Purging My Newsletter

I believe I sent my first author newsletter in January, which means eight months of trying to come up with content; eight newsletters that resulted in two interactions. Two.

Like all things self-pubbed authors are advised to do, I dutifully signed up with an email marketing site and set about creating engaging text. I have no earthly idea why I needed to do that; I was just told it was necessary. I had a list of subscribers that really weren't interested in my work ~ they'd subscribed to increase their chances of winning a 20-book giveaway. Still, weirdly, hardly any of them hit the unsubscribe button. 

Then with my Voracious Readers Only campaign, my subscribers grew to over 300. Again, misleading, because in order to receive an ARC they were required to sign up.

Well, now those uninterested subscribers have made themselves known. So far this month I've had thirteen unsubscribes. One even flagged my newsletter as spam. No one clicked on the one link I included. I'm not only wasting readers' time, but I'm wasting mine.

To be honest, I never enjoyed composing my monthly newsletter. News? What news? I once included a cover reveal for Inn Dreams, and I even wrote a blog post about my background as it relates to the book's subject matter, but basically everything I slotted into the missive was useless filler. I tried doing giveaways, which only one person ever entered; I asked for ARC readers, again with one single response.

Some authors swear by their newsletters. I can't even fathom that. What the heck are they including? I really should subscribe to one, just to satisfy my curiosity. 

Purging my newsletter is a continuation of my goal to get off the grid. I long ago stopped posting on my author social media accounts, which I always detested anyway. 

I'm going incognito.  

Whereas newly published authors are constantly looking for ways to increase their public footprint, I'm going in the opposite direction. If anyone is interested enough to want to talk to me (fat chance), send me an email. This constant pandering is like being the new girl in school, desperately searching for a friend. 

And if yesterday's writing output is any indication, I'm not sure I'm too keen on writing more books, either.