Why An Email List Is Essential For Self-Publishers

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An email list is essential for self-publishers because it is the only way to reach your readers if Amazon removes your books or account. You own the list, so you can move it to another email service. Below: why a list matters, the mistakes I made with mine, and how to set one up.

Why is an email list the best way to build readers?

When I first got started, I followed a whole series of videos and books. One thing became clear: an email list is the best way to build readers, and people who leave reviews on your books. Whenever you have a new book, you can tell your audience, invite them to check it out, and ask what they think. These people are already on your list because in your book you had a little section saying, “If you liked this book, grab this cheat sheet,” or a short story, or the bio of a character, in exchange for their email address.

I do this all the time, with people joining my list daily and by joining other people’s lists to get their freebies. It’s called permission-based marketing. We choose an audience that likes our content, and in exchange for an email address they give us permission to contact them. Nobody says “sure, add me to your list so you can spam me”, so we give them something of value, and we make sure the emails we send are of value too. That’s why I email with updates and useful strategies, and why I offer my free 12-step self-publishing checklist in exchange for an email address. That is lead generation, and it works for any product or service. Self-publishers underuse it. For more on the basics, see 3 Things Self Publishers Should Do.

How does an email list compare with social media for selling books?

Email still has the best open rates and leads to more sales than the other channels I use. MailerLite’s benchmark report puts the median open rate for authors at 43.14% (December 2024 to November 2025, MailerLite email benchmarks). My own open rates are often around 20%. A post on Facebook reaches only a tiny fraction of my followers. Text message marketing can get even higher engagement, but it’s much harder to get permission for and you can burn people out. Email is safer, and even if someone doesn’t open every email, over time they will.

You can also swap promotions with other self-publishers in your niche: you tell your audience about their new book and they tell theirs about yours. If you have no list, you can’t do this.

What mistakes did I make with my email list?

I targeted too many audiences on the same list. That’s a huge mistake. If one person is interested in intermittent fasting and another in stories with elves, what do I say to them? People who joined for puppy training don’t want to hear about indoor gardening. Many marked my emails as spam because they’d signed up for puppy training and suddenly got vegan cooking.

So I changed to targeting one audience at a time, and the result was a huge increase in interaction, sales and reviews. Stick to one niche. You target a specific audience with a specific problem, keep serving them until the audience is enormous, and only then expand if you’re tired of that niche.

Almost everyone I know regretted leaving the market they started in, including one of my coaching clients recently. They put their first books on Kindle, then thought about fulfillment by Amazon, drop shipping and affiliate marketing. If you’re doing too many things, it’s a losing strategy. Kindle books are by far the best way to get started with an online business.

How often should I email my list, and should I clean it?

Contact your list regularly, at least once a month. Many authors contact their lists too seldom. I currently email about twice a week, and at one point I emailed daily and people didn’t complain. You train people to know what to expect, and they won’t open every email.

If you stay on my list for six months and open nothing, I remove you. You can join again. I clean the list because I need open rates to stay high and I’m not in the business of spamming people. If you don’t want to be on the list you can click unsubscribe, or do nothing and I’ll remove you after six months.

Why does owning the list matter?

If your email service suddenly doesn’t want to send your emails, you can switch, because the list is yours. The same goes for your blog and the search traffic that comes to it, as opposed to a YouTube channel or podcast, which could be taken down. My blog and the email list are the most stable parts of my content marketing. If a platform takes your books down, how will your audience find you? Only through your email list, where you can tell them about your next book in the same niche. In a sense you don’t own the people, but you own the right to contact those who have given you permission.

Attention is the commodity. If you can hold someone’s attention, whether on a YouTube channel, an email list, or in a book, the value is massive. Don’t think you’re fine because Amazon sales are going well. If Amazon shuts your account down, you want to be able to contact your readers outside the platform.

Which email service should I use?

Don’t email from your personal email address. You need a proper email service, and I recommend MailerLite. Its free plan covers 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, and paid plans start at $12 a month (MailerLite pricing). It allows automation and tracking, with reports and graphs, so you can send emails to the right people at the right time. If you send bulk email from your own address, Google and other providers will block you. Services like MailerLite work hard to keep their delivery rates high and spam out, so your emails land in the inbox. It takes a little time to learn, but it’s worth the investment. My comparison of services is in the best email marketing service, and the step-by-step start is in creating an email list for self-publishers.

Once you have a list, the best first use is asking for honest reviews. I explain how in how to ethically get reviews for your books.

Have you started building an email list? Write “yes” or “no” in the comments, and which service you chose. If you’re on my email list, feel free to email me back.

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