We analyzed 575 email newsletters from bestselling fiction authors to find out which email marketing platforms they actually use, then combined those findings with the tactics that work for building a list, writing emails readers open, and selling more books.
Table of contents
- Key Takeaways
- Why Email Still Outperforms Everything Else for Authors
- Choosing an Author Email Marketing Platform: What Bestselling Authors Actually Use
- What This Data Doesn’t Tell You
- Pick a Platform and Start Sending
Key Takeaways
- Mailchimp (25%) and MailerLite (22.8%) together power nearly half of all bestselling author newsletters
- The top 5 platforms cover 70% of the market. Most authors overthink this decision
- ConvertKit/Kit (4.5%) is surprisingly low given its heavy marketing to creators. The data suggests it skews toward nonfiction and course creators, not fiction authors
- Substack (6.4%) is growing but it’s a publishing platform, not a traditional email service provider (the tradeoffs matter)
- The platform is not the differentiator—consistency is. Bestselling authors succeed on 30 different platforms
Why Email Still Outperforms Everything Else for Authors
The business case is straightforward: email subscribers convert to book buyers at higher rates than any social channel. According to Mailchimp’s email marketing benchmarks, the media and publishing vertical sees average open rates around 22% — meaning roughly one in five subscribers reads what you send. No social platform gives you that kind of consistent reach with your own audience.
Email is the only marketing channel you fully own. Social media platforms can change their algorithms overnight, throttle your reach, or shut down entirely. When they do, your audience goes with them. Your email list stays with you no matter what.
Email is also a 1-to-1 relationship. You write an email, and a human on the other end receives it. You don’t need to pay to boost a post or bid for visibility. Yes, inbox filters matter — Gmail’s Promotions tab and spam folders are real — but there’s no middleman deciding whether your audience gets to see your content based on how much you’re willing to spend. On social media, organic reach is a favor the platform grants you. In email, delivery is the default.
The economics reflect this. Email marketing costs are predictable and low — most platforms are free until you hit 500 or 1,000 subscribers, and even at scale the cost per message is fractions of a cent. Compare that to social media advertising, where you’re renting attention at whatever rate the auction demands. Every email you send builds equity in a list you own. Every dollar you spend on social ads is gone the moment the campaign ends.
Choosing an Author Email Marketing Platform: What Bestselling Authors Actually Use
This is the section no other guide can give you. Instead of rehashing feature comparisons, we looked at what bestselling fiction authors actually use—verified through email headers, not self-reported surveys.
The Full Breakdown
We analyzed 575 emails from bestselling fiction authors by examining their sending infrastructure (the technical headers that reveal which platform sent each email). This isn’t a survey where authors self-report. It’s what they’re actually running.
Source: Authormatic, February 2026
| Rank | Provider | Count | % of Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mailchimp | 145 | 25.21% |
| 2 | MailerLite | 131 | 22.78% |
| 3 | WordPress | 51 | 8.87% |
| 4 | Flodesk | 44 | 7.65% |
| 5 | Substack | 37 | 6.43% |
| 6 | Klaviyo | 27 | 4.70% |
| 7 | Kit (ConvertKit) | 26 | 4.52% |
| 8 | Wix | 13 | 2.26% |
| 9 | Amazon SES | 10 | 1.74% |
| 10 | ActiveCampaign | 9 | 1.57% |
Key observations:
- MailerLite + Mailchimp = 48% — nearly half of all bestselling fiction authors use one of these two platforms
- The long tail is real: 20 providers each hold less than 2% market share
- Data note: We combined WordPress.com and WordPress as well as Mandrill and Mailchimp
The Top 5, Unpacked
Mailchimp (25%) — The Default That Endures
Mailchimp’s #1 position is largely driven by brand recognition, integrations, and inertia. It was the default for years, and many authors who started there have simply stayed.
My take: pricing has gotten worse since the Intuit acquisition, complexity has increased, and feature bloat has made it harder to use for simple newsletter workflows. I don’t recommend anyone start with Mailchimp. Since the Intuit acquisition, it has gotten both worse and more expensive. If you’re already on it and it’s working, fine. But for new authors, avoid it.
Best for: authors already in the ecosystem, or those needing specific third-party integrations that only Mailchimp supports.
MailerLite (23%) — The Challenger
MailerLite has quickly become an author favorite and it’s not hard to see why. The platform offers a generous free tier up to 1,000 subscribers, simple automations, and built-in landing pages. It’s capable without being complex or expensive.
Best for: most authors, especially those just getting started. Authors who are email marketing beginners can get up and running quickly thanks to MailerLite’s ease of use. For a detailed comparison of these two platforms, see MailerLite vs Mailchimp for Authors.
WordPress (9%) — A Convenient But Simple Tool
WordPress remains a favorite for author websites. When email capabilities arrived, either through native features like Jetpack or third-party plugins, it seems a good chunk of others adopted it as their email tool of choice (e.g. John Scalzi).
What I’ve seen so far is WordPress email is a simple broadcast platform. You can write a well-formatted email with rich media embeds and send it without much trouble. Jetpack CRM apparently offers sequences, but I haven’t seen any author automations sent via WordPress so far.
Best for: authors using WordPress who prefer the all-in-one approach rather than adding a new tool to their tech stack.
Flodesk (8%) — Design-First for Visual Brands
Flodesk landed at #4 with flat-rate pricing ($38/month regardless of list size), beautiful templates, and a design-first approach. The tradeoffs: fewer automations and no free tier.
The lack of a free tier is a big strike against Flodesk in my book. I always want to try a tool before I buy to make sure it works with my goals and workflow. I also don’t like investing in a tool before I know it delivers a return. Furthermore, Flodesk focuses heavily on beautiful emails and I’m not convinced many indie authors need to spend their time on fancy HTML templates.
Best for: authors who prioritize visual aesthetics and want predictable monthly costs.
Substack (7%) — Newsletter or Platform?
Substack is fundamentally different from the others on this list. It’s a publishing platform with built-in discovery and monetization, not a traditional email service provider.
Substack’s strength is in its reader network and built-in discovery algorithm. Authors can succeed on Substack by simply being active—posting newsletters, engaging on Notes, and participating in the community. But it lacks any sort of automation and has zero integration capabilities (no public API). There’s also an open question about how much of Substack’s audience are fiction readers, since the platform focuses heavily on nonfiction publications.
Best for: authors who want paid newsletter revenue and built-in discovery. Not for: authors who want full branding control, automation sequences, or multi-channel marketing.
Noteworthy Runner-Ups
Klaviyo (5%) — The Direct-to-Consumer Dominator
Klaviyo is a well-established and powerful automation, CRM, and data platform. It was built for e-commerce stores using Shopify and has dominated in that market for nearly a decade.
As authors continue to pursue selling direct to readers, I expect adoption of this platform to grow. Best-selling romance author Shayla Black uses it, and I saw her use both a Welcome Series and trigger-based emails (e.g. user hasn’t purchased -> send email). But buyer beware: Klaviyo will be overwhelming to the beginner.
Best for: Sophisticated authors, selling direct to readers on Shopify, who want to leverage the power of data to send the right emails to the right people at the right time.
ConvertKit / Kit (4.5%) — The Creator Darling That Didn’t Dominate
Kit’s 4.3% share was the biggest surprise in our data. The platform markets heavily to creators and has strong brand recognition in the creator economy. However, bestselling fiction authors aren’t using it in large numbers.
The likely explanation: Kit skews toward nonfiction and course creators, and its pricing runs higher than MailerLite for comparable features. That said, Kit is the gold standard for powerful automation and digital product sales. It’s the most popular choice for digital creators, coaches, and many nonfiction authors for good reason.
I think the low showing among fiction authors comes down to a lack of focus on the niche and the fact that many fiction authors aren’t as tech-forward. Anyone looking to scale revenue through their email list should seriously consider Kit.
Best for: authors who want to scale via automation or build with scale in mind from the start.
Decision Framework — How to Choose
| Criteria | MailerLite | Mailchimp | WordPress | Flodesk | Substack | Kit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes (1K subs) | Yes (500 subs) | No | No | Yes (free unpaid) | Yes (10K subs) |
| Ease of use | High | Medium | High | High | Very high | Medium |
| Automations | Good | Strong | Jetpack CRM Only | Basic | Minimal | Strong |
| Design quality | Good | Good | Limited | Excellent | Limited | Good |
| List ownership | Full | Full | Full | Full | Exportable | Full |
| Built-in audience | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes (limited) |
| Best for | Most authors | Integrated workflows | WordPress author websites | Visual brands | Paid newsletters | Scaling email revenue |
The bottom line: the platform matters far less than most authors think. Bestselling authors succeed on 30 different providers. Pick one that fits your budget and comfort level, and spend your energy on what actually matters—consistent, valuable emails to your readers.
What This Data Doesn’t Tell You
Transparency about the limits of our research:
- Satisfaction and churn aren’t captured — Mailchimp users may be actively leaving; MailerLite users may love it. We can’t tell from the data
- Correlation isn’t causation — bestselling authors didn’t become bestsellers because of their email platform
- Genre differences aren’t broken out in this dataset — romance authors may cluster differently than literary fiction or sci-fi (future analyses will include genre breakdowns)
- List size is unknown — an author on Amazon SES may have 500,000 subscribers; one on MailerLite may have 2,000. The platform choice often reflects list scale and technical sophistication, not quality
Pick a Platform and Start Sending
The data tells a simple story: two platforms cover nearly half the market, and the top five cover 70%. The email marketing platform decision is less important than most authors make it.
Bestselling authors succeed on 30 different providers. What they have in common isn’t the tool. It’s the habit of regularly emailing their readers with content worth opening.
Once you pick a platform, the things that actually matter are list hygiene (remove subscribers who haven’t opened in 6+ months, use double opt-in, keep bounce rates below 2%) and consistency. A well-maintained list on any platform will outperform a neglected list on the “best” platform.
That said, if you’re starting from scratch, here’s the simplest path forward: pick MailerLite or Kit, set up a reader magnet, write a welcome sequence, and commit to showing up in your readers’ inboxes regularly. You can optimize from there, but you can’t optimize what doesn’t exist yet. Not sure what to write once you’re set up? We read 962 author emails and broke down every content type that works.
Data source: Authormatic analysis of 575 bestselling fiction author newsletters, February 2026. Email service providers identified through sending infrastructure analysis (email headers), not self-reported surveys.