Growing and Nurturing Your Author Mailing List

How to get started when you don’t even know where to begin

Ebony McKenna

Copyright © 2018 by Ebony McKenna

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

Introduction

1. Create your ‘Lead Magnet’

2. Formatting

3. Choosing an email service provider

4. Create a landing page

5. Create an automatic welcome email

6. Sign up to ‘giveaway’ services

7. Update your book’s ‘Backmatter’

8. Sending out your emails

9. The benefits of optional-opt ins

10. Why give books away for free?

11. Nurturing your list

12. The cull

13. Now what?

14. Your checklist

Also by Ebony McKenna

Introduction

Why do I need a mailing list anyway?

“Authors have to have a newsletter list,” They say.

Because it’s true.

You need a list of readers you can contact to share your good news, special offers and ‘calls to action,’ which is a marketing way of saying, ‘encourage people to buy your book.’

But how does an author go about building such a list, from scratch?

Hi there, I’m Ebony McKenna, author of stacks of books and a mailing list that for a few years climbed one step up and two steps back. Wow did I make some dopey mistakes! Expensive, dopey mistakes!

But, now that I’ve made all those mistakes, I’ve worked out a way to grow a newsletter list without spending too much money – and without the list haemorrhaging subscribers.

There are many ways to build a list, and no one particular way is better than another (unless you’re buying lists in which case you’re possibly spamming. We don’t spam, OK?)

This booklet is a step-by-step guide to what I’ve done – and am still doing – to grow my newsletter list and keep my subscribers happy.

Get ready to take lots of notes and start a mailing list – then watch it grow.

Chapter 1

Create your ‘Lead Magnet’

The first step towards creating a newsletter list is to give people a reason to sign up in the first place.

This means you need to create what’s called a ‘lead magnet’. This is something you will give away, as an enticement to potential readers to join your mailing list/newsletters etc.

A lead magnet can be a short story, novella or the first completed novel in a series. It can be stand-alone or connected. But whatever you choose, make it awesome and compelling and very closely related to the rest of your books in tone or audience. In other words, if the reader likes this free book, they will want to buy more of your books. Don’t give away your one and only YA if the rest of your titles are erotica, and don’t give away a sports themed romance if the rest of your books are about Tractors and Fairy Tales.

Here’s my lead magnet for my YA fiction fans. This is book #1 in a four-book series. It’s YA, full of magic and swoony goodness. The rest of the books in the series are more of the same but different, and my other stand-alone YA novels are swoony romances with magic or time travel or something crazy. The ‘heat’ level is similar in all of my novels as well – nothing graphic but loads of emotion.

Whatever you choose, make sure your short story, novella or novel has a proper ending and does not end with a tease such as, ‘to finish reading this story, buy the rest of it here.’ That will not be a pleasant experience for your readers and they will not thank you for it.

This very guidebook is itself a lead magnet. Sure, I write young adult fiction, but I also write non-fiction editing and self-publishing guides for authors, so at the end of this lead magnet, I’ll also show you my other books which will help my fellow authors.

Please make your lead magnet a complete story. It doesn’t have to be a full-length novel, it can be a novella or a short story. But it needs to have a proper ending.

I will repeat this (I repeat myself a lot) because it’s important. Make sure it’s a complete story. Don’t end it half way through, either with a free off for the rest of the book if the reader signs up to your mailing list, or a link to buy the whole thing. That feels mean and sneaky.

Chapter 2

Formatting

Format your lead magnet properly - just as if you were formatting a novel or anything else. Give it a gorgeous cover.

While you’re at it, give all your books amazingly gorgeous covers. If you have a series, give the series a distinctive look so the reader knows they belong together.

sound of screeching tyres

What’s that, you only have one novel?

That’s OK. No, trust me. It’s OK – it means you’re at the beginning of your publishing career and you want to build a mailing list and do it the right way.

But you need to write more.

Write a short story ‘companion’ piece.

Write a recipe book based on what the characters eat in your book.

Write a further adventure that’s set in the world of your book.

Write a completely different book that is similar in style or tone to your novel.

Above all, write more. Otherwise you don’t have much to offer people as an enticement to join your mailing list just yet.

Chapter 3

Choosing an email service provider

Choose an email service provider. There are many. MailerLite, Mail Chimp, SendInBlue, Mad Mimi etc. Check them out and see which ones feel good to you. Make sure you examine how much each service charges – or how many signups you’re allowed to have before you have to start paying. Their levels of service change from time to time as well, so some will offer ‘automation’ at the free level, while others require a monthly membership fee to access those features.

This is where you need to waste a bit of your own time – because it will save you money in the long run.

I have used SendInBlue, Mail Chimp and MailerLite. They’re all good, and they all offer various levels of free and fee-paying memberships. With Mail Chimp, you can load book files directly into the server so that readers getting your email can download a book directly from the email. That’s a big win.

However, sometimes that makes the file pretty big, and that can send emails to the recipient’s spam or trash folders.

DO NOT WANT!

MailerLite doesn’t allow book files to be directly attached – which is where a book giveaway service like Bookfunnel or Instafreebie comes in. (I’ll explain more about these in a moment).

If you’re using MailerLite, put links in your newsletter to your giveaway book’s download page, so readers can click on the link and grab their book that way.

These giveaway pages are public BUT you can create a special password that you put in your newsletter, so that only they can access the book.

These email providers are often a little confronting when you first look around. They can use a fair amount of jargon that is completely foreign to the newcomer.

You don’t have to master this all at once. Often they have tutorials and templates you can access, to help you get started.

In order to get started, you need to create a ‘List’ of where your subscribers will go. You can simply call this list ‘My Newsletter Subscribers’ for now.

When you sign up to Instafreebie and Bookfunnel, you’ll need to nominate where those emails go.

On Instafreebie, you’ll see what I mean.

At the bottom of this image, you’ll see the section called Mailing List and I’ve selected MailerLite - New Subscriber 2018.

BONUS!

By linking MailerLite to Instafreebie, MailerLite offered me 30% off my monthly MailerLite fees. Instead of paying US $10 per month, I’m paying US $7. I’m not sure how long it will last, but I think that’s good value. (July 6 rate: US $7 is about $9.50 Australian.)

More on these giveaway pages a little later.

Chapter 4

Create a landing page

Now that you have found a mailing list service, you’ll want to create what’s called a Landing Page.

MailerLite offers a two-step landing page. Put your book cover on the first one, with a description of what the reader will get from you if they sign up to your newsletter. Ie, if you plan on sending out newsletters every two weeks or two months, then say so. They need to know what they’re getting themselves in for. Or perhaps you’ll only contact them when you have actual news. That’s fine as well.

https://www.subscribepage.com/m1s0q6

This is my landing page where I ask lovers of YA fiction to sign up.

It’s a two-step process because I want people who really do want to hear from me. Once they enter their email address and click through, then they get a second page asking them if they’re sure.

I don’t want to trap them into signing up. I want their freely given consent. Also, I want to be GDPR complaint (General Data Protection Regulation) and that means making sign-ups completely optional.

To be honest, hardly anyone uses this landing page. I get the vast majority of my new subscribers through using Instafreebie and Bookfunnel.

In any case, here’s what the process looks like:

This is the landing page - a potential reader fills in their email address and clicks the black button

After clicking the button, they get this page, which has the black button where readers can help themselves to their free book.

Now they’re on the Bookfunnel page, it means they can click the blue ‘get my book’ button and select the ebook format that suits them.

This is the pop-up they get from Bookfunnel. Now, you will also see there is a check box for people to subscribe. This is because this Bookfunnel page is open to the public, and people often come to this page from other links. If you’ve already given your email address but also check this box, MailerLite is clever enough to remove repeat emails, so the recipient doesn’t get spammed.

To be honest, I hardly get any subscribers this way. Just about all of my subscribers arrive via the giveaway promotions I join in with Instafreebie and Bookfunnel.

In the mean time, the reader gets an email that looks like the following image.

If the reader does nothing, they are not a subscriber. It’s entirely possible they might take the free book and not complete the signup process. That’s fine - there will be reminders and links at the end of the free book to bring them back in the fold, should they so wish.

Chapter 5

Create an automatic welcome email

In your email service’s ‘automation’ section, there will be instructions about how to create an automatic welcome email. I have mine set to go out a few days after a reader signs up – but you can choose the time gap – it can be immediate or it can be a week later. It’s up to you.

It does look incredibly confronting at first, especially if you’re not all that technically minded. But YouTube is your friend. Search for tutorials – I bet somebody out there has made one. Or three hundred. Your email service will probably also have tutorials, so start with them.

Email content

It’s taken me a few years to get to this point, and I’m still evolving. But I’ve found the best way to help readers remember me is to have a consisent look.

The new landing page I’ve created for my non-fiction list has the same banner image as my facebook and twitter pages.

The emails, when they arrive, will have the same banner image as the singup page and my facebook and twitter pages.

This will help readers to remember who I am, and why they signed up to hear from me.

BUT

If they signed up from an Instafreebie or Bookfunnel giveaway for one of my novels, all they’ve seen is one of my book covers.

Guess what’s in the welcome email after signing up? That’s right, it’s my book cover (to remind them of the book they’ve grabbed) and about five minutes ago I’ve edited it so that it too has the same banner as the regular emails. (But also, the book cover of the book they downloaded.)

I did this because it’s about having a consistent look and clearing up confusion. When my novel is in a huge giveaway with 100 other titles, readers can and will get confused. I make it easy for them to remember me.

(In a good way!)

Turn the page to see what my welcome email looks like.

In this welcome email, I remind the reader about what they’ve signed up for, and what they have to look forward to. But as always they can unsubscribe and that’s fine. People are allowed to change their minds.

So, after all that, how is the welcome email going?

Well, I don’t think it’s too bad. I’m only now into the fourth month of sending out these automatic emails, and as you can see - nothing happened in March this year, because I hadn’t signed up to any promotional givaways. But I have been making up for lost time.

I’ve seen some excellent growth. (I took this screen grab on July 6, so 40 signups for the month isn’t too bad.) In early May, I switched over to optional-opt-in, to comply with upcoming GDPR in Erope, and I don’t think it affected the signups at all.

I hope this image comes up OK?

April was still requiring mandatory signups to get my book. I had an 8% unsubscribe rate. Bit miserable. But look how much that drop-out rate has dropped since going completely optional for the opt-ins. Only one or two percent. Even better, only one spam complaint. (You know you can click on these and find out who they are, don’t you? Every time I’ve had a spam complaint, the morbid curiosity in me just has to click. Every single time, they’ve taken my book and then reported me for spam. Yeah, I really don’t think that’s what spam means, but go ahead and be a gronk.)

The upshot is, there will be idiots who make spam complaints. Try not to obsess about this. (I’m saying this more for my benefit, really. Oh, you already guessed that? You’re so smart.)

Chapter 6

Sign up to ‘giveaway’ services

Instafreebie and Bookfunnel etc

This is where you’ll collect a lot of new subscribers through your ‘lead magnet’.

I subscribe to BookSprout and Bookfunnel, because I have the hang of this now. There are many others, including Instafreebie, which is now called Prolific Works.

Pick one if you’re just starting out, so that you’re not throwing money around without getting much in the way of result. You will need to pay for this – because if you choose a ‘free’ membership level, you might not be able to collect email addresses at all – and that’s kind of a waste of time, isn’t it?

The subscription I have with Bookfunnel is US $100 per year. It will collect emails but it’s not integrated (ie, it doesn’t automatically send email addresses to my newsletter list.) I visit every week or so and collect the emails from the giveaway book’s page, as a .csv file, (csv = comma separated values) which I can then drop and drag into MailerLite.

BONUS

When you use Instafreebie (who are now called Prolific Works) and link it to your Mailer Lite email list, you get a 30% discount on your MailerLite fees.

Whichever free book service you use, take some time to get to know it. Create a brilliant blurb, to give potential readers as much information about your giveaway book as possible.

List the categories / genres your story belongs to, to attract fans of those categories and genres. You want potential readers to see your book cover and be intrigued, and also see the categories it belongs to – in other words, you want them to look at your book and want it. Right now.

Even when something is free, readers want to feel, at some level, that the book is worth their time.

For a long while, I was paying the monthly fee and just had the book there – people would come along and I’d get maybe one hit a day, so I’d collect one email a day. That’s a slow rate of growth – and expensive.

I began joining in promotional giveaways and that’s when the growth really happened. These promotions are organised by other authors (or staff) and if your book fits the genre, you’re usually in. Then once the promo is open to the public, authors post links on facebook or twitter etc and tell people about the amazing free books on offer.

Once I started doing this (and I organised a couple of giveaways myself) my numbers grew from about 10 a week to 10 a day.

Oh yeah!

But then – just as I was getting the hang of it, GDPR came in and people panicked about optional opt-ins. Surely nobody would sign up to hear from an author unless they had to? Wouldn’t they just grab the free book and nick off?

Sure. Some people do. But I’m finding it’s not as perilous as I thought.

Plus, the added bonus is I’m experiencing fewer unsubscribers, which is excellent. There’s no point getting loads of readers to sign up if they simply unsubscribe again soon afterwards.

Joining Promotions

This is really easy.

Here’s one I joined earlier this year, organised by a fabulous Australian author. Look at that! Readers claimed 20K free reads!

To join a giveaway, follow the prompts and select the genre that matches your book.

You can also organise your own giveaways. I’ve organised a couple and they’ve been great fun. I was, however, continually spammed by erotica authors. Even though I clearly stated no erotica for the particular giveaway I was promoting, they poured in, and I kept right on refusing them. I honestly don’t think they even read the reasons why I rejected them, because I had to reject one author’s books three times. (And she submitted 22 books each time!)

If you sign up to a few each month, you instantly have excellent content to add to your emails. Each giveaway features a pretty banner - some of them are stunning - and this goes in your next email, along with links and details about the free book giveaway.

Chapter 7

Update your book’s ‘Backmatter’

Now that you have a mailing list and landing page and you’re feeling more confident, it’s time to have another look at the book you’re giving away.

Yes, I know you’ve already posted it on the giveaway site and it’s garnering a few signups. BUT – now that you have everything set up and your mailing list is slowly growing, it’s time to invite the people who took your book for free but didn’t sign up, to come back.

This is where your book’s back matter really matters.

At the back of the book, make sure you have all your online contact details, including Twitter, facebook, Instagram etc, your website and a goodreads page (if you have one).

Provide teases and details about other books you have (because you’re writing so many books, aren’t you?) and provide links to those books.

At this point, use the link to your ‘Landing page’ from your email service, to encourage them to be in your club.

My gut says, if a reader has taken your book for free and not signed up, they may never get around to reading it. Or they may start it and not finish it.

But of those who do, give them the links at the end of the book. They might decide you’re worth following after all.

I wouldn’t put those links in the middle of the book – it may create the impression that the book is finished. Or, it will interrupt the flow of the book anyway.

What do I do?

Put the back matter at the back

and

most importantly, don’t use the phrase ‘the end’.

Crazy, right?

We put ‘the end’ to show the story is finished.

Which in a paper book, is all good and sensible. This is how we’ve finished our stories for millenia.

But with ebooks, if you put the words ‘the end’ the reader might not keep tapping to turn the page - as they physically can’t see the extra pages.

Here’s what I do:

- Last line of the story

- scene break (three asterisks or an ornamental break

- Thank you for reading this story . . .

Here’s pretty much what’s at the back of one of my novels, 1916-ish. Feel free to copy the style and use it as a template. (The link is to my mailing list for fiction readers.)

Thank you for reading 1916-ish! I hope you had a great time with the characters and their romantic adventures.

If you’d like to keep in touch, click here to make sure you’re on my newsletter mailing list, to keep up with the latest news about my books (I also post funny ‘cake fails’, which are so ugly but still delicious.)

Love, Ebs

ps, turn the page to check out another of my adventurous romances - Robyn and the Hoodettes.

Invite the reader in and give them an indication of what they’ll be getting in your emails.

Show them you have more books out there, and if they turn the page they can read the first chapter of another of your books.

At the end of the first sample chapter of the new book, I post a general link of where they can buy that book. This is the exception to the rule about having an unfinished book and offering a link to buy the rest of it. Because you’ve given away full story and you need to put food on the table at some point.

Be careful with direct-buy links as retailers will refuse to stock a book if there is a direct link (or sometimes even a mention) of a competing retailer. They’re fussy like that.

Chapter 8

Sending out your emails

Now we get down to the nitty gritty.

When you send out your emails, I attempt to write them as if I’m writing to one person. That makes them personal and - I hope - more relevant.

But what I most try and do is deliver on my promises.

So what do you do when thinking up newsletter topics? Deliver on your promises.

If you’ve promised cake fails and funny bunny pictures, then for goodness’ sake, don’t talk politics. Not becasue I don’t want to hear about politics (that’s what Twitter is for, right?) but because you promised one thing and now you’re not delivering.

Deliver on your promise - the stuff you promised back in that introduction email.

If you promised politics, then go for it.

If you promised photos of sandwiches, get your sandwich on.

If you promise free and discount books, then please deliver - they don’t always have to be your books. This is why I join giveaways - becasue I can promise free books in every newsletter and there will always be giveaways going on.

I’ll have my book in a giveaway - and I’ll promote my giveaway to all my readers in my newsletter list - and on social media. Now, pretty much all of them have *my* book, which is fine, but they don’t have all the others in the giveaway.

Plus, while I’m sending out newsletters to my subscribers featuring a giveaway or three - all the other authors are sending out emails to *their* subscribers, featuring those same giveaways.

Which means my book is getting in front of the eyeballs of thousands and thousands of potential readers.

They still have to click on my book details and decide whether my book is a good fit for them - which is fine. Plus, many readers will take the book and not sign up to my email list.

Which is fine.

But they might later - if they finish reading the book, there’s a link at the end to join my newsletter.

Ultimately, your newsletter list will grow and grow. You will lose some along the way - this is normal - but provided you keep sending out emails that contain the sort of content you promised, you will keep most of them.

Basically, send out the stuff that people signed up for.

It doesn’t mean you post the same stuff every time, but keep it within the bounds of what your readers are expecting.

Readers who sign up to my YA newsletters get some good fun and book news, cake fails, pet pictures and loads of free books - and those free books are all in some way relevant to people who like young adult/romance/magical adventures.

They’ve joined my newsletter list because of The Summer of Shambles, so the free books I have on offer (the giveaway promos) are all somehow linked in with that. I might join a YA giveway, or a ‘Summer Reads’ themed giveaway, or a magical romance giveaway. They’re all semi-linked along the lines of ‘if you love this book, you’ll probably love these too.’

So, far, I’ve yet to come across a ferret-themed giveaway, but I live in hope.

With my newsletter aimed at authors, I’ll send friendly emails with information authors will find interesting - craft tips, website links and any deals I find along the way that will make authors’ lives easier. Like how to get discount codes when you want to print a book with Ingram Spark, saving you US$49.

Keep giving your readers what they want and expect. Which is what you’re doing with your novels, right?

Chapter 9

The benefits of optional-opt ins

GDPR etc

I thought when GDPR came in (in May 2018), I’d get hardly any signups. This hasn’t been the case. Sure, I’m not getting as many as I used to get – but I’m still getting 25 to 50 new subscribers each week. The bonus is, the spam complaints are really low, and the unsubscribe rate is really low too.

That’s a good thing. There’s no point getting hundreds of new subscribers every month if they’re not opening the emails or they’re unsubscribing soon after.

You want to keep the unsubscribe rate low. I don’t know what the ‘magic’ mark is but one time I had about 500 ‘new subscribers’ that I imported into a mailing list with SendInBlue. I had so many people unsubscribe that it triggered an automatic ‘spam alert’. I promise you I wasn’t spamming. The problem was, I’d joined an author promotion, and at the end of the month-long promotion, the co-ordinator sent us the entire list of everyone who had signed up to the competition.

(This was before GDPR)

There would have been about 30 authors involved. Each of us paid to be in the promotion. One it was over, the promoter sent each of us a big list of subscribers (hooray). But then every reader on that list started receiving emails from 30 authors all at once.

Ooops!

Being in those promotions cost me money – I think it was at least $60 US at the time. The first email I sent out to all my new subscribers contained a free book – the one I’d put in the promotion. I figured everyone would feel like a winner and get at least a book from me. I had a few people unsubscribe (after they took the book).

The second email I sent out didn’t have a book – it just had general news from me. Wow, the readers truly did not care. For a start, they’d entered a competition to win an e-reading device. They’d checked a box to say they consented to hearing from the promoter. Um … but they had to do that in order to enter the competition. And they didn’t just hear from the promoter, they heard from EVERYONE!

No wonder they complained about spam.

Plus, they truly just wanted to win a free ereader.

Be careful about joining in these kinds of promotions. You won’t be attracting readers who are interested in you or your books, you’ll be attracting people who want to win stuff (that they might sell later on.)

Keeping your opt-ins optional is a bit of a blessing in disguise. You’ll get people singing up voluntarily. They are giving their active consent that they want to hear from you. They can take the book anyway - and if they read it and like it, they could end up singing up to your mailing list later. Because you’ll put your signup links in the back of your book. (There’s the back matter stuff again!)

Chapter 10

Why give books away for free?

It’s hardly a sustainable business model if you’re paying a service to give your books away for free.

But - you’re building an audience and you need new readers. You’re choosing to offer your own book for free (as opposed to them ending up on pirate sites). The readers who take that free book are more than likely at least vaguely interested in reading it.

But - there are so very many authors giving away free books - which means that people taking those books are only interested in free books. Later, when you promote a book of yours to purchase, you get no sales.

Because many of your signups are not interested in paying. For anything at all!

This is a real risk.

The answer is to offer a mix of prices. Some of your books are full priced, others are reduced for a short time (and you’ve only told people in your newsletter, so it’s exclusive to them) and other books are free.

Most people will always take the free stuff. A few will grab the specials and every now and then someone will pay full price.

As an author, it’s up to you to price your books accordingly. There are only so many free books I’m willing to give away. Some I will offer at reduced prices, and others are full price and I won’t budge.

BUT – I join in new promotions on Bookfunnel and Instafreebie every month now, so I always have free books to offer. I’ll have my news (whatever that may be) perhaps a special deal for one of my paid books (I’ll lower the price for a short while) and some cute pet pics. (I have an elderbunny and a tuxedo cat.) Then it’s freebookapalooza for the rest of the email – grouped together via theme or genre.

There is a chance that, after reading this free guide, you will put everything here into action and not even consider signing up to my self-published authors email. That’s the risk I have to take. But also, it’s the risk you take too – what are you missing out on by not being in my club?

You want to be in my club, don’t you? Yes you do.

Feel like joining my author and self-publisher club? Come on over. Sign up here https://ebonymckenna.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=f2725aaab78b5cfd942592299&id=6e82d27ea6

I’m running this mailing list out of Mail Chimp, so I can attach book files directly to the emails.

Chapter 11

Nurturing your list

The care and maintenance of your newsletter list

Newsletter lists are not ‘set and forget’. I tried it, it’s expensive and it doesn’t work.

Your mailing list requires constant care and maintenance, and here’s how to do that.

- Back up your list at least once a month.

- Create a folder where you can keep your backups.

- Save them as a .csv file. A .csv file means ‘comma separated values’. What this means is the file you save can be opened as an excel spreadsheet, but then can also be dragged and dropped into the ‘add subscribers’ section of MailerLite and the rest of them.

- Schedule your newsletters.

And by Schedule, I mean, have a rough idea about how often you’re going to send them out.

For me, it’s once a month with the fiction list (or, if something amazing happens, like I’m a finalist for the Romance Writers’ of Australia’s Ruby Awards, I’ll send out a special email. But I’ll keep it short.)

I’m not sure how often I’ll send out emails to my non-fiction list - I’m only just starting.

But once a month is probably what I’ll end up doing with the author list. It might only be every two months at the rate I’m going.

SUBJECT HEADINGS

- Scroll through your own email intray.

- Have a look at the headings on the emails - what makes you want to open the email?

- Can you create those kinds of headings for the emails you send out?

- Keep it up-beat.

- Where possible, personalise the email. For example, on MailerLite, you can automatically add in the recipient’s first name.

- Don’t beg. Don’t ask for a favour. Don’t put ‘I need reviews’ in the subject heading. In other words, don’t make your reader do the work. The last thing they need is ‘effort transference’. It may come as a huge shock, but your reader owes you nothing. Not even their time. It’s up to you to entertain them, not the other way around.

Potential subject headings

- Excellent news for you, (firstname)

- Join in the fun

- More free books just for you (firstname)

- Great news

- This is lovely!

Try not to make it sound too clickbaity, like ‘author sends out amazing newsletter, what happens next will amaze you!’

Pictures are your friends

Post pictures in your emails. They make life easier.

I regularly post images of my pets and cake fails. I can cook amazing savoury things, but my cakes are a mess. Hilariously so. I also talk about a gorgeous show on Netflix called Nailed It! Because there is life outside just writing a book.

If my emails were only about my books, they’d be pretty boring. So I let a little personality show. Because it’s not all hard sell.

Again, have a look at the emails you’re getting and think about what appeals to you in those emails. Are you unsubscribing like mad because they’re all really boring? That’s fine - because as a reader, you don’t owe the author anything. Unless you’re married to that author, in which case, yes, you owe them everything and you will do whatever is in your power to make them happy.

Sign up to some more author emails and study them. Think about what makes one email more interesting than another.

Write the kind of emails you’d love to receive and open.

Fill it with the sort of content you’d love to click on.

Email content

It’s taken me a few years to get to this point, and I’m still evolving. But, what I’ve found works is to have a consisent look.

The signup page has the same banner image as my facebook and twitter pages.

The emails, when they arrive, have the same banner image as the singup page and my facebook and twitter pages.

This will help readers to remember who I am, and why they signed up.

BUT

If they signed up from an Instafreebie or Bookfunnel giveaway, all they’ve seen is one of my book covers.

Guess what’s in the welcome email they get after signing up? That’s right, it’s my book cover (to remind them of the book they’ve grabbed) and I’ve just edited it so that it too has the same banner as the regular emails.

I did this because it’s about having a consistent look and clearing up confusion. When my book is in a huge giveaway with 100 other titles, readers can and will get confused. I make it easy for them to remember me.

(In a good way!)

Those promotions you joined on Instafreebie or Bookfunnel? They make excellent content for your newsletters.

Here’s a couple of images and links that went out recently.

Don’t click on the links, this is a screen grab, the links won’t work.

It looks very pretty to have these images and links in my email. Not every giveaway will appeal to everyone, and that’s fine. But after a couple of emails, readers get used to whatever it is I’m offering and they can stick around for more fun, or unsubscribe.

Also, I love baking cakes and making a mess.

Whatever you put in your newsletter emails, make it something that is fun for you, rather than a chore.

Above all, think of your list as a long-term plan, that won’t earn you money to begin with, but will have payoffs down the road as your readers begin to trust you and fall in love with your books.

Chapter 12

The cull

Tme to get rid of the readers who don’t read?

Deep breath.

Sometimes, no matter what you do, you end up growing a huge following . . . but hardly anyone is reading the emails.

There’s not much point in having a huge list of subscribers if hardly any of them are opening your emails, much less clicking on any of the content.

This is especially true if you’re nearing a ‘trigger point’ where you will have to either start paying for the number of subscribers in your list, or move into the next pay level.

For MailerLite, that first pay point comes at 1,000 subscribers.

MailChimp’s first pay point is from 2,000 subscribers. Others have varying levels - so keep an eye on it.

It’s great to have so many subscribers, but also, is it worth paying $10 or $20 a month for people who aren’t even opening your emails?

The answer is to ‘section’ your emails.

Here’s something hideous that I hope you never experience.

Are you crying? I’m crying.

This is the reality for so many of us. People sign up, but then, for whatever reason, they just don’t open the emails. Maybe the emails are going straight to the spam folder. Or, maybe they just don’t check that particular email service any more.

What you can try is sending them an email with an exclusive offer (and give them that exclusive offer.)

In the email to them, offer a gentle reminder to make sure the recipient ‘white lists’ your email address so they never miss another great offer from you.

You will get a few opens from this exclusive special offer. Somewhere around 5%.

Everyone else is … kind of a lost cause, really.

If someone hasn’t opened an email and you’ve sent out a dozen ‘campaigns’ . . . then it’s highly likely they’re lost to you.

When new subscribers come on board, you’re going to trip over into the next pay bracket - which means you’ll be paying for these inactive subscribers.

It’s up to you.

Some authors say you should never cull. That it’s possible they’re reading the emails in some way that doesn’t show up . . . somehow.

For me, I would rather quality over quantity. This is just a personal thing. But it’s also a financial thing too. I’m paying to give books away and paying to contact people who have taken my books for free. At some point I have to draw the line.

It’s up to you. But whatever you do, BACK UP EVERYTHING FIRST so that you don’t accidentally delete an important list.

But whatever list service you use, there is a way to sort your subscribers into groups of some kind - Give it at least six months, preferably a year, to see some real trends.

And then offer the exclusive special offer I mentioned above.

Of those who don’t open this extra special deal . . . well, I’m not sure there’s all that much you can do. They’re clearly not opening their emails for that address.

Copy the non-openers into another separate list - SAVE THE LIST into a .csv file and put it in a backup folder somewhere …

… and then delete them from your email service. You still have them in a file should you ever want to import them again . . . but if they’re not opening your emails, are they worth having?

Again, it’s up to you, so have a think about that as your list grows and starts to hover close to the ‘you have to start paying for this’ point.

Chapter 13

Now what?

You’re an author, so go forth and auth!

Here’s what I’ve been doing lately. You might be interested in some of these non-fiction guides to help your writing career along. Especially if you’re in Australia and want to see your ebooks and paperbacks in public libraries here.

Sell more books, earn more royalties. Australian authors need this book. Click on the book cover to check it out.

Get Your Book Into Australian Libraries pays for itself over and over.

“Thought I'd just let you know how useful your course has been.

A couple of copies of my book have popped up in Australian libraries without me doing anything so I registered for PLR but then discovered that I need to be in around 50 libraries to get paid. I have submitted it now to James Bennett and ALS as a start. Interestingly, James Bennett already had me listed but with Gardners in the UK as the supplier. They are happy to change to Australia and to order directly from IngramSpark which makes things easier for me. So I am hugging myself quite happily at the moment.

I wouldn't have got to this point without people like you, each giving me a piece of the puzzle.

Very best wishes,

Ann”

I also have two genre-specific editing guides that are packed with examples from movies and books. You’re going to love them. The first is Edit Your Own Romance Novel.

Why yes, this is a number one bestseller. Thanks for asking! Click on the book cover to read all about it.

My other editing guide (it has a blue cover) is specific to young adult and it’s called Edit Your Own YA Novel.

Would you like to get emails from me? I’m happy to send them. Might not be as often as once a month, but it will be full of information authors will find useful. Click here to sign up.

Where else can you find me?

I’m here on Facebook and Twitter.

I also have a website here.

Chapter 14

Your checklist

Because I don’t know about you, but I can’t get my head around all the things that needs to be done.

- Create a Lead Magnet.

- Sign up to an email service provider (MailChimp, Mad Mimi, SendInBlue etc).

- Create a ‘newsletter list’ with that service.

- Create a landing page for new signups to your newsletter.

- Create an automatic welcome email that goes out when people sign up.

- Add these new links to your newsletter list’s landing page to the backmatter of your Lead Magnet.

- Sign up to a book giveaway service (Bookfunnel, Instafreebie etc).

- Make signups optional.

- Link those optional signups to your email service provider. (Or, if this is not automatic, collect those emails and add them at regular intervals.)

- Schedule regular newletters and deliver the sort of emails you want to open yourself. Also, keep the topics fairly consistent so readers know what to expect from you.

- Make sure your landing page, social media page and welcome email all have similar banner images to remind readers of who you are.

- Check in regularly with Bookfunnel or Instafreebie to join in promotions that closely match the genre or readership of your books. This will really boost the number of potential new signups and garner a bigger audience. Most of these promotions are free (unless the organiser is asking for a contribution for promotion / advertising etc.)

- Mention these promotions in future newsletters.

- Keep going.

And … nap!

OMgoodness I don’t know about you, but I need a nap right about now!

Also by Ebony McKenna

Ebony McKenna is the author of the ONDINE series, about a teen whose pet ferret starts talking with a Scottish accent.

The titles in reading order are:

The Summer of Shambles

The Autumn Palace

The Winter of Magic

The Spring Revolution

Other works:

1916-ish

Robyn and the Hoodettes

The Girl & The Ghost

Outback Yankee (coming soon)

Anthologies:

The Hauntings of Livingstone Hall

The Hauntings on the High Seas (coming soon.)

Dangerous Boys

Novellas:

Lara’s Christmas Gamble (set in Ondine’s world of Brugel)

Dangerous Honesty (from the anthology Dangerous Boys)

Non-Fiction:

Edit Your Own Romance Novel

Edit Your Own YA Novel

Get Your Book Into Australian Libraries

Self-Publishing Masterclass (coming soon)

www.ebonymckenna.weebly.com

Please contact me if you have any questions or comments - I see this booklet as a ‘living document’ that I can update with feedback from authors - what works well, what doesn’t work any more, new players coming on to the scene etc.

Please email me at:

author@ebonymckenna.com

Thank you, and cheers to your success.