Getting your first 100 email subscribers with no ad budget

One hundred subscribers is a useful first target, because it gives you something to offer in a swap and it is where a launch email starts to sell books rather than just announce one. For a new author with one book and no money for adverts, there are five free sources that can produce those first hundred. None of them is fast on its own, so run all five at once.

Written Word Media's 2025 Author Survey, published 2 December 2025 from 1,346 responses, found that published authors with an email list earned a median of $300 a month and those without earned $15. Respondents ranked their own list as the most effective marketing tactic they used, ahead of promo sites, Facebook adverts and BookBub deals. Authors earning over $10,000 a month rated their newsletter at 4.3 out of 5 for effectiveness; those earning under $100 rated it 2.7. The survey shows a link rather than a cause: a list does not by itself make anyone a high earner.

1. The link in the back of the book

Every copy you sell carries one invitation to join your list, and it costs nothing. Put a page immediately after the last line of the story, before the acknowledgements, with one sentence saying what the reader gets and one link. BookFunnel's help on first-time authors recommends the call to action at the front of the file as well as the back, because Kindle readers often close the book at the last page and never see the back matter.

Expectations: we looked for a published conversion rate and did not find one we could stand behind. Blogs quote 3% to 8%, or 5% to 15%, without naming a source, so we do not use them. The arithmetic you can do is your own. If you sell 300 copies in six months and one reader in fifty follows the link, that is six subscribers. If one in twenty does, it is fifteen. Either way the back matter builds slowly and keeps building for as long as the book sells, and it brings the most engaged subscribers you will get.

2. A reader magnet on your author page

A reader magnet is a short piece, a prequel story or a deleted scene, given away in exchange for an email address. It turns a visitor who is not ready to buy into a subscriber. Put it on your author page, which should be the page your Amazon bio, social profiles and the back-matter link all point to. Our article on the six pages worth building covers the layout.

You do not need a paid tool to deliver it. MailerLite's free tier (250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month as of November 2026) and Kit's (10,000 subscribers) will both send a download link in the welcome email. BookFunnel adds device help for readers who cannot sideload a file, but email collection needs its $200 a year Mid-List plan; the $30 plan delivers files without collecting addresses. The Indie Author Toolchest puts the author page, the signup form and the reader list on one subdomain, so the magnet goes on the same page that lists your store links.

Expectations: a reader magnet converts the traffic you already have. With no adverts, that traffic is the back-matter link, your social profiles and search for your name. Expect a handful a week, not a hundred a month.

3. Newsletter swaps

A swap is two authors in the same genre each mentioning the other's book to their own list on an agreed date. It is the fastest free source once you have anything to offer, and it is why 100 matters: an author with 800 subscribers may swap with one who has 80 if the genre fits and you are reliable. Our guide to swaps and group promos covers what to agree in advance and what goes wrong.

Expectations: a swap sends readers to your book or your magnet, not to your list directly, so the gain depends on what they land on. Send them to the magnet page and the swap grows the list; send them to Amazon and it may grow sales instead. Decide which you want before you agree the link.

4. Group promos

A group promo is a page of free books in one genre, each a reader magnet, that every participating author sends their list to during the same week. The reader picks what they like and joins each author's list to download it. BookFunnel and StoryOrigin run them. BookFunnel's promo statistics page shows you views, cover clicks and claims per book, but BookFunnel publishes no averages, and neither does anyone else we could find.

Expectations: this is the source that can grow a small list fastest, and it tends to bring more unsubscribes afterwards, because the reader joined for a free book. Send a welcome email the same day with the book attached and one line about who you are, then another within the week. The ones who stay after the second email are yours.

5. Signings and events with a QR code

A library talk, a market stall or a bookshop signing puts you in front of people who have decided to stop and listen, which makes them a small audience but a willing one. Print a QR code to your magnet page on a card at the table, and say out loud what scanning it gets them. BookFunnel's author event feature generates the QR code and a signup page with a mailing list tick box, then exports the names as a CSV; it is on the Mid-List plan and above. A plain QR code to any signup form does the same job for nothing.

Expectations: nobody has published a per-event average that we could verify. Count your own. A dozen signups from an afternoon is a good afternoon, and they are people who have met you.

Putting the five together

1. Week one: set up the free mailing list tier, write the welcome email and put the magnet on your author page.
2. Week one: add the front and back matter link to your book file and republish. KDP updates the file for new buyers within a few days.
3. Month one: join one group promo in your genre and send your list to it, however small the list is.
4. Month two: ask two authors from that promo for a swap.
5. At every event you can get to, put the QR code on the table.

Write down the number on the first of each month. The first hundred is slow and the second hundred is quicker, because the swaps get easier and the back matter is working on more copies. When you reach 100, send them something they cannot get anywhere else, and start planning the launch they will hear about first.