How to Start and Grow Your Email List as a Writer
I’ve been a creative writer for seven years, mostly writing humor and fiction. The single best thing I’ve done to market my writing has been to focus on my craft and write as much as possible. But the second best thing I’ve done, marketing-wise, was to start an email list and a monthly newsletter.
I’ve grown my email list from a few dozen friends to a modest list of more than 4,000 readers.
Keeping an email list has let me consistently put my writing in front of a growing group of fellow travelers who like my writing and want to read it.
My list has helped me to meet interesting people in other cities and other countries. Some of them have given me travel tips and fantastic book recommendations.
I’ve made real-life friends from my list.
I’ve even met a couple of literary agents directly from my newsletter.
And because my career outside of writing is running a boutique freelance marketing service, I’ve also worked with authors who’ve cultivated huge lists — in the tens and hundreds of thousands of subscribers — and I’ve seen first-hand what it does for their book sales and their careers.
There are a hundred ways to market yourself as a writer, and not all of them are terrible. But I contend that the least terrible marketing activity you can do as a writer is to start and grow an email list.
Alas, most guides to email marketing are written for businesses and online marketers. But writers need help here too! It’s high time for a thorough email list guide specifically for writers.
Whatever you write — fiction, nonfiction, self-help articles, psychology books, humor, horror novels, haikus, think pieces about wine and cheese — this guide is for you. I will give you a simple, step-by-step process for starting your email list and turning it into a creative tool that serves your craft and your career.
Let’s start with the ‘Why?’ Then we’ll get into the ‘How?’
1. Why should writers have an email list?
To begin, let’s understand the value an email list holds for writers in general. There are four good reasons why most writers should have a list:
(a) Email newsletters let you market by using your craft.
This point is fundamental, and yet I rarely see writers talk about it. The best form of marketing is the one that naturally harnesses your craft and might even make you better at it.
The best marketing for stand-up comedians is whatever helps them send their jokes out into the world. That’s one reason so many stand-ups use Twitter.
When you grow your audience as a writer, how do you do that on Instagram or Tik Tok? On Tik Tok, you dress in an inflatable T-Rex costume and twerk while holding your new book. Pretty cool!
I don’t deny that social media can be fantastically useful for writers or creators. Especially if you use it really well. But the value of an email list to a writer is partly that growing a strong email list is accomplished by practicing your craft — by writing.
(b) Email newsletters give you a direct, intimate connection to your readers.
When you email your list, you directly reach your people. Or, at least the ones who open your emails — and, if you have a healthy list, that should be the majority of your list.
On a social platform, fuggedaboutit. You will reach a tiny fraction of your followers, and this fraction will wildly depend on factors outside of your control — like how The Algorithm is feeling that day. With an email list, you write your words, you send them out, and your followers read them. No muss, no fuss. No algorithm, no middleman.
(c) Email is a fundamental, deep technology that isn’t going away.
Online platforms may wax and wane on the manias of popular culture, the vicissitudes of their algorithms, and the quirks and vices of their wacky CEOs. But email is a classic technology that will, in all likelihood, outlast us all, and that includes our future AI overlords.
(d) You own your list.
You do not own your Twitter following or your Instagram following or even your Medium following. Social platforms can ultimately do whatever they please. They can change their algorithms, their news feeds, and their advertising models willy-nilly. But an email list is platform agnostic. You own your list for life (or, for as long as your contacts stay subscribed), and you can take it anywhere
Think of marketing your writing on social platforms like a swarm of fruit flies: it’s fast and furious but ultimately ephemeral. Flies die fast.
An email newsletter, on the other hand, is like a beautiful and sturdy tortoise. The slowness is the point. Email lists take months and years to grow. But that slow movement, steady growth, and commitment to your writing craft pay enormous dividends over time.
If you truly commit, will you even grow a huge shell on your back? No, you will not. That’s disgusting and is taking the metaphor too far.
The astute technology writer and best-selling author Cal Newport once said (on his podcast Deep Questions) that if an author could choose between owning an email list of 10,000 engaged fans or having a Twitter following of 500,000, the email list wins. I think he has a point.
Now let’s dive into what you should actually do with your email list.
2. Decide the purpose of your newsletter (and your email list)
The first big step is to decide what to do with your list.
Is your list for promoting your new articles and stories? Is it for occasionally updating your fans about exciting new projects? Is it for selling your books?
Or, is your list a medium for art unto itself, a place where you will publish original travelogues of visiting cheese caves in Switzerland, or perhaps an outlet for your spiciest erotic vampire fiction?
All of those answers are good. Let’s oversimplify a bit and classify newsletters from writers into three general types:
(1) The “here is what’s new with me” newsletter.
(2) The “here are cool things I’ve discovered” newsletter.
(3) The “here is a valuable or interesting piece of writing that fits into some broad theme” newsletter.
Of course, there are newsletters that mix and match two or three of these categories, and that is completely fine.
Examples of newsletter type 1 abound, so I’ll mention examples of the other two types.
Example of newsletter type 2: I’ve subscribed to Farnam Street’s Brain Food newsletter for a while. Every week, they send out a small handful of interesting quotations, interviews, and article links, mainly about decisions and mental models, though the topics vary. It’s always a pretty curious and stimulating mix, and I’m rarely already familiar with what they include. I think of Farnam Street’s newsletter as a high-quality example of a “here’s a roundup of interesting things” newsletter.
An example of newsletter type 3: My former satire writing teacher Caitlin Kunkel has a newsletter called “Input/Output”, which is about the relationship between our creative input (what we read and watch and listen to) and what we create. From her description, it’s about the “waxing and waning of our creative cycles. Sometimes you need to be inputting more so you can output, and sometimes you need to be creating your own thing and limiting outside influence.” Cool idea, right? I think Caitlin’s value proposition for this newsletter is solid. (More on value propositions in a minute.) Most Substacks newsletters are of type 3 by the nature of the platform.
Now that we’ve covered some basic types of newsletters, let’s drop the F-bomb: Frequency.
3. Choose the frequency of your newsletter
Once you decide the purpose of your list, I double dog dare you to mentally commit to sending your newsletter at a specific frequency.
This upfront commitment is extremely helpful for two reasons.
First, it’s helpful for you because it turns your newsletter writing into a practice. Committing to your monthly newsletter — or whatever frequency you choose — is an instance of what Stephen Pressfield would call “going pro.”
Second, it’s helpful for everyone who signs up for your newsletter because it sets expectations. When I sign up for someone’s list, I want to know how often I’ll hear from them. Here are some frequency options:
Quarterly (four times per year): Emailing every three months is a minimum viable newsletter cadence. This is an okay option if the purpose of your list is just to let your followers know about your big projects and exciting creative updates. Quarterly is also a good option if you just don’t have enough free time to send out monthly newsletters. But any less than quarterly and you risk your list going stale and your followers forgetting who you are. (There are some exceptions to this if you are famous.)
Monthly: This is the sweet spot for most writers. A monthly newsletter is frequent enough to send all your interesting news to your list regularly without inundating them. Personally, there are a lot of creative people who I’d be happy to hear from once a month, but not necessarily every week.
Weekly (or a few times a month): Now we are talking about a frequent newsletter. Weekly (or even every other week) is a lot of work! The reason to send weekly is if you have some type of strong newsletter theme or some type of original writing that your followers can only get from your newsletter. I would only send this often if you can handle making your newsletter a major part of your writing routine.
Daily (or multiple times a week): There is no reason to send this frequently unless your newsletter has a specific daily theme, like Anu Garg’s famous word of the day newsletter or Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic. 99% of writers should not send daily newsletters.
To sum up: When in doubt, try a monthly newsletter. You can always adjust from there. Now it’s time to get your email platform.
4. Pick your email platform
There are hundreds of email list platforms. They range from expensive and complex ones that are made for eCommerce companies to exceedingly simple ones like TinyLetter.
I recently switched platforms. Specifically, I ditched MailChimp and did a lot of research to find a new platform. I’ve also done email marketing professionally for other creators and businesses. I’m well acquainted with various email platforms and their pros and cons.
Unless you are a writer with a huge audience and you sell a bunch of online courses, you do not need a sophisticated, eCommerce-type email platform. So, if you are a writer reading this article, there is a 95% chance that the platform you need is one that is inexpensive and simple to use. For this reason, I am not going to discuss or recommend popular, business-oriented email platforms like Klaviyo, ConvertKit, and ActiveCampaign — they’re overkill for most writers.
With this in mind, I’ll focus on the few email platforms that I think are actually good for most writers.
Tiny Letter. A hyper-minimalist, free newsletter provider that’s designed for individuals and creatives, not businesses. TinyLetter is intentionally super simple, and it lacks almost every feature of other email platforms: no advanced reporting, no segmentation, no automation. TinyLetter works if you want to pay nothing and want a platform that’s dead simple. On the flip side, it can’t do much other than email your list. COST: Free for up to 5,000 list contacts. No paid plans and you cannot use it with more than 5,000 contacts. (TinyLetter was purchased by MailChimp a few years ago, and so far they have kept it the same and not to ruined it. Keep in mind they could still ruin it.)
Email Octopus. An elegant, easy-to-use platform with great design and a nice mix of simplicity and good features. EmailOctopus is my provider. I went with them after ditching MailChimp. You can create advanced automations, segment your list, build nice opt-in pages, and do pretty much everything a writer with a list would need. I love the aesthetics and usability of EmailOctopus and the simplicity of their email builder. I recommend EmailOctopus for writers who are building their lists. COST: Free for up to 2,500 contacts. (One of the best free plans of any paid platform.) Pro plans run $8 and up and are about 20% to 30% the cost of MailChimp.
Send Fox. The email platform from Sumo, founded by entrepreneur and marketing guru Noah Kagan. SendFox is made for “creators” (bloggers, podcasters, etc.). SendFox has just the core email list features most creators use, nothing more. Worth a look if you want a simple platform with some professional features like automation, but you want to pay as little as possible. COST: Free up to 1,000 contacts. Paid plans start at $49 for a one-time, lifetime fee. There’s an optional $10–$18 monthly fee (regardless of list sizes) to remove Send Fox branding and add other features. Their fee structure seems wonky, but if you look at the details, Send Fox is probably the least-expensive paid email platform out there. Worth a look, and kudos to Sumo for keeping the fees so low.
Mailer Lite. Possibly a good option for a writer who desires a lot of advanced email features but doesn’t want to pay MailChimp prices. Mailer Lite is the most feature-rich platform on my list, and they’ve been around for a long time. COST: Free up to 1,000 contacts. Paid plans are around 50% of the cost of MailChimp.
Mail Chimp. The most popular email platform in the world. MailChimp has been around 20+ years. It used to be a simple, attractive platform for creatives, with a generous free plan and great design. But it has slowly morphed into a much more corporatized, sophisticated platform for businesses— with a gazillion features like multivariate testing, advanced segmentation, etc. It still has good design and aesthetics, but I think it’s too expensive for most writers. INTUIT purchased Mail Chimp in 2021, jacked up the price, and gave it the douchey, rebranded name “INTUIT MailChimp.” I am listing Mail Chimp here for comparative completeness since most people have heard of it. COST: Free up to 500 contacts; quite pricey for all paid plans. (A list with up to 5,000 contacts would run $70-$100 monthly.)
Substack. Substack is not really an email platform in the traditional sense. It’s more of a hybrid between email and a publishing platform. In some ways, it’s like a cross between an email provider and Medium. Consider Substack if you plan to create regular essays, stories, or some type of valuable writing on a theme, and you want to build a list audience from it. Because Substack is an open publishing platform, it doesn’t work all that well for a traditional monthly “here’s what I’m up to” newsletter to a private audience. COST: Free for all list sizes.
Tl;dr…
I recommend EmailOctopus for most writers who want to build a list and send a newsletter.
If you are tech-averse or just need something totally free and totally minimalist, try TinyLetter.
If you want to send out some valuable and interesting writing that stands on its own and you want to do this fairly frequently, consider Substack (instead of a traditional newsletter).
SendFox and MailerLite are also worth a look.
If you feel the need to explore every option, check out 500+ email platforms on the software comparison site G2.
And remember that your list is yours! If you don’t like the email platform you choose, you can always take your list somewhere else.
5. Grow your email list part 1: create your opt-ins
Once you’ve committed to your newsletter and picked an email platform, it’s time to grow your list.
To do this, you’ll need one or more list opt-ins. Your opt-in is the form or landing page where people join your list. It comes in two basic varieties:
An embedded sign-up form. This is an opt-in form that you can place on a website you control — like your WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix site. This could also come in the form of a pop-up or floating widget. Here’s what one of these looks like, from writer/podcaster Tim Ferriss:
From https://tim.blog/
A stand-alone opt-in landing page. Every email platform allows you to build a simple, stand-alone opt-in landing page. This landing page can be hosted by your email platform itself, so you don’t need to host a separate website to make one. These pages are super useful for opting people into your list from sites where you post (like Medium or Twitter), but where you don’t own the site code and you can’t embed a sign-up form. In this case, just link to your sign-up landing page. Here’s that same opt-in idea from Mr. Ferris, but as a stand-alone landing page. I assume he’s tested the dickens out of both opt-ins, and they work well for him.
Value propositions: how to create a strong email opt-in
Let’s talk about the opt-in. The cardinal sin of a bad opt-in is that it is vague and does not explain anything whatsoever about why anyone should join your list. You’ve surely seen too many bad, boring email opt-ins like this:
“Join my list to get my updates.”
Okay, but why would I want your updates? What is interesting or cool about your updates?
These bland opt-ins don’t capture many subscribers. The one type of subscriber the bland opt-in will capture is someone who already loves your writing and is just dying for more of it. That person will join your bandwagon without any extra push. But with a boring, vague opt-in, you are making life too hard for yourself. When your opt-in is specific and enticing, it will push fence-sitters into joining your list.
Example: Let’s say that you are a foodie writer/blogger who specializes in cheese. You love to travel, write about cheese, and introduce people to new cheeses. Here is a good opt-in:
“Join 15,000+ cheese lovers on the Cheesemonger List.
Once a month, I will tell you about my favorite cheese discoveries, and show you rare cheeses that make your taste buds explode with delight.
“I love this newsletter! I’ve discovered so many amazing cheeses that I never knew about before!”- Gerard S., French Chef and Cheesemonger subscriber
Notice what this opt-in does:
It has a value proposition: It explicitly tells the reader what is valuable about the newsletter (discover new cheeses each month).
It further demonstrates the value of the list with social proof (‘join 15,000+ cheese lovers’) and a testimonial (from a real chef!).
In Tim Ferriss’s embedded opt-in (above), the reader is already on his website and has some familiarity with him, so the value proposition needn’t be that extensive. It’s that you can join his list to get 5 cool things he’s enjoying, every Friday. It’s simple, but it works.
Bottom line: deciding what type of newsletter you want to run will help you create a concise value proposition for your opt-in.
Here’s another example. Here is my general opt-in.
My list is for my monthly humor newsletter. I show this opt-in primarily to people who have already seen my writing. The main thing I want to convey is that the reader will get my funny writing sent their way each month. The tone is irreverent because the newsletter is irreverent. And I mention that I already have 4,000+ subscribers to let the reader know that a nontrivial number of people already enjoy it. This kind of social proof helps when you are not a celebrity or an established internet guru.
Where to put your email list opt-ins:
Once you create your general list opt-in, here are some great places to put it:
Prominently on your personal website, especially in the site header, the site footer, or centrally on your home page.
On your Medium About Page or your Medium profile description — the one that appears next to your avatar on your stories.
At the end of your Medium stories, blog posts, or posts on any other writing platform.
In your Twitter bio or your bio on any social platform.
In your email signature.
In short, create an opt-in that is specific and suited to your audience. Give your opt-in a clear value proposition that explains why someone would want to be on your list. Then get it out there in the world.
There is one more type of opt-in that can also work well: the lead magnet. Leads magnets are worth discussing, so let’s take a look!
6. Grow your email list part 2: lead magnets
A “lead magnet” is a term that digital marketers use to mean “a valuable goodie you offer someone in exchange for joining your email list.”
Lead magnets became quite popular with the rise of content marketing in the 2000s and early 2010s. They’ve been especially popular — ubiquitous, in fact — in health and wellness, self-improvement, and digital marketing. And you’ve probably seen thousands of them:
“Get my FREE eBook, ‘How To Be Happy!’”
“Get the 74 Funky Morning Routines Sheet!”
“Sign up for my free video webinar, ‘How To Make $10,000 in Passive Income Each Month!’”
Lead magnets done poorly can feel annoying or scammy, but when done right they can really get people on your list. And if your lead magnet is well thought out, it should get the right people on your list.
Let’s look at multiple examples to stimulate your imagination.
Here is a good lead magnet from novelist and creative writing guru Steven Pressfield:
You join Pressfield’s list, and you get his half-hour War of Art audio course. It worked on me! I had already read The War of Art and a few of Pressfield’s other books, but I was not on his list. Then I saw the free mini-course, and I thought, “Yeah, I want that.”
I want to emphasize four things about lead magnets.
First, lead magnets should be crafted to attract the specific audience you want to build. Steven Pressfield writes books about creativity, creative blocks, and being a writer, so it's natural that his lead magnet attracts aspiring creatives.
Second, your lead magnet should be enticing, but it does not need to be “blow-your-mind-amazing.” Please don’t spend 50 hours on it. If you can craft a lead magnet from valuable materials you already have (mostly) on hand, that’s ideal.
Third, lead magnets only work when a decent volume of people see them. Consider that only a small fraction of your readers will look at the lead magnet offer, and some fraction of those will sign up. Don’t put a lead magnet on a website that gets 60 views per month. It won’t work. In that case, just put a general opt-in on your site — your time is better spent on writing more, not creating a lead magnet. Lead magnets only work when your writing is already attracting a good number of readers.
Fourth, you do not necessarily need a lead magnet! Depending on the type of writing you do, and the nature of your email list, it could be sufficient to simply have an email list with a strong built-in value proposition. Your basic opt-in might do all the work you need. A lead magnet is an optional tool that could help your list grow even faster if you are a writer who gets a decent number of eyeballs.
Case study: two lead magnets that work for me
To understand the thought process that goes into making a lead magnet, let’s look at two examples from my list.
For my own list, I want to attract people who are into writing and comedy — including other writers.
I’ve created and tested a few lead magnets. Here are two that work pretty well for me.
This lead magnet is a short illustrated e-book that’s based on a humor piece I wrote for McSweeney’s, Nihilist Dad Jokes. The piece was widely shared, and I thought it would be fun to create a little ebook from it. But I did not want to actually make it a full-length, published book. So I decided to turn it into a gift for joining my list. It wasn’t too hard to put together since I’d already written the pieces. I simply worked with a (really good) illustrator.
The offer is targeted toward fans of dark humor. Not everyone will love this book. Some people may find it too dark. That’s fine. But people who like it will probably like my sense of humor and my email list. The testimonials on the landing page are from people who shared the original humor piece on Facebook or Twitter. On the lead magnet page, I link to the testimonials to prove they’re real.
I also created a second lead magnet specifically for humor writers. This one has done quite well for me. Thousands of people have opted in.
When I created these lead magnets, my criterion was to make something that I would personally want.
I’ve also tested lead magnets that didn’t end up working. I created a lead magnet for humor writers called “The Best Humor Writing Books Ever” — it was a list of writing books to improve your humor writing. That lead magnet didn’t work nearly as well as the general humor writing cheat sheet did. No problemo. I ditched it. For email list growth, you must be willing to test and throw out what doesn’t work.
Coming up with lead magnets is easier if you write about business, self-help, wellness, or anything where you’re teaching people how to do something. But I’m confident that, with a little creativity, any writer with a body of work can conjure up a few interesting lead magnet ideas.
(p.s. For a good cautionary warning on how not to use lead magnets, I like this blog post by copywriter Joanna Wiebe, “How to grow your list (with good leads).” It’s aimed at businesses and entrepreneurs, but the lessons apply here too.)
7. Create your welcome email
Now that we’ve covered creating and growing your list, let’s talk about your first email to your list: the welcome email. Everyone with an email list should have a welcome email.
A welcome email is an email that your email platform automatically sends to people when they join your list.
More technically, a welcome email is a type of automation. And an automation is something that you set up in your email platform that performs a certain action (like sending an email) whenever a trigger occurs (like someone joins your list, or a contact gets a certain tag, or whatever.) A welcome email is one of the simplest, most common forms of automation.
The best time to send a welcome email is right when someone joins your list or within 24 hours. Welcome emails are great for several reasons:
They have super high open rates. When someone joins your list, they’re primed to read your emails.
You only need to write it and set the welcome automation, then it runs forever and does the work for you. That’s the beauty of automation.
It’s a completely free, easy way to promote your writing, or whatever else you want to promote, to new subscribers.
It primes your new subscriber to recognize your name in their inbox and open your emails in the future.
It’s good decorum to welcome people to new things.
Some things to include in your welcome email:
A brief introduction to you and what kind of writing you do. Brief! A few sentences max.
What to expect from your newsletter. At least let your subscribers know how often they’ll hear from you.
Links to your very best writing: a few of your all-time greatest hits, not 87 links!
Links to your website, your books, or the most important things you want to promote. Again, be very selective. Just link the most important stuff that you'd want to shout out to a new follower. Don’t overwhelm them.
A link to a dark-web-hosted clip of your favorite section of Face/Off with Nicholas Cage and John Travolta. But maybe this is just an idiosyncratic thing I do.
In short, don’t blow a chance to reach a new subscriber: create a welcome email! All email platforms let you make them in a snap.
8. Growing a great email list: tips, tricks, mindsets
Before you go out there and build a great list, here are three final tips to make the journey easier.
a. Start small
In the beginning, you might wonder, “How do I start my writing newsletter if I’ve got zero subscribers?” Here’s what I did. When I decided to start a list, I BCC emailed several dozen friends, told them I was starting a humor newsletter, and I said, “just reply ‘add me’ if you want to join!” That got me my first 30 or so subscribers. Of course, announcing your new newsletter on social is good too. Be excited about it, and be happy to get the ball rolling with 5 or 50 people. As long as you have a few people on the list, it’s enough to start. What matters, at first, is your commitment to the practice, not the size of your list.
b. Remember: unsubscribes are good
Inevitably, as you send your newsletters, people will unsubscribe. The bigger your list gets, the larger the number of people who will unsubscribe. This is good! Don’t get upset over it. When people unsubscribe, they are most likely not implying, “you suck.” They are most likely implying, “this list is not for me,” or, “I get too much email.” Remember that unsubscribers are doing you a favor by keeping your list full of people who want to be there.
c. Keep your list clean
As your list grows over time, you will want to keep it clean. A ‘clean list’ is a list of high-quality contacts who open and read your emails. This starts by creating a good value proposition for your list and opting in the right people. But you should also occasionally ‘clean’ your list by manually removing (kicking off) contacts who have gone dormant and no longer open your emails.
Cleaning is important for a couple of reasons. First, every email provider (e.g. Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) ranks every sender according to how ‘high quality’ it thinks that sender is. Senders that don’t get a high enough percentage of their emails opened are deemed low quality and are rewarded with worse deliverability — they are more frequently sent to the spam folder. Having a list full of people who open your emails is the best way to make sure all of your emails actually get delivered. Second, if you are paying for a newsletter platform, it’s pointless to pay for contacts who have gone dormant.
The way I keep my list clean is this: A couple of times a year, I create a segment of everyone who joined my list more than 3 months ago (I don’t want to remove anyone who’s new) but who have not opened any of my emails within the past 6 months. Then I email that segment and tell them that I’m removing them from my list with a polite, “hey, I know life gets busy and inboxes overflow. If you ever want to re-subscribe, you can do that here [link].” Then I remove those contacts from my list. This keeps my list highly engaged. I like highly engaged.
9. Start sending your newsletter!
I’ve given you every tool you need to start your newsletter and build a legion of fans who you can reach directly. To recap:
Figure out the type of newsletter you want to send.
Commit to a frequency that fits your newsletter.
Sign up for an email platform.
Create an opt-in with an attractive value proposition.
Create a welcome email for new people on your list.
Get your opt-in out there.
Start sending your newsletter.
Remember my dang tortoise metaphor: email lists are a powerful, slow-build activity.
Jerry Seinfeld was once asked by a young, aspiring comedian how he should market himself and get noticed, and Seinfeld’s response was classic: “What are you talking about?” he asked. “Forget about that. Just get better.”
I think Seinfeld was basically correct: the best marketing is quality. Yet his response neglects the fact that if your craft relies on reaching people on the internet, you need a way to do it.
For writers, a newsletter where you reach your fans by practicing your craft is a solid answer.
And that’s a wrap. I hope you’ve enjoyed this soup-to-nuts email list and newsletter guide. Happy newsletter sending to you. And happy list building.