I recently joined a lot of online groups of writers. Many of the members of these groups ask about email newsletters. They know they should have one and many of them do, but they are not quite sure what to send to their subscribers.
I signed up for a lot of author email newsletters to experience some best practices. Unfortunately, I’ve heard from very, very few of them. Most authors send emails to their lists sporadically.
One email newsletter, however, has stood out so far.
Garrett Robinson, science fiction and fantasy writer of the Nightblade series and Underrealm books, models an interesting approach.
Let’s call it The “Meet the Characters” Email.
Robinson created an entire collection of books in the same world so if you read and like one book, then you are likely to go on to read some others.
As a result, there are a lot of characters in his books.
When you go to his website, the first thing you see is a giveaway for Nightblade, which he calls “the first step in an epic adventure.”
From there you start to receive regular emails as a member of his email list.
My favorite email he has sent so far has the subject line “This is NOT the face of a hero.”
Here is a short excerpt from the email:
“Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. If you were wandering around Underrealm, Loren isn’t the first person you’d expect to be a hero.
But the kid you’re about to meet is definitely the last person you’d expect to be a hero.”
The book is called The Alchemist’s Touch.”
I have to say, I really wanted to read the book after reading the email and it’s on my “want to read” reading list.
If you are a fiction author and want to know what to send to your email list, try Garrett Robinson’s “Meet the Characters” Email approach.
Introduce your characters in a compelling way and invite your email list subscribers to read more in your books.
This works.
