I was reminded this morning (via Elizabeth Spann Craig's blog) of something that is on the list of 'things I should be doing but don't'...
Newsletters.
If you've been in the self-pub biz for any length of time, I'm sure you've heard that you should be sending out newsletters. Well, actually, you should be getting copious amounts of people to sign up for your newsletter and then you should send them out on a regular basis. Whether that regular basis is once a month or whenever you have something exciting to share is up to you.
Early on, I started a newsletter thing. I sent it out once a month and it had stuffs about book releases and the publishing schedule and a little contest in every one. But only a few people signed up and it began to seem like a humongous waste of time. Plus, nearly everyone on it was following the blog and/or following me on Facebook, so they were getting hit with the same information in multiple ways.
Anyway, I haven't put out a new newsletter in years. It's been so long that I actually took down the link to sign up for it.
I feel guilty about it every time I think about not sending one out. Everyone says you need a newsletter. Then again, everyone who says that has subscribers in the thousands. I guess if I had thousands of people clamoring for news from me, it would be easier to muster the will to put one out. (Not that I don't love those half dozen people who cared enough to read the newsletters I put out, but they're all getting notice of my news elsewhere.) Not exactly sure how to get thousands of people to sign up for the newsletter, though.
Maybe I should think about resurrecting the newsletter. I don't know. As a reader, I rarely even skim through the author newsletters I receive these days. The authors I love provide me with all the info I need via social media, so I'm not sure what the point is. Maybe that's just me.
What say you? If I put out a new newsletter, would you subscribe to it? Would you read it? Do you have a newsletter? How's that going for you?
I occasionally send mine out. There are some promo opportunities but mostly for those with big lists and I've yet to break the 200 mark. Ah well. I'm sort of like you. Why bother? Except I probably should because that old sales adage--a person has to see something X-number of times for it to take root. And FB/Twitter is hit or miss on whether anyone will see a post. *shrug*
ReplyDeleteI really don't look forward to sending my newsletters, but the template that I've created on MailChimp makes it simple...I just trade out the elements. So I have the new release du jour, trade out the photos of my pets, trade out the recipe, update my paragraph of what I've been doing personally (adjusting to an empty nest, mainly), update what I'm working on now. Then I have static things that just stay the same each time with slight updates (published books list, etc.) It definitely saves time, although it doesn't make my newsletter content exactly surprising to my readers, ha.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I hate it, I see a sharp spike in sales after sending it.
But...you're good at Facebook. I'm lousy at FB and prefer to post to writers there. Sometimes it's just good to follow our strengths.
I just did a newsletter build with Ryan Zee (Booksweeps) and gained over 500 subscribers. I wasn't sure how well it would go, but I sent out a newsletter today to share my cover and mention one of my books was going off sale soon and sold 3 books! I really didn't expect that. Something you might want to look into.
ReplyDelete