The platform

An audience you can take with you.

Every follower you have on a social platform is rented. An email address is not. It still works when the algorithm changes, when the platform closes, and on the day your next book comes out.

What we set up

Four things,
then it is yours.

  • The publication itself

    Named, designed to match your book, with a description that tells a stranger in one line why to subscribe. Free to run, and the account is in your name from the first day.

  • A welcome sequence

    What arrives the moment somebody subscribes. Most authors leave this empty, which means the most interested reader they will ever have receives nothing at the exact moment they are paying attention.

  • A rhythm you can keep

    Monthly is a rhythm. Weekly is a job. We will help you choose the one you will still be doing in a year, because an abandoned newsletter is a worse signal than no newsletter.

  • Everything else pointing at it

    Your site, your author profile, the back of the book, the end of every article. A subscribe box nobody is sent to collects nobody.

Why Substack,
and when not.

Substack is recommended here for one reason above all others: the subscriber list is exportable, in full, at any moment. That makes it a rare platform where building an audience is not the same as lending it to somebody. If you leave, the people come with you.

It also has discovery of its own, through recommendations between publications, which almost no email tool has. For a writer that is a real advantage over a plain mailing list.

When it is the wrong tool

If you have one book and no intention of writing regularly, do not start a newsletter. Put a proper signup on your own site instead, collect the addresses, and write to them twice a year when there is something to say. That is a real strategy, and it is far better than a publication with three posts and a two-year gap.

Strongest for non-fiction

Because the subject continues after the book ends. A memoirist finds this harder and a novelist harder still. For fiction the honest version is that it keeps you in touch with readers between books rather than growing an audience by itself.

What it is not

It is not a shortcut to readers. A newsletter converts attention you already have into a relationship you keep. Getting the attention in the first place is what the rest of the marketing is for.

An old notebook lying open on stone, both pages covered in close handwriting.
How it goes

Set up,
handed over.

  1. 01

    We work out whether you should

    Genuinely. For a fair number of authors the answer is a mailing list on their own site instead, and we would rather say that than set up something you abandon.

  2. 02

    It is built and designed

    Publication, about page, welcome email, and subscribe points across everything you already have.

  3. 03

    We write the first few with you

    The hard part is the first three. After that it is a habit rather than a decision.

  4. 04

    You run it

    In your account, under your name, with a list you can export whenever you like. We are not in the middle of it.

Where a newsletter lives

Author websites,
running right now.

Click one and scroll it like any other site. Every domain is registered in the author's own name and every mailing list sits in their account, not ours — which is the whole argument for owning the list rather than renting an audience.

The Rooted Soul
The Rooted SoulAlan McDonaldVisit ↗
In My Happy Place
In My Happy PlaceVernon SmithVisit ↗
Little Hedgehog and the Moon
Little Hedgehog and the MoonCatherine RushtonVisit ↗
Helen for English
Helen for EnglishHelen MichaelVisit ↗
James O'DonnellOpens in a new tab
James O'DonnellAuthor siteVisit ↗
Paul Okonweze
Paul OkonwezeAuthor siteVisit ↗
Geoffrey Spinks
Geoffrey SpinksAuthor siteVisit ↗
Louise Wynne Jones
Louise Wynne JonesAuthor siteVisit ↗
Mark Short
Mark ShortChildren's fantasyVisit ↗
Bloodplay
BloodplayEra K NestaVisit ↗
Bert the Worm's Garden
Bert the Worm's GardenA playable garden board, built into the book's own siteVisit ↗
World Wheel
World WheelVijali Hamilton — scroll the map to travel the workVisit ↗
Melissa Boyer
Melissa BoyerScroll below to explore the pondVisit ↗

What our authors say

On platforms we do not own and cannot edit.

See all our reviews on Trustpilot

Newsletter
questions.

No. Most author newsletters are free and should be. Paid subscriptions make sense when you are publishing something substantial on a schedule, which is a commitment worth being honest with yourself about.

Where would readers reach you?

If there is no answer to that yet, this is the cheapest thing on the marketing list to fix.

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