How to Keep Your Newsletter from Sucking (Part Two)

When I left you on January 8^th, I promised to tell you how to build your mailing list and actually sell books using your newsletter, after I screamed about people doing just that on the last post. But I promise to also share with you just how to do it without people hating you.

But let’s start with building that list.

When building your list, you might be tempted to add all of the people in your contact list, along with any random email you find. Or maybe offer a nice prize, like a Kindle giveaway, for those who sign up. This is a bad idea. There are rules against adding people who don’t sign up, and expensive prizes get people to sign up and then unsubscribe once the prize is given away.

Who you do want are fans, and better yet, super-fans. Super-fans are those people who talk you and your books up when anyone asks about what they’re reading or asks them to recommend a book. The way you get these super-fans is to provide ROI (return on investment) for them.

I do this by genuinely caring about who my readers are and what they have to say—but also by giving them something for signing up for my readers’ group, and along the way in each newsletter. Not a Kindle, mind you.

Here’s the copy I use on my join page on my website:

Enter your email address to become a part of my THIS LITTLE PIGGY WENT TO MURDER Readers’ Group and get your free book – it will be delivered to your inbox. You’ll also be kept up to date about other giveaways coming up soon. You can unsubscribe at any time. And I promise not to sell your information.

You can trust me. I’m an author.

After they sign up, I have my newsletter service (Mailchimp) automatically send a link to a download of a free book. I also follow up with a personal email (one short paragraph) to the person, with the same link and a thank-you. As for the giveaway in the newsletter, it’s normally a link to another download (novella or short story).

There are plenty of other ways to build your list on social media, using tools already in place from your mailing service. For example, Mailchimp has a Facebook integration, so readers can sign up directly from your Facebook author page.

Try a focused campaign to increase your subscribers, and see when and where it’s most effective on various platforms. I also add a subscribe note and link in every book I publish, along with a link in every bio.

J.A. Kazimer lives in Denver, CO.… Visit her website at jakazimer.com and sign up for her THIS LITTLE PIGGY WENT TO MURDER Newsletter.

Honestly, everything in promotion and marketing is about trial and error. What works for you might not work for me, and vice versa. So I suggest trying as much as possible.

Now, let’s move on to selling books in your newsletter.

One thing to always remember, in all marketing: Readers want to buy, not be sold.

It’s not your job as a marketer (which you are when you send a newsletter, no matter where you are in your publishing journey) to force your books or ideals down people’s throats. It’s your job to let them know you have these books for sale, and otherwise engage and entertain them. I use the bottom of my newsletter for new releases & the free download. It’s passive advertising—the kind that makes me, as a consumer, forget how much I hate people who try to sell me something.

See my newsletter from yesterday for an example.

For those who have newsletters, how do you build your mailing list? For those thinking of starting a newsletter, what keeps you from doing so? What do you like and dislike about other newsletters?