'Digital newsletters really humanise you to your readers'

Salt Lake City based Elle Griffin is a writer of gothic novels

Author Elle Griffin says she would definitely turn down a book deal if she was ever offered one.

"I'd never accept one… traditional book publishing is full of bad math, and even worse marketing," says the 37-year-old writer of gothic novels.

Last year, instead of releasing her first book, called Obscurity, as physical copies in High Street bookstores, or as a Kindle version to download, she started to self-publish chapters as email instalments.

Using online publishing platform Substack, the new chapters were emailed out every week or two to Ms Griffin's subscribers.

She already had more than 3,000 non-paying followers before she started to release the book, as she had for a number of years been writing articles on numerous topics.

Elle has now moved on to her second book, which is also being released in emailed instalments

But by the end of the first 12 months of her novel's serialisation her subscriber numbers had more than doubled, thanks to recommendations from readers and other Substack account holders.

Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ms Griffin now has 6,843 subscribers, and, crucially, 301 paying ones.

They are charged from $10 (£8.60) a month, or $50 per annum, and Ms Griffin says in the first year she earned nearly $18,000.

With many of us spending more time online than ever before, writing coach Nancy Erickson says it makes sense for novelists like Ms Griffin to focus on offering readers direct digital access to their work.

"What you really want to do is meet your audience wherever they're already engaged," says Ms Erickson, who is based in St Louis, Missouri. She adds that digital engagement "helps authors build their brands, as well as finding other revenue generating activities".

Jane Ostler is executive vice president of global thought leadership at brand consulting company Kantar. She sees online serialisation as an effective form of digital marketing, a way for new writers to get themselves better known. "I think there is a lot of potential here for a new writer," she says.

Jane Ostler says that authors have to be aware of the need to market themselves

While prolific Nottingham-based author Kristina Adams hasn't serialised any of her 16 self-published novels and three non-fiction titles, she has been sending free weekly digital newsletters about literature and life to subscribers since 2014. This was two years before the now 32-year-old released her first book.

She continues to send these emails out to more than 2,500 people via a service called MailerLite. They include stories about things referenced in her books, talks about her dog Millie, and promotion of upcoming releases.

"Digital newsletters in particular, I think more than social media, really humanise you to your readers," says Ms Adams, who writes romance titles under her full name, and ghost stories as KC Adams. "It gives you a much closer connection.

"And sending out the newsletters really makes a different to sales. Every time I sent one out I get an up-turn in sales.

"You can think that you are sending out far too many, but in most cases only about a fifth of people will open each email. So while you think you are shouting and demanding attention, most subscribers wouldn't see it that way."

Kristina Adams says her digital newsletters allow her to better connect with her readers

Back in Salt Lake City, Ms Griffin is now serialising her second novel. She says she was inspired to release her book in instalments by 19th Century French writer Alexandre Dumas.

Like her, he wrote gothic fiction, and his well-known novel The Count of Monte Cristo was serialised in a Parisian weekly newspaper in the 1840s.

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As is the norm for Substack, people can read the chapters of Ms Griffin's novels for free via her page on the app and website.

However, paying subscribers get extra benefits, such as the ability to read Ms Griffin's commentaries, post their own thoughts, chat with other subscribers, and even write and publish their own essays.

Ms Griffin says all this feedback is very helpful.

"Recently, two readers mentioned that they wished my chapters were longer, so I started making them longer," she says. "I love being able to respond in real-time."

Elle Griffin also designs digital artwork for each chapter, which readers can pay to download

Ms Griffin adds that she had researched self-publishing her books in digital form via Amazon, but that her subscription model is far more lucrative.

She explains the maths. "Say I sold 1,000 books on Amazon, then I'd make $1,000, maybe more, maybe $5,000.

"But if I - instead of just selling it - adopted a subscription model, and charged readers $8 or $9 a month, then from the same 1,000 fans, I could presumably make $100,000 in salary."

She adds that with a traditional book deal she'd be even worse off financially, as she'd likely only get a royalty rate of around 15% of revenues.

In addition to the subscription payments, Ms Griffin's followers can pay to buy and download the digital artwork that she designs for each chapter.

"I think the beauty of it [serialisation] is you can start grassroots, and start from the bottom," she says. "I'm not Stephen King, I'm just barely getting started."

Additional reporting by Will Smale