I heard Nick Stephenson say in an interview that renaming his email “Newsletter” as a “Reading Group” increased the number of people that signed up.
Listen to the full interview here: Getting Your First 10,000 Readers with Nick Stephenson (Self-publishing School Podcast)
He pointed out that no one wants to sign up for a newsletter, but the potential readers for his novels are more interested in being a part of a reading group.
Think about it:
Who wants to sign up to get a newsletter crowding their email inboxes? No one.
Who wants to join a group and be a part of something bigger? A lot of people.
So, what are some alternatives to calling your email list a newsletter?
Email Newsletter Name Ideas
Here are a few newsletter name ideas that I like:
- Account
- Broadcast
- Dispatch
- Digest
- Guide
- Insider
- Report
- Review
- Daily
- Weekly
You can also use the name of day of the week that you send your email as in these popular email newsletters:
- 5-Bullet Friday (Tim Ferriss)
- 3-2-1 Thursdays (James Clear)
- Monday Musings (David Perrell)
- Sunday Dispatches (Paul Jarvis)
- Formative Fiction Friday (Jared Dees)
Here is a great list of 63 newsletter name ideas from Brandon Gaille: 63 Catchy Newsletter Names.
Email List Name Ideas
Or let’s riff off of the “Reader’s Group” format and think of some names to call your email list.
People might sign up to get a weekly “digest” (your email newsletter), but they are also signing up to become a part of a group (your email list).
Here are some names you could use to refer to your email list:
- Alliance
- Assembly
- Band
- Cartel
- Circle
- Club
- Coalition
- Collective
- Conglomerate
- Consortium
- Cooperative
- Corps
- Crew
- Federation
- Fellowship
- Flock
- Gang
- Group
- Guild
- League
- Mob
- Posse
- Order
- Outfit
- Ring
- Sort
- Squad
- Syndicate
- Team
- Tribe
- Troupe
- Trust
- Union
- VIP List
It can be a challenge to describe the difference between someone on your newsletter list and someone who is a paying member of your website. That’s a challenge no matter what, but I can see how “branding” the list and the members could address this challenge.
Want more author tips like this one? Check out this list of 33 Book Launch Ideas.
