Letters as e-mails, their analytics, and your subscribers
For authorsUpdated 3 min read
On the Creator plan and above a Journal letter goes to your subscribers as a full e-mail with your name and mark, one button, and open and read counts on Studio, Analytics, Letters; readers answer it in the comments on Booklabria. Subscribers are followers who ticked one box saying you can export their e-mail address; export them as a CSV any time.
The short answer
The letter as a letter
A Letter to readers in your Journal reaches your followers' feeds today. On the Creator plan and above it also goes to your subscribers as an e-mail: the full text as you wrote it, your name and mark at the top, one button back to the letter on Booklabria, and an unsubscribe link in the footer, always. Readers answer in the comments under the letter on Booklabria, under their name; replies by e-mail are not open yet. Each letter's page carries a preview card when it is shared elsewhere.
If you turn comments off on a letter, nobody can answer it.
On the free Author plan the e-mail is the short notice readers get today (the title and a link); nothing else changes.
When a letter waits
A letter goes out when you publish it, unless you are sending faster than the limit: one letter an hour and thirty a month per pen name. Nothing is refused and nothing is lost. A letter over the limit is held and goes at its next slot, and the row in Studio › Readers › Letters says Waiting for its slot with the day and time it goes and the reason it is waiting, rather than telling you it is on its way.
A scheduled letter is the same letter: it goes out when it publishes, by the same path, with no second step to remember.
Who your subscribers are
A follower becomes a subscriber by ticking one box, on your page or in the follow sheet: Also send me your letters by e-mail. The author can export your e-mail address. That is the whole consent, and it is per author. Followers who did not tick it are followers only: you see the count, never the address.
Exporting
Studio › Readers › Mailing list lists them and offers Export CSV on every plan, the free one included, once an hour. The file carries the address, the date they subscribed, the export's own id and the exact words they agreed to. An unsubscribe in any letter removes the reader from every export from that moment on; the list says how many left and when. What you do with the file outside Booklabria is yours to answer for; the Terms forbid selling it.
The list also counts subscribers who are paused: an address that does not exist, or that turned two letters away, stops receiving them. You are not told which reader or why, because a reader's mailbox is not your business to read; the count is there so a falling "sent to" number has an explanation. A paused reader clears it themselves by ticking the box again.
What the analytics show
Studio › Readers › Letters: four numbers over the period, and one row per letter with sent to, opened, read on site and replies. Counts only, never a per-reader list, with each column's definition on the page. Two of those definitions matter more than the rest. Sent to is the subscriber count at the moment of sending, minus addresses the letters are not reaching (an address that does not exist stops at once, one that turns two letters away stops after the second). Opened comes from a one-pixel image and can be wrong in either direction: many mail apps block it, which undercounts, and some load it for every message whether or not it is read, which overcounts. Compare your own letters with each other, not with anybody else's. Opens are hidden altogether until a letter reached ten readers, because below that a count can single somebody out.
Where this lives
Related
- The Author Journal: New entry opens the Journal composer with fourteen formats in four groups (General; Book and Story; Launch and ARC; Community), each asking only for what it needs, an audience (Public, Followers, Only me), an optional content note that hides the entry behind a spoiler warning, and a preview. Entries can be saved as drafts under Studio, Posts, and one can be pinned to your page.
- Understanding your Readers page: Studio, Readers answers one question per tab in plain words: Overview (followers, monthly readers, monthly reach), Followers (recent followers and the tastes they chose to make public), Mailing list (your email list and its export history), Journal, Books, Early copies (the campaign funnel) and Letters. Aggregated nightly; no sales figures, nothing faked.
- An author's letters by e-mail: subscribing, replying, unsubscribing: Following an author puts their Journal in your feed. Subscribing sends you their letters as full e-mails as well, with the author's name and mark and one button back to the letter on Booklabria, where you answer it in the comments. Subscribing is one explicit checkbox per author that says the author can export your e-mail address; unsubscribe is one click in every letter, and from then on the author's export leaves you out. Followers who never ticked the box are never exported.
- Sharing your e-mail with an author: An author never gets your e-mail address from a follow, a request or a review. The one way is the checkbox beside Follow, "Also send me the author's letters by e-mail. The author can export your e-mail address." Tick it and the author's letters arrive in your inbox and your address is in the author's export; unsubscribe from any letter in one click, or under Settings › Notifications, and the next export leaves you out.
- Plans, and what the beta unlocks: Readers never pay; there is no reader plan and never will be. Writing here is free forever: books, series, the Journal and followers are never limited on any plan. What the plans are for is the launch: advance-copy campaigns, the readers who come with them, and the people who help. Author (free) has one pen name and one small campaign at a time (up to 25 readers, no delivery links); Creator ($9 a month or $90 a year) runs 3 campaigns at a time with up to 100 readers each; Pro ($19 or $190) is unlimited with 5 pen names and 2 collaborators; Publisher ($59 or $590) is the imprint, billed yearly by invoice with 5 seats. A $12 campaign pass runs one campaign (up to 100 readers) without a plan, valid for 60 days from the day you buy it. The 14-day trial needs a card and starts with your first campaign or delivery link, not at signup. During the closed beta nothing is charged and every author feature is unlocked.
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