{"id":7659,"date":"2015-07-30T19:59:14","date_gmt":"2015-07-31T01:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/?p=7659"},"modified":"2022-04-01T10:35:38","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T16:35:38","slug":"author-email-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tommorkes.com\/author-email-list\/","title":{"rendered":"The Author's Guide to Building an Email List (and selling more books)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fact: 1\/3rd of all self-published authors earn less than $500<\/a> a year from their publishing efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take that in for a moment\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

$500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not even enough money to pay for a single month\u2019s rent in most major cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes sense when you consider that 80% of books tracked by Nielson Bookscan sold fewer than 99 copies in 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, 4 out of 5 books won\u2019t even hit triple digit sales in a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The correlation is pretty clear: if you can't sell 100 copies of  your book in a year, you probably won't be cracking $500 in annual income from your writing, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re a self-publisher, time to throw in the towel then, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, maybe not\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Make a Living<\/del> Killing from Self-Publishing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Making money from  your writing is not impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do it, as do many of the authors I work with and publish. Many make decent incomes this way, too (from $20,000 to $100,000+ per year).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason they're successful where most authors fail is because of two reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. They have a book worth selling<\/li>
  2. They have a way to get their book worth selling in front of people who want to read it, a way to sell it to them at a price they're capable of paying and at a price that doesn't put them in the red<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The first part of this is a personal issue - are you capable of writing a book worth reading? For the purposes of this guide, I'm going to assume you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The second part is all about developing the right marketing and sales channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Book Marketing and Sales Channels Defined<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    A marketing channel is any avenue or outlet that lets you promote a message to your target market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Podcast, radio, tv or magazine advertising; blogging or guest posting; billboards, sponsors, etc. Any of these can be used to market a product. Done the right way, they put the appropriate product in front of the appropriate audience (this is a billion dollar industry, so you can be sure they're getting better at this every day).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A sales channel lets you turn this awareness into a sale. So you might pay for advertising on a podcast, but you won't sell the product on the podcast. Instead, the advertising, if done right, will point the listener to the right place to purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This could be Amazon, or your website if you\u2019re selling via Gumroad, or a third party website where you can buy the product. In this case, any one of these outlets would actually complete the sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Here\u2019s how one Quora<\/a> user defined marketing vs. sales channel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Marketing channels create demand. Sales channels harvest demand.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Why Amazon is Not a Sales Strategy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    So back to you, the author with a book worth selling...<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    How do you sell your book?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If the answer is Amazon, you're missing half the equation (and you\u2019re probably one of those unfortunate people selling less than 100 copies of your book a year).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    With very few exceptions, Amazon is a sales channel, not a marketing channel. Putting a book on Amazon allows you to \"harvest demand\" but it doesn't create it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You've probably heard the philosophical question: \"If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it still make a sound?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For self-published authors, it's more like \"If a book is published on Amazon and nobody knows about it, is it really for sale?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    By itself, Amazon is not a sales strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So if you can't use Amazon to market your books, what can you use?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Ultimate Book Marketing Channel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The answer is an email list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    With an email list, you can promote and share new ideas, products, and services and then direct readers to a place where they can make the purchase (Paypal, Gumroad or Amazon).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Moreover, email is the fastest, cheapest, most powerful way to engage with your readers at scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    No other service (not even social media) is as personal as email, and if done right, you'll sell way more books through email than you could any other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Proof in the Pudding...<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    I started this blog in late 2012. I wrote and published my first book, The Art of Instigating<\/a>, shortly thereafter. I had no audience, so I decided to give the book away free in exchange for people signing up for my newsletter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In 2013, I released my second book, Notes From Seth Godin\u2019s Revolution Conference<\/a>. I made this book free as well but with a twist \u2013 I let people contribute as much or as little as they want to my creative work. I shared this with 166 subscribers and made $492 in the first month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Over the course of the next year, I experimented with many small guides, ebooks, and resources \u2013 all pay what you want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the fall of 2013, I released my third book, The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing<\/a> (all the experimenting did not go to waste). This time I shared it with an email list of 467 subscribers and generated $954 in the first month (including presales).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In 2014, I launched my fourth book, Collaborate<\/a>, via a crowdfunding campaign. This book raised $12,979 in 30 days from an email list of 1559 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If we break this down into a chart, here\u2019s what that looks like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"-\"
    more subscribers = more sales<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    As you can see, there is a very real correlation between subscribers (list size) and revenue. While the crowdfunded book is an outlier because I was selling more than just the book (consulting packages, for example), the results are still relevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bottom Line:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you have an email list, you will sell books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you don\u2019t, you might, but you might not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Therefore, your best effort is spent building an email list so you can sell more books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    8 Steps to Building an Author's Email List so You Can Sell More Books<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

    Note:<\/strong> In order to sell more books, you're going to have to invest in a few tools (sorry, sometimes you have to pay money to make money).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That said, I'm a bootstrapper by heart. So if there's a faster, better, and\/or cheaper product or service available that does what I need it to do so I can focus on bigger picture stuff, then I'm going to jump on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In this guide, I\u2019m going to share tools, software, and technology I use to market and sell books, my own and those that I publish or market through Insurgent Publishing<\/a>. You can use them or find alternative solutions for your situation. I\u2019m affiliated with several of these items, so if you do buy through me, I get paid a fraction of the price as a finder\u2019s fee, which does not come out of your wallet, but helps me operate and pay for expenses around this free blog so I can keep making content like this for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Step 1. Build Your Author\u2019s Website<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    #1. Choose your Content Management System<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    A Content Management System is what you use to create and manage your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It's basically the backend piece you'll interact with on a daily or weekly basis to post new blogs, create book sales pages, reply to comments, etc. There are lots of options out there for your CMS, but I like to keep things simple, cheap, and proven, so I recommend WordPress (www.wordpress.org<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you're just building a simple author's platform, WordPress will have everything you need and then some. Because WordPress is one of the most popular CMSs, they also have thousands of plugins available to tweak your site to your hearts content. Plus, you'll never find yourself without a designer or engineer to fix whatever problems you have because there are so many options available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    #2. Purchase your Domain and Hosting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    If you want to be taken seriously as an author, you should have a website and you should own the url. Some big name authors can get away with a .blogspot, but if you're an unknown author, this will detract from your credibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I recommending picking up a domain name url from www.iwantmyname.com<\/a> and hosting with a reliable company like www.bluehost.com<\/a> or www.webfaction.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Another option is www.newrainmaker.com<\/a>, which is like the Lamborghini of WordPress frameworks and is an all-in-one solution (hosting, podcast hosting, SSL, ecommerce solution, Learning Management System, etc.). A lot of successful bloggers and authors are choosing Newrainmaker for their all-in-one solution, like Chris Ducker<\/a>, Chris Brogan<\/a> and yours truly<\/a>, among others. That said, it costs a pretty penny, so if you're just starting out, you may want to start generating enough monthly revenue from book sales before switching over (at least $1,000 in revenue per month would be my recommendation).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    #3. Pick a Compelling Theme<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    A theme is the skin of your WordPress site. You get professional looking themes for as cheap as $50 (sometimes less) through Themeforest. Don\u2019t worry too much about flashy design. What matters is structuring your website the right way, which we\u2019ll talk about later in this guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    #4. Decide on Service Support<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Every now and then you might run into some issues with your website. If you're not technically inclined, you should either invest in something like www.newrainmaker.com<\/a>, which comes with unparalleled support (literally anything I need they either do for me or show me how - it's incredible) or go with a service like www.wpcurve.com<\/a>, which allows you to make unlimited small fixes to your WordPress website for a fraction of the cost it would take to hire a developer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This is particularly important if you\u2019d rather spend time writing and selling books, and not fixing widgets on your site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Step 2. Invest in the Right Email Marketing Service<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    An Email Marketing Service (EMS) is something that allows you to send bulk emails to people who have given you permission to stay in touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Remember, one of the keys to selling more books is engaging with readers. To do this, you're going to need an EMS so you can stay in contact, share updates about your book, or otherwise provide useful, valuable, relevant content your readers would like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I started Tommorkes.com with Mailchimp, but after two years of pulling out my hair (and I have very little left) trying to do the most basic things, I switched to www.convertkit.com<\/a>. I haven't looked back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    ConvertKit<\/a> is the new EMS on the block and it does everything an author could want his or her EMS to do and more, with none of the headache of other platforms like Mailchimp, Aweber, nor the restrictive cost of Infusionsoft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A lot of the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures I'm sharing with you today are possible because ConvertKit makes them so easy, so while you don't have to invest in ConvertKit, it will surely make your life easier. Up to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Step 3. Choose Your Ecommerce Solution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Most authors immediately think Amazon is the only place to sell a book. Amazon is great, but it\u2019s by no means the only place to sell your book, especially if you\u2019d like to capture more revenue than the paltry 30 \u2013 70% Amazon gives you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As an author and blogger, my personal favorite ecommerce solution is www.gumroad.com<\/a>. With Gumroad, I can easily setup a new product, in this case a book, and start selling it within minutes. The process is painless, simple, and fast. And while Amazon will take 30 \u2013 70% of your profit (plus hidden charges, depending on how big your book is), Gumroad only charges 5% plus $.25 per paid transaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Paid transaction is the key word, because I use Pay What You Want pricing and this makes Gumroad a very, very powerful tool for building an author\u2019s email list and selling books \u2013 I\u2019ll touch on this later in the guide\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Step 4. Create a Compelling Optin Gift for Your Readers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    In order to build a list, you need to give people a good reason to sign up and pay attention to you. One of the best ways to do this is through an optin gift (some sort of bonus you give the reader for subscribing). Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    #1. Free Chapter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    The simplest way to encourage potential readers to sign up to your email list or to buy your book is to offer them the chance to read part of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Giving away part of your book, whether a chapter or the first 20% of your book, is a simple, fast way to start building your list. Not everyone is going to sign up for this, but you can bet that those who do are your target readership, which means you should make sure you have an autoresponder set up to email them several times after they receive the free sample to encourage them to buy (more on this later).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    #2. Free Book or Guide<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    A more compelling option than a free chapter is a free copy of an entire book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I did this with The Art of Instigating<\/em>, which you can see above. It\u2019s by no means the most compelling gift \u2013 after all, if you don\u2019t know me, why would you care about my book? \u2013 but the act of getting a full book for free, especially if it has a price tag in the Amazon book store for $10<\/a>, for example, makes it a much more compelling incentive and increases the perceived value of the gift (which is important to encourage email optins).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    #3. Free Email Course<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Hands down, the most effective way I\u2019ve been able to get new subscribers and sell more books is through creating free email courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I\u2019ve done this for The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing by creating a free course: Pay What You Want Pricing 7 Day Email Crash Course<\/a>, which leads people through a series of training emails on how to use PWYW pricing. At the end of the ecourse, I share my book and ask people if they want to contribute. This generates several hundred dollars a month for me, completely on autopilot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"-\"
    automating your sales funnel is a no brainer...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Case Study: How One Author Leverages Free Gifts to Build an Email List<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cI giveaway all my books for free to subscribers: no matter how big my list is, I want their support in the form of downloads and reviews, not money.<\/p>

    But that won't matter if they haven't read the books yet, so I also leave really long excerpts and have some perma-free books for visibility.<\/p>

    But that's not enough either... so I send out special gifts for each book, as a thank you for followers who review - silver mermaid charms, postcards of the cover art, appreciation mail... that works great for engagement, but only for readers who liked the books.<\/p>

    For strangers, it's harder to get them to sign up, but an expensive prize and raffle is great for list building before a book launch. Maybe a special mermaid vacation\/party or a vampire-hunting set. Something over $100; worth signing up for and having a chance at winning; something that only appeals to target readers of the genre. Then I can warm them up with some cool genre-related trivia, or history, or fun news, and finally launch the book, with another chance to win what they signed up for in the first place.\u201d \u2013 Derek Murphy<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Step 5. Put Your Optin Gift Front and Center<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    If you take a look at the analytics of most websites, you\u2019re probably going to find that most readers land on a few select pages. These are usually the home page, about page, and the resources page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Here\u2019s what Tommorkes.com looks like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"web
    main pages people see...so make sure they count!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    As you can see, my top pages are my home page (www.tommorkes.com), my about page (www.tommorkes.com\/about), and my books and resources page (www.tommorkes.com\/cache).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Knowing this, these are three pages you should make sure are optimized to get subscribers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    #1. Home Page Optin<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    A strong home page is one where the experience is tailored to the type of reader you want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The most effective home pages are clear, compelling, and make people want to sign up for your email list because they're getting something of value immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"My
    My new home page with plenty of places to sign up.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    My current home page is entirely geared toward building an email list. If someone doesn\u2019t want to subscribe to my newsletter, I don\u2019t really care if they hang around. On the other hand, I want to over-deliver for the people who want more writing \/ books \/ etc. from me. That\u2019s why I create so many free and Pay What You Want products \u2013 to hopefully delight my readers and give them an incentive to keep coming back and to keep supporting my creative work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    #2. About Page Optin<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    The about page is usually the second most visited page on any website after the home page. This makes it an ideal place to turn readers into happy subscribers. Yet so many authors miss the boat on this one by making their about page about them, instead of the reader. Mistake!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For my about page, I tried to make it about my target reader \u2013 someone who has just stumbled over to my website via word of mouth referral (where most people come from). I try to hook the reader in a few sentences and then give him or her a lot of opportunities to sign up for my newsletter or one of my email lists, either directly, or by sending readers to my books (where their purchase will lead to becoming a subscriber), or by sending readers to particular blog posts with blog-specific optin incentives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"tom
    My about page with plenty of opportunities to join my email list...<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    #3. Resources Page Optin<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    This is another commonly accessed page on a website or blog: the free resources \/ books \/ guides \/ whatever page. You should make sure this page delivers and gives away some compelling stuff to get people to optin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Every book I sell is Pay What You Want and I set it up to automatically subscribe downloads to my \u201cGumroad\u201d list, which is something I set up directly inside ConvertKit. Because of this, every book sale builds my email list \u2013 which is way better for my platform than selling on Amazon (one of the reasons I personally avoid selling most of my books on the platform).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Note:<\/strong> every reader can easily opt out of my email list after purchase, which means not every single sale leads to a new email subscriber (some opt out), but it's still incredibly effectiv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    #4. Blog Post Optins<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Just like your home page, every blog post is an opportunity to build your email list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The way I was able to go from 500 to 3,000+ subscribers in less than 12 months was from creating blog-specific optin gifts. This works the exact same way as creating a free chapter or book giveaway, but instead focusing on creating something specific for individual blog posts. This is incredibly effective because people reading a particular blog post might be interested in a certain subject, but not everything else you write. So if you sell lots of books in different genres, this gives you the opportunity to properly segment your email list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Here\u2019s a guest post<\/a> I wrote that shows how to create blog-specific optins for your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Case Study: How One Fiction Author is Building a Massive Email List before Launching His Book<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    I find that a lot of fiction authors have trouble applying what seems like non-fiction-specific advice to their book marketing and author platform building. I\u2019m not exactly sure why this is, but I have a feeling it\u2019s because there simply aren\u2019t enough good examples to reference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That\u2019s why I connected with Toby Downton, author of Solaversia, who is building a huge email list before the hard launch of his book this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cHere are some quick facts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n