If you read our blog or follow us on Facebook, you’ll probably notice we heavily promote content creation as one of the many author marketing tools available. This is because creating fresh content keeps your website relevant and readers coming back for more.
While creating content is important and shouldn’t be ignored, one of your end goals of doing this is to build an email list. In other words, you want your fans to subscribe to your blog or newsletter.
We’ve written about choosing a blog feed or newsletter and you can read more about it here. But we want to tell you about using your email list to sell more books, since it is one of your most powerful author marketing tools.
The End Goal of Your Email List
Why do we always push content creation as part of your book marketing strategy? Well, besides just giving your website SEO a boost and keeping your readers engaged, all that content creation and social media sharing and networking you do should result in building your email list. But why do you want an email list? What do you do with it? Well, you use it to keep your audience engaged and aware and to build a loyal fan base. Because email lists can be one of your biggest author marketing tools for this purpose. So you may as well harness that power.
Why An Email List is One of the Most Effective Author Marketing Tools
Firstly, rather than relying on social media algorithms, an email goes directly to your subscribers inbox. And your subscribers are your fans—they are already interested in what you have to share. And if you share valuable, relevant, and engaging stuff with your subscribers, they will look forward to opening your emails! Which means they’re far more likely to respond positively to your book promotions and to buy your book/s.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there is a good return on investment for this type of marketing. You don’t have to spend a lot of money (besides the fees the email service provider charges) and you’re speaking directly to your audience. So, theoretically, (and maybe actually) your conversion rates will be much higher.
Some other bonuses of using your email subscriber list as opposed to say, social media, for marketing your book are:
- Everyone has an email address and most check it frequently
- Email can be personalized and customized to your audience and even specific subscribers
- It is distraction free, unlike social media, and there’s less competition for attention
- Like your website, it gives you control of what you want to say and how you want to present yourself
So, How Do I Build This Email List You Speak Of?
This is not a definitive list or a step-by-step because there are always new ways to build your email list and you’ll do these things at different times and try different angles to test their effectiveness. Not every strategy will be effective for every audience and for every author. But these are tried and true methods and you can start where you’re comfortable, or where you already have an advantage.
Some of the ways to build your email list:
- Through creating content and sharing it, and including calls to action (CTAs)
- By offering an incentive, AKA, a reader magnet on your website
- Taking advantage of networking opportunities, selling yourself, and promoting it
- Offer a sign up option on the back of your book
- Including that same option on your social platforms, bios and bylines
You’ll also want to keep track of a few things on your email list to make sure what you’re doing is working. Yes, there will be some trial and error. Luckily, most email service providers give you the information you need to keep track of things like:
- New subscribers and where they come from
- Open rates
- Click through rates
- Conversion rates
Using All Your Author Marketing Tools to Get Big Results
An email list is a powerful and effective author marketing tool but it’s most effective when used in conjunction with other marketing strategies. And your goal is to always always be trying to grow your email list. So, don’t stop trying once you reach a certain number of subscribers.
Outside of your email list, you can still use all the other tools in your kit. We wrote a blog covering your author marketing starter kit that you may find helpful for this.
Essentially, this means that an email list alone can do a lot, but you need to do all the other stuff to build and grow your email list. And no, you don’t have to always be on social media, but having an online presence helps. You also need a website, just to have an email list. You can probably guess that your website needs to be good too. You’ll also probably want to consider things like paid advertising, networking, and otherwise promoting yourself and your book.
Promoting Your Book With Your Email List: A Timeline
Promoting your book needs to start long before it comes out. You want to build momentum and interest so that by the time it’s available, your fans will be ready to click that Buy Now button!
If you need an idea of when this should start and your publishing timeline, you can read Jeniffer’s article on that here.
Of course, in order for your email list to reach its full potential as one of your most powerful author marketing tools, you need to promote your books! This doesn’t mean you have to be pushy or salesy! But you will have to entice your subscribers.
We have to say, sending a welcome email is a good way to start out. You can have this set up to be automatically scheduled when a new subscriber signs up. You can either give them a roundup of the important stuff with links to your most popular blog posts, and an announcement about your upcoming book, or you could schedule a series of emails for new subscribers. It’s up to you.
Okay, So Now What?
When you first start sending out your newsletter to your email subscriber list, you don’t want to just push your book and ask them to buy it. Thus, the welcome email or series of emails, we suggested. But after you’ve announced you have a book coming out soon and before you start selling it, you can do many things besides direct promotion to build rapport with your audience and keep them engaged. Afterall, you want them to continue opening those emails, right?
It should also be noted that you can choose to send out these emails anywhere from once a week, to once a month. Any more than once a week may seem spammy and any less than once a month and subscribers may forget you exist.
Your book promotion timeline could look something like this:
- Tell them the details of the process, let them know why you wrote your book
- Share a list of what you’re reading right now
- Include links of any reviews or interviews you’ve had in an update
- Give links to previously published books
- Do a cover reveal
- Encourage preorders
- Ask fans to spread the word
- Do a giveaway
- Announce book launch
- Keep reminding them your book is out!
Of course, you can continue promoting your book long after it’s released, along with any previous releases. Keep them updated on all the new stuff you’re doing and keep making it worthwhile to subscribers. It’s an ongoing thing.
You should also know that most platforms that organize and manage your email list(such as Mailchimp and Constant Contact) offer ways to target certain subscribers and you can create categories and campaigns to help you make the most of it and not accidentally seem spammy.
It’s Pretty Easy, Actually
Does this seem like too much? We promise, it’s really not. It’s just a matter of setting it up and making it a habit. Use all the other author marketing tools at your disposal, and follow some of the tips we gave, and your email list will grow! Then send out those email updates and promotions on a regular schedule. Of course, you need to check in every once in a while on your analytics to see what’s working and what isn’t.
Before you know it you’ll have an engaging email subscriber list and many of those subscribers will become loyal fans that will support you!
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