If you’ve ever received an email from Books are my Third Place, then you’ve already interacted with a Flodesk email. Chances are, your favorite author’s newsletter might be powered by Flodesk too. And if it’s not, it should be. So many authors, especially indie authors, are spread thin, and the last thing they want to have to think about is designing their email newsletters and creating lead generation pages to reach more readers. You just want to write your story, right? Flodesk is the best email marketing platform for authors, small business owners (author PAs I’m looking at you too!) and below I’ll walk through some reasons why. But before we get to the nitty gritty, let me share what Flodesk actually is for those not yet familiar. It’s an email marketing platform where you can grow a list of readers, collect your superfans, and potential readers of your books, send book updates, ARC opportunities, and even sell your books with their Checkout feature. So even though it started out as an email only platform, they continue to add new features beyond email, including a built in link-in-bio landing page you can customize, sales tools, forms, and are continually adding to their analytics offerings. They’ve recently updated their pricing structure, so I’ll cover that too.

You could say I’m a Flodesk superfan. I started using it in its early beta days with startups I was working with in San Francisco and Europe. Plus, I always love to support fellow female founders, so it was a no brainer to try early on, especially when I had a hate hate relationship with virtually every other email service provider I had to use in the past. I also use it for my own small bookish businesses, including this blog’s weekly newsletter as I mention above, and collection drops for my shop of literary luxuries, Valor & Lore, so naturally I wanted to be a Flodesk Partner.* Now you might be wondering, ok, but what actually makes it so great for authors over other email platforms? Below I’ll walk you through some of the best features it has and why you should consider switching to Flodesk or reconsider it if it’s been a while since you’ve checked it out.

1. Get back to what you love most: writing. And leave the designing to the experts.

Flodesk requires very little to setup. You can be up in running in just a few minutes, and they provide beautiful customizable templates for FREE, so there’s no need to spend hours trying to design or code an email, form, pop up, or even a book launch sales landing page. Plus, you can also quickly add your author branding, including your custom fonts, logo, and colors, so everything you create will automatically have your branding. If you want to tailor an email to fit a specific book in your backlist, you can easily change up the colors and fonts. And if you have a section you reuse a lot, they’ve added a favorites section, so you can easily add it to future newsletters. It could not be easier.

2. WYSIWYG: no coding required for a beautiful newsletter

Related to point one, this email tool is all about saving you time. Having worked for companies years ago where I literally had to have an engineer code each email, the design always looked terrible, and making changes was a nightmare, I was ecstatic when I finally found Flodesk. You can literally drag and drop different templates and sections in and it’s exactly what your subscribers will see, and everything is optimized for both desktop and mobile readers, as well as dark mode. Plus, you can (and I always recommend to NEVER skip this step) quickly send a test to make sure all your links are working and it looks good on all devices.

3. It integrates with Book Funnel

I’ll mention this a million times in this article, but Flodesk is constantly adding new integrations, and if you’re already using Book Funnel to distribute your ebooks, audiobooks, or ARCs, you can seamlessly use it with Flodesk. How convenient, no?! They even have an easy set up guide here.

4. Speaking of integrations, it also integrates with Canva, Manychat, Thrivecart, and more.

Everyone in the book community uses Canva daily, right? It’s an author’s best friend. And this was such a welcome integration. That’s something I love about Flodesk, is the the constant value add. Like I mentioned above, they’re always adding more integration options with tools people already use, and make it easier to be more efficient. You can easily add branded book graphics, quote teasers, or book tour dates to your email newsletter draft without having to download them to your desktop and then reupload, clogging up your computer. Again saving you time.

5. Affordable pricing structure that works with whatever your list size is

Since Flodesk started, they’ve been champions for small businesses. It’s honestly what first made me excited to use Flodesk, and I LOVE that they have a free trial (a lot of ESPs don’t). As they’ve continued to grow, it didn’t seem fair that many solopreneurs (because that’s what you authors are too!) are paying the same as a large corporation sending out millions of emails a month, right? They’ve recently updated their pricing from a flat rate model to a new model based on audience size, which I’ll share below, and it still gives great options for people just getting started on growing an email list.

👉🏻Try Flodesk FREE using my code (BAMTPRECS) AND get 25% off your first year of Flodesk!

Quick action plan for authors who want to use Flodesk now

If you’re undecided after this, sign up for the FREE trial and create some landing pages and forms to start collecting reader emails, then evaluate whether the Pro features pay for themselves during your next book launch or book event.
Build a short welcome sequence that delivers a reader magnet like a first chapter or reading guide and routes readers into interest segments based on their click behavior.
Use Checkout for one small paid product (maybe a signed bookplate or a bonus chapter) to test conversion tracking and a revenue pipeline.

6. They’re constantly developing and improving the tools AND they actually listen to their customers

And speaking of integrity, I love that they are constantly asking for feedback, taking into account feature requests, and always adding new tools and features. I’ll be honest, Analytics were lacking for quite a while, but they’ve been adding more and more meaningful analytics features this past year, and it’s great to see a company actually listen to their customers. I’m personally hoping for more analytics in the future.

7. You can use Flodesk Templates OR purchase Third Party integrated templates

Like I mentioned above, they have so many great templates to get you started for your newsletters, preorder incentive delivery, sales, and more. There are also super customizable templates for forms, popups that you can easily embed or add to your author website. In addition, they opened up their platform for designers to create integrated templates, so there are beautiful templates you can find that fit your author vibe, or you could even commission a designer to create them for you and easily integrate them into your Flodesk account to use in the future over and over again.

8. Easy Automations You can create workflows and segments

Welcome sequences, pre-order funnels, and post-purchase thank-you flows are SO simple to create. You can automate your reader onboarding (deliver freebies like a first chapter, reading guide, character pronunciation guides, etc.), drip promotions for upcoming book releases, and follow ups asking for Goodreads and Amazon reviews—all without a steep learning curve. You can also create segments based on reader behavior or even click actions within emails you’ve sent. So as an example, let’s say you’ve got multiple books or series and you share them both in an email. If a reader only clicks on one, they can automatically be added to an interest segment for that book or series. So you can then email a high intent list of subscribers in the future. In the same way, if you want to keep your unsubscribes lower, you can let people opt out of certain messages, so they get segmented to specific content they’re interested from you. Flodesk has also recently added integrations with SquareSpace, Wix, and Shopify, so no more uploading CSV files from your author website of new subscribers and community members.

9. No sharing logins with your VA

Do you have an author PA or Virtual Assistant that helps put together your emails? Easily create up to three team logins, so you can keep your account secure and transfer access in the future to new employees.

If you’re serious about growing your author platform, selling more books, and building a community of loyal readers, Flodesk remains, in my opinion, one of the best email platforms for authors who prioritize building an author brand. With beautiful templates, effortless automations, and an author-friendly Checkout, Flodesk is uniquely suited to selling books, building reader communities, and running book launches. Plus, as I said from the beginning, it lets you focus on what matters most: writing great stories and sharing them with the world.

👉🏻Try Flodesk for FREE here, and get 25% off your entire first year

As a seasoned Marketer, I love sharing some of my favorite tools that I ACTUALLY use and recommend. If you’d like to see more of this kind of content, drop a comment and let me know or share your biggest challenges in marketing your books or bookish business.

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*(Flodesk Partner Disclosure: If you sign up through my link above, you’ll get 50% off for your first year, and I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps keep this blog going for you and your fellow book lovers. I only share tools I love and use personally.)

Flodesk’s New Pricing Structure and Why It’s Still the Best Email Marketing Platform for Authors to Reach Their Reader Community