With a PhD in Biostatistics, Erika Everest values strategic and analytical thinking. She also values unicorns, tiaras, and happily ever afters.

She is the former Managing Editor of Indie Author Magazine and has co-curated eight anthologies in the past three years. She works with authors for proofreading, beta reading, editing, formatting, and newsletter set up and maintenance.

She has published three novels in a series of fairytale retellings, and likes to procrastinate by writing nonfiction books to help authors.

With a PhD in Biostatistics, Erika Everest values strategic and analytical thinking. She also values unicorns, tiaras, and happily ever afters.

She is the former Managing Editor of Indie Author Magazine and has co-curated eight anthologies in the past three years. She works with authors for proofreading, beta reading, editing, formatting, and newsletter set up and maintenance.

She has published three novels in a series of fairytale retellings, and likes to procrastinate by writing nonfiction books to help authors.

The Strategic Author's Guide to MailerLite by Erika Everest

Are you getting the most from your newsletter?

A good newsletter is the most powerful advertising platform an author has.

•Are you struggling to get started?
•Are you overwhelmed by the learning curve?
•Do you know what you want but not how to achieve it?
•Is managing your list taking too much of your time?

This book provides a step-by-step guide on how to build an author newsletter from scratch, using the popular mailing list provider MailerLite.

In this book you will learn how to:

• Prioritize Marketing Efforts by Tracking Where Subscribers See You,
• Free Up Time and Create Superfans With a Set-and-Forget Onboarding Sequence,
• Save Time and Increase Your Brand Strength With Email Templates,
• Build Rapport With Readers Even Before Your Books Are Published,
• Use Step-by-Step Timesavers to Get Your Newsletter Going Painlessly,
• and More!

No prior experience with MailerLite or any other mailing list platform is required – images illustrate every step of the process.

The Strategic Author Series is designed to help you spend your time and money in ways that will give you the biggest result for your efforts. The Strategic Author's Guide to MailerLite will show you how to establish your newsletter to sell more books.

 

REVIEWS

  • "If Newsletter Ninja is the "what to do and why" manual, this book is the "how" — showing folks which buttons to push and which levers to pull to take that newsletter philosophy and actually apply it to their own newsletters. It's an absolute must-have for any author, beginner or experienced."

    – Tammi Labrecque, author of Newsletter Ninja

  • "This book opened my eyes to what a newsletter could really do for my author career. I've read other books which have helped me understand the need for a mailing list and various tips for content. However, Everest explains how to implement the various aspects as well as the mentality behind various decisions. Full of screenshots and step-by-step instructions, this book will have you up and running with a masterful newsletter in no time.

    I've been using MailerLite for several months, but this book helped me streamline my process and remove extra processes, so now I'm able to quick see what I've done in the past and adding new steps in a flash.

    Perfect for anyone who is just beginning their mailing list, or someone who wants to ramp it up several notches."

    – Reader review

  • "Wow. This book is amazing. It has easy to follow steps from start to finish. The instructions are clearly written and the screenshots show you what you need to do every step of the way."

    – Reader review
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

1. Introduction

If you are reading this, I assume that you've already decided that you want or need a newsletter – and for more than just letting the world know when your new release is available. Perhaps you've read Newsletter Ninja by Tammi Labrecque. Perhaps you've heard bestselling author Mark Dawson say that his newsletter is his single greatest advertising tool.

Whatever it is, you know you need a newsletter.

While you may know why you should have a newsletter and what you can gain by doing it properly, you may be struggling to work out how to implement the strategies suggested in the sources above. I was. That's where this book comes in. I'll show you how to implement onboarding sequences, reader funnels, automation, and simple email branding set-up, step-by-step with pictures in the popular system MailerLite.

"Why MailerLite?" you may ask. When I was starting out with newsletters, I asked friends who were more established in their author careers what they use. The resounding answer I got at the time was MailerLite, so that's what I started with.

I made mistakes along the way. I set things up thinking I was following the advice from Newsletter Ninja and other sources, but I was actually making my life more difficult. That experience inspired me to create this guide to go through step-by-step how to do it right from the start, to give you the best chance of an effective mailing list in MailerLite.

So, whether you have many books released or are not yet published, whether you've tried mailing lists before or if you're starting from scratch, I hope you'll find this book a useful guide to getting the most out of your newsletter and achieving its full potential as your best advertising platform.

3. Creating an email template

Chapter Objectives

• Designing a Template That Can Be Re-Used for All Your Emails.
• Understanding the Different Elements of a Newsletter Email.
• Navigating the Options for Each Element Available in MailerLite.
• Building Your Email Template.

To start designing emails, click "Create Campaign" – either on the Campaign tab or from the Dashboard. You will need to enter a subject line for the email. The sender address and name will be pre-populated based on your account criteria in the "Who is it from?" section, but just check they are correct! If you have multiple pen names attached to the same account, you may need to change the sender name to match the readers you are contacting.

We will start by building a template so that the basics are in place and easy for you to reuse for future emails – set up your branding images, fonts, colors, and layouts. To this end, just name this first 'campaign' (i.e. email) some variant of "Template set up."