How Authors And Writers Can Build An Email List For Marketing

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• Thanks for the tips. I've been thinking that I need to start building an email list, but didn't know how to go about doing it. Giving away short stories will be a good solution for me.

  • I'm so glad this helped Lovelyn. I do get a lot of questions about it!

• Joanna, My "list building strategy" is to ask people to register on my blog. I do actually get a lot of registrations but I'd say 90% of them are spam - usually with Russian email addresses! I have no idea how this benefits the spammer but it is very annoying.

  Maybe I should try something more positive.

  • You make me laugh Graham - have you got Akismet installed properly on your blog? It does a great job of killing spam for me. List building is brilliant so a hardcore writer like yourself should definitely invest - don't you have a lot of free audio you could use as a giveaway!

• Terrific post Joanna. You list some good examples there of things to give away as signup incentives.

  A few other points spring to mind:
  - it takes time, don't be discouraged. The first signups are exciting, the first unsubscribes are heart breaking. But keep at it, because you're building a valuable asset and that is never quick or easy.
  - keep your list "warm" by emailing them regularly. Email that is irregular or too infrequent lets people forget about you.
  - capture buyers into your list as well. After all, if they love your first book they'll want to know about your second one.
  - never buy lists, but that doesn't mean you can't use other people's lists. Form relationships with people that are complimentary but not competitive. Eg a food blogger who has their own list of 1000 subscribers would very likely want to do an interview with you about your BBQ cook book and announce when it is released as well.

  • Thanks Paul. You're right about how long it takes, but all of us start our lists at 1 (and it is usually ourselves!)
    Also, I should have mentioned that you can have multiple lists e.g. I have one for Author 2.0 but will soon be starting a new one for my thriller novel, Pentecost.

• Great post Joanna! I've been thinking about mailing lists. It's too bad Aweber's still pretty expensive. I might look around to see if there's any cheaper ones.

  • There are cheaper ones Livia, but make sure they have all the same features. Plus, it depends what your aim is I suppose. I think you take blogging pretty seriously, but if you aren't selling anything yet then perhaps you can wait. I pay for Aweber and other blog costs through sale of my ebooks and courses, and consider it an essential part of my business. Thanks.

    • Good point. Yeah, I think once I have something to sell, it'll be more cost effective. At this point, I can't even buy lunch with my ad income, let alone a mailing list manager :-P

      • Joanna -- what would you say are the most useful features you've found Aweber to have?

        • Hey Livia,
          I basically listed them in the post
          * manages this all for you automatically and is scalable (yes, you could have 50,000+ subscribers within a few years!)
          * lets people to unsubscribe easily (mandated by anti-spam laws)
          * enables you to send out broadcasts when you like as well as setting up auto-responders
          * enables you to manage and download your list
          * enables you to set up multiple lists from one account

          PLUS/
          enables you to have multiple list and also bill you based on number of subscribers.
          Also, you can run your blog feed through it which boosts your Feedburner subscribers. I haven't done this yet but it really affects your RSS count which looks good on a widget!
          Thanks :)

  • Mailchimp is free to start with, until you reach a certain number of subscribers. Read their terms and conditions though, they are strict about what they do and don't allow their service to be used for.

    You definitely do not way to go with something cheap or free and then plan to switch later on. In the process of changing from one provider to another you *will* lose subscribers (because they all have to opt-in again to the new list, and most will simply not bother).

    For $20/mth ($240/yr), if you think to yourself that you *will* sell $240 worth of your books or other products in the course of that year then you're at least on a break even :-)

    • I found Mailchimp not easy to start with if you're a newbie. I'm experienced and tested GetResponse and others - free, and paid services.

      Nothing compares with AWeber, which I use since 2005; some consider it "expensive" compared with the online income they're generating, it could be.

      AWeber is for my business what is an apartment for a couple, that's how important it is.

      Regarding its features, they have more than you can count or use, the question is: why do you need AWeber, what kind of features do you want and what for?

      • Same here to Codrut...found Mail chimp a nightmare...coudnt even get it working properly so gave up with it. ...really need to get some sort of system in place asap...so far behind the 'game at the moment. Thanks for all the positivity via Joanna and everyones feedbsack on here. Cheers Dave

• Joanna,

  As always you distribute great information for authors. This is valuable information! Thanks~

• hi Joanna, it's great to see someone stand up and teach authors list building. Not many can do what they preach.

  I've started list building since 2003 and 85% of my online income is generated through lists.

  When you start building your list, you don't realize it , but you're growing an asset you can use over and over again -- to control traffic & profit -- for you and for your partners/affiliates

  Giveaway list building is the least profitable and most time consuming method one can start with. It takes time and energy to build a "freebie" mailing database that pays off.

  I can give anyone access to a 10,000+ list and they won't make any money (maybe a few sales if they're lucky) unless they know copywriting and making good offers.

  Customer list building is key because it takes less time to build one and makes money fast.

  Here's how to build one, or at least I can provide you with a proven idea (not many explain or teach this)

  1. Create two "best-selling" products (I don't care if they're info products or real stuff, nor if you do it yourself, hire a ghostwrite or team up with others)

  Just create or help create two hot selling items.

  2. Open an affiliate program and get 5, 10 or 20 (super) affiliaes to helo move some sales.

  It takes time to find key players in your niche. It takes time to build relationships. And it's well worth the effort.

  When I sold my first ebook, it took me 5 months to talk via email back and forth with a super affiliate and "pre-test" the market with my product. Long story short he generated me over $3,000 in sales (and $3,000 for him) in 2004

  Nowdays it's easier to build relationships with the pros and big audience affiliates because there are more tools available online (Twitter for e.g.) yet it still takes time to do it, knowledge and patience.

  If you send 5 emails and nobody answers to your offer it's not you, maybe not even the product. Just that people are too busy nowdays and have less projects they're working on (at least that's how I approach things -- "less is more" because less is better!)

  NEVER stop. I have to mail 100's of people before some big players promote for me or help out, or give referrals.

  When you get affiliates promote your stuff, you don't have to work like crazy to generate free traffic. Traffic comes on your site (or sales page). All you need to do is find the right affiliate and email the right offer at the right time.

  Promote the second product on the "thank-you" (download page) and this way you'll recoup the % you award to your affiliates. Make sure you direct buyers on the thank you page to enter their email in order to access the product. That's the only way to build your customer list.

  If they don't join the list, you've made a sale yes! But there's no way you can contact that buyer again with different offer, unless you manually build your list and promote "by hand" which takes hours, and even days if your list is into thousands!

  Hope it HELPS! What you guys think, any questions?

  • Hi Codrut, this is more advanced than most authors are probably going to get. List building is more for book promotion on launch rather than wanting to sell other people's products. Let's face it, the affiliate income on books is tiny unless you have huge traffic.
    I appreciate your comments as someone who follows internet marketing, but it might be a little over the top for authors :)
    Thanks so much for your support of the blog, Joanna

    • There's a learning curve in everything, right.

      I talked about opening affiliate programs, not promoting them via affiliate product. Hope people understand the difference between an affiliate program setup and an affiliate product.

      • I think it's a whole new language for authors! I'm trying to introduce internet marketing here slowly. I'm always up for guest posts! :)

• You're right. I let you do the warm up, and maybe when I have time I'll guest post for you some advanced revelations :)

• Thank you so much for this, Joanna. Marketing kindle books is not that easy especially for new Indies like me. But with people like you taking their time to share their knowledge to us is truly invaluable.

• Hi Joanna,
  Just wanted to say I'm really enjoying The Creative Penn. I've already gleaned alot from it, and continue to do so. I signed up for your newsletter and received Author 2.0, but it somehow got deleted. How do I go about getting another copy? Thanks!

  Warm Regards,
  Tom

• Thanks for your knowledge and sharing it. I am paying attention and taking notes. Teach on!