When you sign up to a newsletter list, you often receive a few emails in fairly quick succession to introduce you to the author and their writing.
Newsletter marketing gurus will often call this the welcome sequence.
As a reader, the value of the welcome sequence is correlated to how much I already know about the author. If it’s an author I’ve read before and I’m joining so I don’t miss out on future books, then I sometimes feel like I don’t really need the welcome sequence … but it also doesn’t bother me.
If the newsletter is for an author I don’t know so well, then the welcome sequence is a good introduction to that author because it sets the tone for what future newsletters are going to be like. It may also provide insight into what the author’s books are like.
I generally prefer shorter welcome sequence for fiction.
Don’t drag it out forever. Instead, let me get on the regular email list so I don’t miss any of the announcements I signed up to receive.
I don’t mind longer welcome sequences for nonfiction, as long as there is a purpose e.g. the welcome sequence is actually a free email course examining some aspect of writing, editing, publishing, or marketing.
For example, my nonfiction email list (at www.christianediting.co.nz) has a two-week email course on self-editing for fiction writers, which is a combination of a freebie and a welcome sequence.
James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) has a similar welcome sequence, an 11-part course on how to build better habits that’s delivered over 30 days. He then sends a short weekly 3-2-1 email with useful quotes and ideas. Going back to last week’s it’s a newsletter I’m inspired to keep receiving because it’s short, regular, and interesting, and has an element of predictability embedded in the 3-2-1 format.
