Building an E-mail List

[Ashley]

Hey everyone any thoughts about how to do this efficiently?

It's a slow process (well, it is for me :D) so I'd like to hear if anyone has any tips or ideas or resources that they've found handy?


I've started by offering a free ebook with every sign-up and have links on my site and in the back of my books, but other than that I got nothin' :D

[James]

I wanted to collect a lot of audio book listeners in my email list, so I took several of the Audible.com codes ACX provides, and I have a giveaway.

What's great about a giveaway is that you can post it to online-sweepstakes.com, contestgirl.com, giveawaypromote.com, and Reddit (/r/giveaways) for free.

I recently connected the giveaway to a monthly "Linky" for book giveaways, and I've gotten some good traffic on that as well.

I've done a little advertising too on Reddit. ($35 or so)

With all this combined, in a single month, I've gained about 135 confirmed people on my email list. That's after sending "welcome" emails designed to make sure people stick around for future stuff. These emails are different than confirmation emails.

Hope this helps someone!

James

[Aurelia]

Giveaways where you let the losers know that they can get a free ebook by signing up to your list has worked for some people I know, but they've also had issues with scammers signing up with fake email addresses, so keep the emails from the giveaway in a separate list and delete it after you think everyone from your giveaway has opted in to your primary list.

Otherwise, I think possibly adding some guest posting or podcast guest appearances might work, but no guarantees.

I found Nick Stephenson's book Reader Magnets: Build Your Author Platform and Sell more Books on Kindle very interesting. I know a lot of people having success with that. I'm implementing slowly... I'm ridiculously disorganized.

[Maurice]

I thought one of the "terms of agreement" for a GR giveaway stated that authors should not contact the losers. Is this true?

Thanks,
Maurice

[James]

I am not sure about that, but the giveaway I am speaking about above is through my own website (not Good Reads).

[Christina]

From the terms and conditions on the giveaway page:

You agree not to contact the winners with any spamming, harassing, threatening, or otherwise inappropriate material. You agree not to store or use the winners’ addresses for anything other than sending the indicated book.

You agree not to contact Goodreads members who have entered the giveaway but did not win.

[Maurice]

James wrote: "I am not sure about that, but the giveaway I am speaking about above is through my own website (not Good Reads)."

James...that makes sense then.

Thanks Christina for the confirmation on GR policy. My GR giveaway ends next Monday and wanted to be sure I was not missing something here.

[C.L.]

I have found that setting up a list can be daunting, but worth it. Use a good spam filter or try a service like MailChimp

[Ashley]

James wrote: "What's great about a giveaway is that you can post it to online-sweepstakes.com, contestgirl.com, giveawaypromote.com, and Reddit (/r/giveaways) for free."

Hi James, thanks for the quick response! How do you find those big sites in terms of people seeing the giveaway - for instance, do they get distracted by things like cars etc?

[Ashley]

Aurelia wrote: "I found Nick Stephenson's book Reader Magnets: Build Your Author Platform and Sell more Books on Kindle very interesting. I know a lot of people having success with that. I'm implementing slowly... I'm ridiculously disorganized. "

Ace, I'll check this out, thanks! :)

[Owen]

Ashley wrote: "Aurelia wrote: "I found Nick Stephenson's book Reader Magnets: Build Your Author Platform and Sell more Books on Kindle very interesting. I know a lot of people having success with that. I'm implem..."

I also found Nick Stephenson interesting (I didn't read his book, just his blog), but I suggest taking his info with a grain (maybe two) of salt.

[Owen]

Has anyone here used Amazon's service? We are considering Mailchimp, but since we are exclusive to Amazon, anyone who buys our books has to deal with them anyway and it seems like there might be some advantage in asking people to sign up with an Amazon service, rather than a 3rd party.

However, I haven't seen much on Amazon's service. All we need to do is send out a single email every couple of weeks with a URL in it so list members can download the newest free chapter. So nothing fancy.

[Ashley]

I'll add another vote for MailChimp. I've been using it for half a year and I still seem to like it :)

[James]

Ashley wrote: "How do you find those big sites in terms of people seeing the giveaway - for instance, do they get distracted by things like cars etc? "

The ones I mentioned above are the biggest ones I've found so far. I am also in the "Lost in Books" linkys (linkies?) that come out once per month.

Even though I am not giving away a car or $5000, people still enter my giveaway. They have better odds winning my audio book than a car. In addition, those that subscribe/stay in my mailing list are automatically entered into future giveaways (and get other free stuff, like sample chapters).

Finally, and this may be way too technical, I use the Contest Hopper plugin on my Wordpress site to run the contest.

If you want to see my current contest on my website let me know! (I just don't want to post it without someone asking, as that is kinda spammy)

[Leah]

Great tips here. Thamks.