Two Weeks After Moving My Newsletter to Klaviyo

Photo by Hayley Murray on Unsplash

Remember when I told you I was moving my active newsletter subscribers from Mailchimp and Flodesk over to Klaviyo?

Well, we’re two weeks in. And I’m making money.

Now, two weeks is NOT enough data for me to declare victory. I want more of it before I start making sweeping declarations. But I can tell you what’s happening so far.

First, I’ve completely changed the way I think about my newsletter. I’m not trying to grow the biggest subscriber list anymore. I’m trying to grow my active customer list. Every link goes to my website and my Shopify store.

I’m currently sending two emails per week for each pen name. On Tuesdays, I send my regular weekly newsletter using my content bucket system.

If you haven’t heard me talk about content buckets before, it’s basically how I have several categories—or buckets—of things I regularly talk about.

• Backlist books.

• New releases and launches.

• Writing updates and behind-the-scenes peeks.

• Personal stories.

• Recommendations.

• Sales and promotions.

Instead of inventing a brand-new newsletter strategy every Tuesday, I pull something from one of those buckets.

Then on Fridays, I do First Chapter Friday.

I choose ONE book. I talk about the book, include the entire first chapter in the email, and then give readers several ways to keep reading.

They can buy that individual book from my store. Or they can buy the entire series as an ebook bundle. Or they can buy the series in paperback (or special edition if available).

After only two weeks, these campaigns are generating revenue. Please note these are different from my Shopify Flows. We can have that conversation in another post.

The first image is from my Shanae Johnson pen name who has 8K subscribers who have engaged in the last 6 months on the previous provider platforms.

The second image is from my Ines Johnson pen name who has 11K subscribers who have engaged in the last six months on the previous platforms.

I’m also seeing another encouraging number. My deliverability/open rates with Mailchimp and Flodesk had fallen into the 20-percent range. With Klaviyo, I’m now seeing numbers in the 30s. I don’t know why 35% open rate is good for Shanae but fair for Ines according to Klayvio???

Again...

TWO WEEKS.

I am not making any grand proclamations yet. But I’m watching.

Also, remember that I uploaded those unengaged subscribers as an audience for a Facebook ad. I uploaded the emails address for 30K of cleaned newsletter subs into a Facebook Audience for my Ines pen name and added them to the Heir Traffic Campaign. The Merciless Vow Launch campaign has the same audience (“Paranormal Romance Literature” ), but without the newsletter subs. And you can see the difference.

Note that Merciless Vow Launch ad was running longer than Heir Traffic Campaign ad. But you still can see that Heir quickly overtook Vow in less time and with less budget.

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What I’m most excited about right now, though, is First Chapter Friday. I think this might be the best way I’ve found to consistently sell individual books from my backlist while also introducing readers to my higher-value offers.

Come for one book.

Read the first chapter.

Want the rest? Here’s the individual ebook.

Oh, you like the whole series? Here’s a discounted ebook bundle.

Want something pretty for your shelf? Here’s the paperback omnibus or special edition.

That’s the customer journey I’m trying to build. And because all of those links lead to my store, I get to see what happens next.

Klaviyo gets the data. Shopify gets the data. I get the data.

And then I can make my next decision based on what readers actually do instead of what I think they’re going to do.

I’ll come back in a few months once I have significantly more data and tell you what I’ve learned.

For now? I’m intrigued. Are you?

I think I’ll do a live lab on this for paid subscribers next month (September 2026). It’s just $8 a month to become a paid subscriber. I keep it that low because I’m not consistent with extra content. UPGRADE TO PAID HERE.

And don’t forget to follow my Diversified Author Blueprint Kickstarter. I’m currently documenting my processes for selling across various platforms and strategies so that I’m not dependent on one retailer or algorithm.