How to grow — and own! — your email list as an author

I published my first science fiction novel in 2015 at the tail end of what’s now known as the “Kindle Gold Rush,” the early 2010s boom in self-publishing where authors made a mad dash to capitalize on Amazon’s new Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform.

If you believed the accepted wisdom at the time, by 2015 all the easy money was gone and the only way to “win” anymore in this self-publishing game was to go all in on Amazon’s new, exclusive Kindle Unlimited (KU) program.

That tack never sat well with me. I have no problem selling my books on Amazon, but it felt like anyone with eyes could see through their strategy. KU is simply another way for Amazon to extend their all-in-one ecommerce platform play. First the Kindle — that beautiful device — to entice readers, and then the subscription program, designed to lock readers and authors into an exclusive agreement with the world's largest online retailer.

Here’s the catch: Amazon grants authors the privilege of earning on their platform. We have the right to a share of royalties from our book sales. But we don’t have the right to the Amazon customer’s name or email address, let alone permission to market to them in the future.

If you look deeper, it gets even twistier. Amazon positions KU as an acquisition tactic, or “loss leader” (though whether they lose money on it is a matter of some debate). They don’t make a significant profit from it — not compared to AWS, which accounts for about 50% of Amazon’s operating income — but KU works to sweeten the deal for Amazon Prime subscription sign-ups, as evidenced by the free months of KU they hand out like candy as incentives.

All the other online book retailers use the same tactics. They’ll help you sell books, but they’re not in the business of growing your email list.

That’s up to you.

Growing your author email list

So if retailers don’t give you reader emails, what tactics can you use to build an audience you have permission to speak to directly?

This is the problem I was faced with as a first-time author in 2015, and it’s the same question every new author who publishes their first book is faced with today:

How do I grow an audience of readers and fans who want to hear from me?

It doesn't matter whether you're self-published, hybrid published, or traditionally published. Every author can and should build their own email list. It's the single most powerful marketing tool at your disposal.

It’ll help you launch bigger, sell more books, and build a real relationship with your readers.

Level 1: Master the fundamentals

Before you can grow your list, you need somewhere to send people and a way to capture their email when they arrive.

That means you need three things: