Joshua Pearson - September 21, 2019Today, Lindsay and Jo interviewed co-host and fantasy author Andrea Pearson about book marketing. Specifically, how she builds and engages her mailing list, gets subscribers, and sells books even when she’s a busy work-at-home mom.
Andrea’s Amazon profile: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B005CF5NQ4
Andrea’s website: http://andreapearsonbooks.com/
Our previous interview with her on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast: http://www.marketingsff.com/advanced-newsletter-tactics/
Questions:
Jo: For folks who haven’t listened to the previous interview we had with you, how about you tell us a bit about how you got started in writing?
Lindsay: I know you had a new son this spring. I assume you took some time off, but can you talk a bit to continuing to keep your business rolling along while experiencing a major new life change that I’m sure has kept you busy?
Lindsay: When you need to back off a bit and maybe have fewer hours in the day for a while, do you focus on one particular thing? The writing? Or is it more about marketing your backlist?
Jo: Do you have virtual assistants? As the mere UNCLE of a recently born nephew (who lives upstairs) I can totally see how having one around might make having assistants even more important.
Tips for hiring a VA.
YouTube videos? For non-fiction or fiction?
Lindsay: I remember you recommending MailChimp before. They had some changes roll out in May. Are they still your go-to provider?
Andrea uses Sendy. Host on your own domain wherever your site is hosted. It’s technical to set up. (Hire someone to do it–Fiverr)
Lindsay: What are some of the basic newsletter things every author should be doing?
Jo: It seems like organic newsletter signups are more valuable, since they are the folks who came to you out of specific interest in you, but they also seem like a Catch-22. You need to have a lot of buzz to get people reading your books and hitting the signup link at the end, but you need lots of people signed up to get the buzz. Any advice on jumpstarting a new list or revitalizing a floundering one?
Bundle from multiple series —
Lindsay: What are your thoughts on segregating your readers, either if you ran some joint author promos and got a bunch of sign-ups that way or if you write in multiple genres and worry about sending email to people who aren’t interested in some of what you write?
Lindsay: Could you talk about autoresponder services and what you do?
Lindsay: Any tips for improving open rates and making sure the people who subscribe are actually getting your emails?
Jo: If you don’t maintain your mailing list, either by regularly engaging your readers or by maybe trying some list-building stuff that left you with some dead weight, can it be rehabilitated? Is the Nuclear Option ever a good idea, just dropping the list and starting fresh?
If you can get them to open regularly from the beginning, it’s easier to get them to open stuff later on.
Don’t use “free” much in header—more likely to get marked as spam—and be wary of $ inside the letter, as that might also be flagged.
Bookbub / Other Marketing Stuff
Lindsay: Let’s say you’ve got the mailing list dialed in – what are some of your other favorite marketing tactics that authors should be implementing here in 2019?
Download Bonuses
Send proof of purchase to an email account and automate (link to Zapier… to send them bonuses) Illustrations, word searches, puzzles, etc.
Amazon ads – automated lists
Lindsay: You’ve got a Bookbub Facebook group – are you still doing much with Bookbub CPM/PPC ads or any of their other features?
Lindsay: You’ve got some books under the Self-Publish Strong brand. A lot of authors get into doing a mix of non-fiction and/or author services and their fiction. Is that a good way to diversify your income? Any caveats?
Jo: While we were talking about your upcoming appearance, you’d mentioned a fairly significant release you’ve got planned. Trying anything new?
Thank you for listening, and we hope you enjoyed the show. We’d like to thank Joshua Pearson for helping us produce the show and Stephanie Neilan for putting the show notes together. Please consider posting a review to iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. To ask a question for a future show or to leave a comment, visit 6figureauthors.com. We’d love to hear from you!
Recommended Resources
- Mailer – Sendy.co
- Program to Automate Connections – Zapier
- Andrea’s Marketing Podcast – Self Publish Strong
- Facebook Group – Bookbub and More Promotions group
Thanks guys for the Sendy reference! I am looking into it now. As a newer author with 600 subs or so MC still works for me, but I love the idea of CONTROL. – So glad to hear Lindsay and Joe at it again! Missed you guys from my commute… JR
I’ve been a Sendy user for a few years now and I love it. Admittedly, I’ve written a bunch of scripts around it to help give it features it wouldn’t normally have.
One that might specifically be useful here (and I’m willing to send you if you want it) is one that lets you subscribe a user to two lists instead of just one.
My use case is that I have a single autoresponder sequence for a bunch of different lists for a series that can be read in any order, so I have people sign up for the book specific list (which then sends them the audiobook of that book in the confirmation message) and also adds them to the main list (which then sends the autoresponder messages the first time they sign up but then won’t send them again since they are already subscribed if they get the audiobook version of other books.) We can then use a segment to send to people who have been subscribed longer than the autoresponder sequence for our normal emails so we don’t send too many emails to new folks.
This episode was packed with brilliant ideas, thank you! I’ve downloaded a ton more episodes to listen to this week.