I’ve recently received a marketing email from Amazon offering 80 books at £1 each, this despite many of them being offered for 99p. Why not ‘under £1’ in the Subject Line? Moving on, Amazon email marketing is not an unending source of inspiration, but then they probably feel they don’t have to be as the returns are very strong.
You might well have received the same email, and have picked up the matter which I’m going to highlight. It is rather obvious. In the section headed, ‘Romance on sale’ there are 19 books selected, six of 
which have virtually identical cover images, apart from the titles of course. There’s another, almost identical, image in the crime section.
It might be that it is the new fashion: dark, brooding skies over a water landscape with and without rocky outcrops, a couple of boats but only the lucky ones get a lighthouse. Yet the cover of the book has a specific function. It is there to stand out against the others. One could mention rocket science here, but it’s not even GCE English.
It’s almost funny and one could indulge feeling smug without guilt. Or can you? Your subscribers will have an inbox with a number of marketing emails, all trying to sell them something and, at least in my inbox, many of them looking more or less the same. There are no dark, brooding skies, but there are common words, common phrases and identical promises.
Book covers can identify an author, and signify to potential purchasers that they are buying more or less the same story with the same outcome so perhaps your old faithful subscribers might be happy with the same old. However, why should your average subscriber pick your one over the others? Is there anything that makes your Subject Lines different?
You should look at your Subject Lines not in isolation but against your competitors to see whether you are generic and therefore forgettable, and are promising something special. You do not need to be inspired. Just put yourself in the place of your subscribers and work out what would float their boat. Or light their lighthouse.
