When should a writer start a mailing list?

Why not wait until there’s a book?

Because the list needs time to grow and develop, and time is the one thing you can’t catch up on later.

• It grows slowly, then faster. Early subscribers forward letters and tell friends, so each year’s growth builds on the last.
• You learn the craft in private. By the time the book is out, you know how to write a letter people open, to a list that already trusts you.
• The launch has an audience. The readers who watched the book being written are the ones most eager to buy it.
• You arrive with evidence. An agent or publisher sees readers who already follow you, not just a manuscript.

What do you write about when there’s nothing to sell?

The writing life itself, which is more interesting to readers than most writers expect. The research you’re doing, the book you couldn’t put down, the scene that won’t come right, the place that started the story. Readers love seeing how books get made, and none of it needs a finished book. Letters, not press releases has plenty more ideas.

How do you start this week?

In an afternoon, and without spending much, if anything:

1. Choose a service that passes the three tests in The list you own.
2. Write a one-line promise: what readers will get, and how often. For example: “Notes from the writing of my first novel, and one good book I’ve read, once a month.”
3. Write your welcome letter, the one every new subscriber receives straight away.
4. Invite six people personally: friends, family, the people who keep asking what you’re writing. Send them the sign-up link and let them confirm for themselves.
5. Put the link everywhere you already are: your email signature, your social profiles, your author page.
6. Send the first letter within two weeks, then keep to the rhythm you promised. Rhythm and the welcome email helps you choose one.

What if you don’t know what to say yet?

Write to one of those six people, as if no one else will read it. Keep it short: three paragraphs is a perfectly good letter. The voice comes with practice, and practice is what the early, small list is for. Six people is a list, and you’re a newsletter writer the moment you press send.