A reader decides whether to open your email in about the time it takes to read this sentence, and the subject line is most of what they have to go on. Authors have an advantage here that most senders do not: your readers signed up because they like how you write. The subject line is the first place they hear your voice. These five habits make the most of it.
1. Say what is inside
The most reliable subject line is a plain description of the email. Readers open what they can identify.
-
Vague: "News from my desk"
-
Clear: "The Ashfall cover is here"
-
Vague: "A little update"
-
Clear: "Chapter one of the next book, a month early"
Save the mystery for the novel. If the email contains a cover, a release date, a free story, or a sale, put that noun in the subject line.
2. Front-load the first forty characters
Phones cut subject lines off, and most of your readers are on a phone. Put the part that matters first.
- Buried: "I'm so excited to finally be able to tell you the release date"
- Front-loaded: "March 14: The Last Witness comes out"
Then use the preview text, the gray line after the subject, to finish the thought instead of repeating it. Left alone, it shows the first line of your email, which is often "View in browser" or "Hi there."
3. Earn curiosity, do not fake it
Curiosity works when the email pays it off. It backfires when it does not, and the cost is a reader who trusts your next subject line less.
- Earned: "The scene my editor made me cut" (and the email contains the scene)
- Faked: "You won't believe what happened" (and the email is a sale reminder)
A useful test: if a reader opened the email and felt the subject line had been fair, it was curiosity. If they felt tricked, it was clickbait.
4. Write five before you pick one
The first subject line you think of is the one everyone thinks of. Write five, and the third or fourth is usually the keeper.
In AuthorSend, Quill drafts several options from the email you have written and gives each a rough engagement rating. Treat that as a second opinion from a well-read friend, not a verdict: take the strongest, then rewrite it until it sounds like you.
What actually teaches you what works is your own history. After a few months, look back through your campaign reports and sort by click rate rather than open rate. Opens are inflated by mail apps that preload messages. Clicks are a reader doing something.
5. Sound like your books
Your newsletter is part of your author brand, and the subject line sets its tone before a word of the email is read.
- Cozy mystery: "Tea, a body in the library, and a release date"
- Thriller: "She has 48 hours. You have until Friday."
- Romance: "He was supposed to stay for one summer"
A reader who would recognize your subject line with your name covered up is a reader who opens.
The habit behind all five
Write the email first and the subject line last. By then you know what the email is really about, and the plain description of it, in your voice, is usually the line you want.