a newsletter?
This one had several answers with the most popular listed first.
• Information about the author
• Fun things that happen when writing to an author
• Freebies, giveaways and contests and questions for readers.
• Relatable information
• Behind the scenes
• Recipes (Ironically some wanted to not see recipes)
• Variety
What do you want to see less of in a newsletter?
The most mentioned answer was the first point, hard sells, adds and the constant buy my book.
• Hard sell, Adds, constant buy my book.
• Long stretches of writing with no gaps, illustrations or photos and are more like a novel.
• Promoting other books to buy. (One is enough or do links to recommendations where the reader can choose to click)
• Cross promotion especially across genres especially if its more about other peoples books and not the author.
• Politics.
• Newsletters asking readers to promote a new book, it is better to ask readers if they would like to be on a street team.
• Too frequent especially when a new book is out.
What makes you want to unsubscribe
Surprise, surprise the top an most mention reason was the same as the last answer
• Newsletters all about buy my book.
• Too frequent especially when a new book is out.
• Questionable content.
• Recipes.
• Coloured background and too small a font.
If you were to make a suggestion to an author about the newsletter, what would it be?
• Would like back story about their current work in process.
• A photo or two (not too many).
• Keep it interesting.
• Be honest and share what you are comfortable sharing.
• Don’t feel pressured to send out a newsletter especially if you don’t have time or have any news to shared.
• Behind the scenes photos.
• If you have a new book coming out don’t bombard readers with the pre-order emails.
• A quiz about what you are writing or a poll or questions for readers to respond to.
• If a reader does reply, please make sure you respond.
[bctt tweet=”Results are in from the author newsletter survey. Are you surprised?” username=”acwriters”]
In summary:
I would like to reiterate the DO NOT BOMBARD readers with the buy my book. There are authors who will send daily emails about an upcoming book. This will result in mass unsubscribing even if you are a favourite author. I have even been told of readers who no longer buy their books due to this. It is ok to send out a newsletter with info on the new release and where to pre-order. If you do a monthly newsletter yes mention it again with a link but not every day or several days a week.
On a personal note, this happened with a box set recently. With several authors all sending the pre order link and one sending daily emails it was overwhelming. I finally had to unsubscribe to one author due to emailing so often.
It is interesting to get this feedback. Thank you, Iola.
Hi Heather its actually me Jenny but thats ok. Yes it was interesting. most of the turn offs I agree with. Especially the hard sell emails that come out sometimes every day.
Interesting, thanks Jenny. I don’t have an author newsletter, but have wondered about it from time to time. I was listening to a podcast the other day and they mentioned the importance of a newsletter for Indi authors, but I subscribe to Stephen King’s so it certainly isn’t only Indi authors who use them to keep their readers informed. I admit I fall into the category of subscribing but not always reading newsletters – but I could also say that about half the emails I get!
I get newsletters I glance at and really should unsubscribe but haven’t yet. I am slowly culling them as they are not authors I am now reading or the genres I like but feel bad doing so. But when even an author I like spams about buying a book constantly they get cut.
The newsletters I pay most attention to are the ones that engage with the audience. they may have a question to answer which is good (as long as they reply). One asks the question and you answer on her blog and one person will win a free copy of her book.
Others have a monthly winner in the newsletter of a free ebook (some are print).
A recent one has a book coming out and asked if anyone wants to help promote it to join her street team for the book. This way here newsletter doesn’t have the hard sell in it.
The best comment was don’t send a newsletter just because you feel you have to. You can see when an author has just slapped it together cos of a schedule.
The other thing I would be saying don’t over share about family, grand children etc. Its fine to mention them but we don’t know who is reading and putting to many photos of minors is not always a good idea.
Glad you got a good number of reader responses. I will take all of this under advisement.
Thanks for going to the trouble of doing the survey.
I actually got more but would have had to pay to get the remaining responses. A couple did mention they like a newsletter like you and Narelle do so I think you now have a good formula.
Thanks for doing this survey and compiling the results in such an easy-to-use way.
I found the mixed message about recipes interesting. Care to expand on that?
Hi Carol. I asked what you want more of one person said recipes (out of 40) and on said its a reason they want to unsubscribe. I for one don’t read the recopies but I think it is more the authors who feel they have to send out an email every month or twice a month and have very little information and then add a recipes to fill the newsletter. It is better to wait till you have something to say and then add the recipe at the end. It’s like authors who send out a newsletter with very little information and over half is adds for other peoples books. (One I get now is like this a picture of the latest book and link to buy and a question then about 6 – 8 book adds for other books)
I guess it would depend on the type of book. I can imagine it being interesting if food was a main feature in the book (e.g. your heroine runs a bakery) and it could be linked in with that. I seem to recall Jessica Kate doing that with one recipe of a slice that was mentioned in her Australian novel. But that was just a one-off recipe in one newsletter. But I wouldn’t be interested if the author just decided to send their favourite recipes for something to write about.
Thanks for commenting Nola. There are some authors that put a recipe in every newsletter but don’t have cooking at all in books. One I read writes Amish and puts in an Amish recipe this is fine due to it being the genre and there is always other news. But there are a couple I get where the books don’t contain cooking but they put in a favourite recipe every time. When they are at the bottom of the newsletter I just skip them.
There are other things like that where one person likes something others don’t. One other comment was more deep devotionals (This I know came from a non-fiction writer who writes this genre).
Thanks for taking the trouble to do that survey, Jenny. I’ll actually print off a copy of the blog to refer to again. I’ve been wondering about the usefulness of my newsletter. It’s interesting that your results showed that readers weren’t so interested in cross promotions of other genres. I’ve done lots of those in conjunction with giveaways. Might need to rethink that and include more about my writing. Though readers do seem to like my giveaways and quizzes. Interesting food for thought.
Hi Nola, It was only a couple that said cross promotion. If it was a giveaway or a chance to win something then most would show an interest. Most readers read a variety of genres. Although many romance readers are not interested in fantasy but would read Historical or Contemporary. The important this is not have a promotion where you have to join all the newsletters.
Readers do love giveaways and quizzes don’t stop them. If you don’t have a large drop of then you have a good formula.
The biggest turn off is the hard sell. Being bombarded with post prior to a release. Also the cross promotion would be if you are including adds or promo for other peoples books. Some authors will have 4 or 5 promos for other books. The way Narelle does it with a link to recommendations she has put in the past month on her blog means the reader has a choice to read and doesn’t feel the buy my friends books push.