All authors should take a close look at their email marketing practices before May 25
Haven’t heard of GDPR? If not, you’ll soon see discussion pop up everywhere. GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a new privacy law that takes effect in Europe in late May 2018 and affects everyone doing business with EU citizens. In this context, “doing business” means any transaction in which you’re collecting personal data, such as email addresses. GDPR affects you no matter where you live or where your business is based.
With privacy concerns top of mind for everyone on both sides of the Atlantic, the introduction of new, digital-era regulations to protect consumer information is welcome. However, while the intricate and demanding nature of such regulations can be part of the average workday for internet Goliaths such as Facebook, they can be a nightmare for a single-person LLC (such as an author business).
GDPR law is most likely to affect your email marketing. Here are the top takeaways:
- You can only send marketing emails to people who specifically opt in to your list and say it’s okay to receive marketing messages from you. While this is considered best practice anyway, best practice is not always followed, especially by authors who engage in informal list-sharing or use free ebooks to build a list (and don’t make it clear that marketing messages will follow).
- You must keep record of consent. If you’re not already, you should be using a formal email service provider, such as MailChimp, which collects and stores such consent on your behalf and is bound to comply with GDPR.
- The law applies to people already on your list. Technically, if you can’t provide proof of consent for the people who were already on your list prior to GDPR, you shouldn’t be emailing them after GDPR takes effect.
Bottom line: Practically speaking, we don’t expect EU regulators to start targeting the author and publisher community for infractions, and enforcement is likely to be focused on corporations, not individual authors. That said, if you generate a significant number of complaints or use services that aren’t GDPR compliant, you may be putting yourself at risk. Check with your email service provider—as well as any service you use that stores consumer information—and find out if and how they’ll be compliant with GDPR by May 25. This is the clearest and most comprehensive explanation of GDPR we’ve found.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
