Est.2016
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The Six Email Sequences Every Publisher Should Have Running
automation
There are two kinds of email in a publishing business. Campaigns, which you write and send to everyone at once, and sequences, which are written once and then triggered by something a person does. Almost every small publisher does the first and almost none do the second, which is strange, because the second kind is where the money is.
A campaign earns once. A sequence earns every week for years while you are doing something else.
Here are the six worth building, roughly in the order of return.
1. Welcome sequence
Triggered when someone joins the list. This is the highest-open-rate email you will ever send, because the person just typed their address on purpose and is expecting you.
Three emails over about a week. The first delivers whatever they signed up for and says in one line what you publish. The second tells the story of the press — why it exists, what it will not publish — because for a specialist imprint the reason you exist is the reason people buy. The third recommends a specific first book, one title, with a real argument for it.
Do not put a discount in the welcome sequence unless you intend to discount permanently. You are training a buying behaviour with the very first email.
2. Abandoned cart
Triggered when someone reaches checkout and does not complete. This is the single highest-revenue automation in almost every ecommerce setup, publishing included.
Two emails. First after roughly an hour, plain text, no design, subject line as close to a personal note as you can make it. Second after twenty-four hours, this one addressing the actual reason people abandon a book order — shipping cost, delivery time, whether it will arrive before a date. Answer the objection instead of applying pressure.
Do not add a discount to the second email. It teaches your list that abandoning the cart produces a coupon, and people learn that fast.
3. Browse abandonment
Triggered when someone views a product page more than once and does not buy. Lower volume than cart abandonment, but the people are genuinely interested.
One email, and it should not read as a sales email. Send the strongest content associated with that title — an extract, the story of how the material was found, a set of the images. The purchase argument for a specialist book is the material itself.
4. Post-purchase
Triggered on order, then on estimated delivery. This is the most neglected sequence and the one that decides your repeat rate.
An order confirmation that actually says something — when it ships, how it is packed, what to do if it arrives damaged. Then a delivery check-in, which catches damage complaints privately before they become one-star reviews. Then a review request about ten days after delivery, worded as a favour with a direct link.
5. Related title recommendation
Triggered roughly three to four weeks after purchase, segmented by what they bought.
This is where list coherence pays off. Someone who bought a book on one subject gets recommended the neighbouring subject, not your entire catalogue. If your books do not have obvious neighbours, this sequence will underperform, and that is information about your list rather than about your email.
6. Win-back
Triggered when a previously active subscriber has not opened anything for around six months.
Two emails. The first is your best content, no ask at all. The second asks directly whether they still want to hear from you, with a one-click way to leave. Then remove the non-responders.
Deleting subscribers feels like going backwards. It is not — inbox providers judge you on engagement rate, and a list carrying thousands of dead addresses drags deliverability down for everyone still reading you.
The order to build them in
Do not attempt all six at once. Build abandoned cart first, because it pays for the rest. Then welcome, then post-purchase. Those three cover most of the available revenue. Add browse abandonment, related title, and win-back once the first three are running and you have data to segment on.
Each one takes an afternoon to write and roughly an hour to build. Then it runs forever.
