How to build a powerful author email list, step by step

How do you build a powerful author email list? An email marekting expert explains how to get your first 10 subscribers -- and more. 

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If you’ve been hanging around the Build Book Buzz community for any length of time, you already know how passionate I am about email marketing. I talk about it constantly — and I make no apologies for that. Report after report after report validates the value.

That’s why I recently hosted a free training webinar with one of my favorite email marketing experts: Shiv Chibber, education lead at Kit. That’s the email service provider I’ve been using for my newsletter for about six years. If you attended “How to Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers” live or caught the replay, you know what a rich conversation it turned out to be.

I’ve shared the replay at the end of this article for those of you who haven’t watched it yet.

I’ve also pulled out some of the most valuable insights from that training to share here. I think this information is too important to stay locked inside a video.

Why email marketing matters so much for authors

We started by explaining why we were doing the training: Email marketing is more effective than social media, which is where many authors focus their efforts.

Here’s the thing about social media: It’s wonderful for discovery.

Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook can introduce you to readers who’ve never heard of you before, and that visibility has real value.

But there’s a crucial difference between someone scrolling past your post and someone who genuinely wants to hear from you. And that difference shows up most clearly when it’s time to sell a book.

As Shiv explained during our webinar, “viral” and “visible” don’t always translate into sales or loyal readership. Companies like Meta design social media platforms to keep people in the app. That means every link you share — to your website, book page, newsletter — has to fight against the platform’s design.

In other words, those platforms don’t like it when you post external links.

Email marketing is a different animal

Email marketing is different by design. It exists to deliver information directly to someone and invite them to take action.

That’s why email consistently outperforms social media when it comes to actual conversions from interest to action.

You may have heard the statistic that for every dollar you invest in email marketing, you receive about $36 back. While that number comes from the email marketing industry broadly, Shiv’s explanation of why it’s true makes a lot of sense.

Email gives people a clear next step — buying a book, reading a blog post, or registering for an event.

And there are no algorithmic gatekeepers deciding whether your message gets shown. It drops into every inbox you send it to. (And it stays there.)

You — not anyone else — owns your email list

There’s another reason I care so deeply about this, and Shiv articulated it beautifully: Your email list is an asset you own.

Any platform owner can shut down social media accounts overnight. Algorithms change without warning. A platform that’s thriving today (remember Vine? No? You see my point….) can become irrelevant tomorrow. Your email list, on the other hand, belongs to you. Nobody can take it away.

And you don’t need a massive list to make it meaningful.

Shiv shared the story of author John Meese, who made more than $10,000 from a list of just 257 subscribers. Remarkable, right? Meese built trust with his newsletter; that trust led to speaking engagements and coaching clients.

It’s not about the biggest list. It’s about the right list — people who genuinely care about what you have to say. That’s what Meese has.

#Authors, email marketing expert Shiv Chibber details the 5 easy steps to getting your first 10 email subscribers in this article and training video.Click to tweet

The obstacles so many authors face

Even if you understand this, you might still face obstacles. I hear it all the time when I’m working with authors as a coach: “I know I should be building a list, but…” What holds them back is typically one or all of these challenges:

• Concern about the technology
• Uncertainty about what to write
• Confusion about how to actually get subscribers in the first place

This article is going to focus on that third challenge because it tends to be the one that keeps people stuck longest.

We’re going to talk about how to get your very first subscribers, then how to grow from there to 100, and ultimately to 1,000. As Shiv put it during our webinar, getting your first 10 subscribers is actually the hardest milestone of all.

So let’s give that first step the attention it deserves.

How to get your first 10 subscribers

These strategies aren’t complicated. They don’t require a big platform or a polished website. They’re personal, direct, and completely doable — starting today.

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Step 1: To build a powerful author email list, think about who you already know.

Your first subscribers aren’t strangers on the internet — they’re people already in your life.

Think about your family, friends, colleagues, and community members. Who among them would genuinely benefit from what you’re writing about?

Whether your book is a romantic suspense thriller, a self-help guide, or a cookbook, you have people in your existing network who are interested in your topic. Write down 10 names.

Step 2: Ask them a simple question.

Here’s the script Shiv shared. I love that it’s direct and simple..

Reach out to those 10 people and say something like: “I’m working on a new book about [your topic/genre]. Would you be interested in following the journey and getting behind-the-scenes updates?”

Add anyone who says yes to your list — and that yes counts as their required opt-in. If some people say no, keep going until you reach 10 enthusiastic yeses. You don’t have to stop at 10, either.

Step 3: Ask those first subscribers what they want to hear about.

Once you have your initial subscribers, you have a built-in research panel.

This step is especially powerful for nonfiction authors, though the underlying principle applies to fiction writers, too. Reach out to your new subscribers and ask them two questions:

• Where do you currently go online to learn about this topic?
• And what’s your biggest challenge or hurdle within it?

Their answers tell you everything you need to know. What they struggle with is what you write about. Where they already go to learn is where you promote your work.

It’s a remarkably elegant solution to the “what do I send my list?” question that keeps so many authors frozen.

Step 4: If you write fiction, take a slightly different approach.

Fiction authors aren’t trying to solve a problem for their readers the way nonfiction authors are. For them, the content question looks a little different.

During our webinar, Shiv and I talked about what resonates most with fiction readers in a newsletter context. The short answer: It’s about you and your world, not just your books.

Think about sharing:

• A “slice of life” glimpse into your week
• Recommending books you’re reading (your readers trust your taste!)
• Going behind the scenes of your writing process
• Explaining why you made a particular plot decision or chose a certain character trait
• Information about contests you’re running (maybe to name a character?)
• Your thinking behind a plot twist
• Any personal connections to the themes in your books

Because fiction readers are often more interested in the author as a person than they are in a topic, let them get to know you.

Step 5: Set up a simple way to collect email addresses.

You don’t need a complicated website to get started.

In Kit (and most other email service providers), you can create a landing page — a dedicated web page whose entire purpose is to describe your newsletter and invite people to sign up — or a simple “opt-in” form you embed to an existing page.

Either way, the process is more straightforward than most people expect.

Are you still intimidated by the technology? Kit has a resource page where you can find professionals who specialize in getting authors set up. Freelance platforms that include Fiverr are another option for affordable help.

From 10 to 1,000

As Shiv explained, once you’ve got those first 10 subscribers and you have a clearer sense of what to write about, the path from 10 to 100 is really about showing up consistently in the places your readers already gather.

And going from 100 to 1,000?

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This is where your growth can really start to accelerate. It comes down to two powerful tools: lead magnets and author partnerships.

Lead magnets are free digital resources you offer in exchange for an email address.

Author partnerships let you work with other authors reaching your ideal readers. Shiv queried our attendees live about whether they’re leveraging partnerships with other authors. A whopping 88% said no.

And yet some of the most impressive list-growth stories he’s seen — from small lists to large ones — come from authors who collaborate rather than compete.

We go into each of these list-growth opportunities in detail, so be sure to watch the replay below.

Webinar teaches how to build powerful author email list

Everything covered in this article came from our live training, and I promise you there’s even more good stuff in the full session. That includes a live demo of Kit’s tools and a lively Q&A with specific examples from authors in a range of genres.

Near the end, Shiv mentions a discount for new Kit customers. That has expired, but I’ve got something else for you instead.

Because of my partnership with Kit, you can get 25% off annual plans until April 30. And, if you’re moving your list to Kit from another service provider, you can get migration support from a real person on Kit’s team, so you don’t have to figure out the move alone.

If you’re a MailChimp user, you already know that provider is raising its rate for certain users this month. This is after cutting the allowed number of subscribers and emails sent under the free plan.

When an author friend grumbled about the MailChimp price increase recently, I immediately sent her information about this discount. When she saw that a Kit annual plan would cost her less than if she stayed with MailChimp, she made the switch.

She’s now (happily) using Kit.  

Watch our training below, and feel free to share this article link with any author friends who are still on the fence about email marketing. The sooner they start, the sooner they’ll wonder why they waited.

There’s a lot of helpful how-to information packed into this one-hour session.

Whether you’re just contemplating building an email list or you’ve already started and want to continue to add subscribers, you’ll appreciate our practical here’s-how-to-do-it approach to the topic.

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If you’re using a lead magnet to build your email list, tell us about it in a comment and include a link to it. (Maybe some of us will subscribe!)