Indie-Publishing Guide: Why aren't you building, curating, and wielding an email list?
Back when I was playing music, I used to see the other bands we played with signing people up to their email list. At the time, anything that had to do with the business end of music (or any creative endeavor, for that matter), felt phony to me. I just wanted to create, maaaaaaaan. I wanted to leave all that stupid business stuff to someone else. The problem was that the bands I was in were really trying to make a living playing music, and the only way to do that is to pay attention to the business end of whatever creative enterprise in which I was engaged.
Now when I look back on that period in my life, I see a lot of aimless production and events, and a lot of missed opportunity. That's not to say I didn't love it and benefit from it, and hindsight is always (well, you know), but there was so much we could have done with all of the content we created. Like actually market our music, build a fan base, and make money from CD sales (this was pre-digital revolution) and live shows.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating: In the winter of 2016, after three years of writing (sixteen short stories, three novels ) I got fed up with not being able to move any of my work. Sure they were on Amazon, but that by itself chalked up a grand total of zero sales. So I googled "Books on book marketing" and found Tim Grahl's Your First 1,000 Copies and Write. Publish. Repeat. by David Wright, Johnny B. Truant, and Sean Platt. Reading those books was, to say the least, eye opening, and thus I began my journey into book marketing and owning/running a micro publishing business.
The first thing I learned in those two books is that the tactic I'd been ignoring since the mid-1990's is one of the most important things I should be doing to market my work. In fact, EVERY book on book marketing that I've read overwhelmingly stresses the importance of regularly engaging your audience through email, and honestly, there isn't any reason not to do it. Here's why: The people who sign up for your newsletter are interested in your work. They are not bothered by your emails; they want to receive them. This is the primary difference between permission and interruption marketing (for more on this, read Seth Godin's Permission Marketing).
Even more important is the idea that the more people know, like, and trust you, the more likely they are to become your readers, which is the goal. I can't guarantee the like and trust part, that's up to you, but in the next three articles, I'll give you some tips for how to get people who sign up for your list to know you better, and recount my experience so far with building my own.
Next up: Freebies, Freebies, Freebies
Now when I look back on that period in my life, I see a lot of aimless production and events, and a lot of missed opportunity. That's not to say I didn't love it and benefit from it, and hindsight is always (well, you know), but there was so much we could have done with all of the content we created. Like actually market our music, build a fan base, and make money from CD sales (this was pre-digital revolution) and live shows.
I've said this before, but it bears repeating: In the winter of 2016, after three years of writing (sixteen short stories, three novels ) I got fed up with not being able to move any of my work. Sure they were on Amazon, but that by itself chalked up a grand total of zero sales. So I googled "Books on book marketing" and found Tim Grahl's Your First 1,000 Copies and Write. Publish. Repeat. by David Wright, Johnny B. Truant, and Sean Platt. Reading those books was, to say the least, eye opening, and thus I began my journey into book marketing and owning/running a micro publishing business.
The first thing I learned in those two books is that the tactic I'd been ignoring since the mid-1990's is one of the most important things I should be doing to market my work. In fact, EVERY book on book marketing that I've read overwhelmingly stresses the importance of regularly engaging your audience through email, and honestly, there isn't any reason not to do it. Here's why: The people who sign up for your newsletter are interested in your work. They are not bothered by your emails; they want to receive them. This is the primary difference between permission and interruption marketing (for more on this, read Seth Godin's Permission Marketing).
Even more important is the idea that the more people know, like, and trust you, the more likely they are to become your readers, which is the goal. I can't guarantee the like and trust part, that's up to you, but in the next three articles, I'll give you some tips for how to get people who sign up for your list to know you better, and recount my experience so far with building my own.
Next up: Freebies, Freebies, Freebies
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