As an author, you’ve probably heard that the best way to reach your core audience is with an email list, and I will admit, this is a good way to keep your dedicated followers and readers up-to-date. With that being said, once you start one, you could end up being regarded as junk by the recipient, if you go about this the wrong way. This is especially true when a website signs you up for the email list automatically while you are doing something else, like making a purchase or signing up for an account so that you can read all the super-informative, special articles that aren’t available to people just browsing through. The good news is that you can avoid these pitfalls by being mindful.
1. Choose an Email List Provider
There are many places that provide email list services, and there are many that provide the ability to create email lists and send emails for free. If you’re just starting out on your book promotion journey, I recommend finding an email list provider that you like that offers free accounts. I happen to use Mail Chimp, but there are many other services out there that will allow you to create and maintain an email list for your website.
2. Put a Sign-Up Form on Your Website
If you’re an author, you need a website. You can pay for a webhosting package or you can choose one of the free services out there, but you need a website. Mail Chimp allows you to add code to your website that puts an email list sign-up form on your website. You can be as detailed or non-detailed as you want. Mine simply asks for an email address because that’s all I need in order to send someone an email. I would imagine other email list handlers provide the same service. By doing this, you are ensuring that only people who want to be a part of your email list are a part of your email list.
3. Put Your Sign-Up Form on Your Social Media Feeds
You can also create a form that you can run down your social media feeds. In my case, this involved creating a Mail Chimp hosted form and running the link down my social media feeds with a picture of the form. I actually do better with this one than I do the one on my website, but the success of this method depends on the size of your audience and how engaged they are with the articles and blog posts that you write on your website, and those that you post to your social media feeds.
4. Do NOT Include Email Addresses that You Found in Your Followers Accounts
Do not, under any circumstances, start parsing your social media followers for email addresses and adding them to your email list. This is a sure fire way to get sent to spam. Get enough emails sent to spam, and you could find your account canceled. At best, you’re just going to ruin your credibility.
5. Do NOT include Your Email Contacts that You Already Have
So, you have 500 family, friends and business contacts. Unless you got those guys via your books, don’t add them. Your family and friends may support you, but I guarantee that they do not want emails every week about what you wrote and your next book. Out of 300 family members, I think only two of them give a shit about what I write. Just assume that the people you qalready know via other channels, don’t give a rat’s ass about your books, and if they do, they’ll sign up via your social media post or your website.
6. Do Create an Email Campaign with Your Most Interesting Feed
For me, that feed is my Writing Tips. My emails only go out when there is a new post in the writing feed, and they only send once a week. If there’s no new posts, the email doesn’t send. This cuts down on the number of emails that people get sent regarding my website and ensures that the people on my feed don’t get emails highlighting articles they already read.
7. Be Prepared to Wait
Once you create your sign-up forms and create your email campaign, be prepared to wait. Since this is a non-intrusive way to create an email list, you are waiting for people to sign themselves up. This can take months and even years to gain traction, which means you must be persistent. Keep writing your articles and blog posts and publishing books. The upside is that anyone who is on your list make a conscious decision to fill out that form. It means that you’ll have a better retention rate and be less likely to wind up in spam boxes.
The truth of the matter is that if you take the time to create your email list in a mindful way, you’ll attract a better audience than someone who just signed up every email address they could find and purchased email address lists. Your audience will actually be engaged with your content.
