You’re an author or a blogger and you want to get more people interested in you, you want them to stay interested in you, and you want them to buy your products or in some way make you money.
How do you do that?
One way is with an email list, something you’ve probably heard about. So how do you get an email list, how do you figure out how to use one, and perhaps most importantly, what do you do to get people to sign up…and then what in the hell do you send them?
Let’s begin to answer those questions.
How do you do that?
One way is with an email list, something you’ve probably heard about. So how do you get an email list, how do you figure out how to use one, and perhaps most importantly, what do you do to get people to sign up…and then what in the hell do you send them?
Let’s begin to answer those questions.
Starting Your Email List
I use MailChimp and have been for the past year. Here’s what my list growth has looked like since I began last November:
Email list growth over one year using MailChimp
Now, in November I had one person sign-up for that email list and that was me. In December I had two more people sign-up, and I think one of those was my dad. I will also say that the other person that signed-up that month is still on that list…which I take as a great accomplishment (they do click on the email).
So how can you do something similar? I’d just go to Mail Chimp and follow the instructions to get started. (Check out this Mail Chimp holiday survey too!) You can find all kinds of easy guides on Google or YouTube too.
And then just watch that list grow…or not.
So how can you do something similar? I’d just go to Mail Chimp and follow the instructions to get started. (Check out this Mail Chimp holiday survey too!) You can find all kinds of easy guides on Google or YouTube too.
And then just watch that list grow…or not.
Growing Your Email List
So how do you get people to sign-up for your email list? Well, when I started last year I didn’t do shit.
- Oh, I put a link in the back of all my books, and maybe I got one or two that way.
- Then I put some sign-up forms on my site and I might have gotten a few more that way.
- Finally, I started to offer people incentives to sign-up for that mailing list.
Simple homepage email sign-up
Contact page sign-up
Now, all during that time I was still sending out emails to people, at the rate of one per month. I did that until around, oh…maybe February, when I started to send out two emails a month, a rate I’ve kept up.
I think two is good – people don’t get too much and they don’t get too little so as to forget you.
What did those emails say? Just that I had some new books out, and I also included links to recent blog posts on my two sites, or at least the sites’ most popular articles.
I think two is good – people don’t get too much and they don’t get too little so as to forget you.
What did those emails say? Just that I had some new books out, and I also included links to recent blog posts on my two sites, or at least the sites’ most popular articles.
Incentivizing Your Email List
From November 2013 to April I only had 16 people sign-up for my email list. Now February was a big month – I doubled my number, going from 6 to 12. Pretty huge, huh?
How’d that happen? Starting in February I began giving away a free ESL book to email subscribers. But before that I’m not sure – I think it was just people slowly adding me because they liked my blog posts and maybe my eBooks.
It wasn’t until March 24 that I began offering a free short story collection to anyone that signed-up for my email list, something that I still offer.
So I got an additional 4 people that month and then in April I got 3 more…not a real success. I guess the short story collection kind of fell flat.
Not to worry – I’ll just head back to the drawing board…and offer a free guide to Google+ for Authors and Bloggers. I started doing that at the end of July and had mentioned it earlier in the month. That really helped me out.
It wasn’t until March 24 that I began offering a free short story collection to anyone that signed-up for my email list, something that I still offer.
So I got an additional 4 people that month and then in April I got 3 more…not a real success. I guess the short story collection kind of fell flat.
Not to worry – I’ll just head back to the drawing board…and offer a free guide to Google+ for Authors and Bloggers. I started doing that at the end of July and had mentioned it earlier in the month. That really helped me out.
Sidebar on my ESL website for sign-ups
So in July I had 10 new subscribers and then in August I had 15 more. September saw a dip to 9, but there was an October rebound of 18…so far.
It seems that Google+ book was what people wanted, huh? Yes and no.
It seems that Google+ book was what people wanted, huh? Yes and no.
- First, people were buying that book on Amazon…maybe because they didn’t know about the email list or they didn’t want to sign-up.
- Next, many people were signing-up still but not selecting a book (I can see what people select) or selecting a different one.
- Finally, as more people began to read my political articles toward the November 2014 election, I think I got a few additional sign-ups based off that.
The number of unsubscribed from my email list over the past year = 6
Still, as you can see from this unsubscribed list, very few people actually sign-up and then drop themselves from the list. In fact, I’ve had but 6 people unsubscribe from my list since it began, and 1 I removed because their email changed.
Where are these people? Here’s a cool rundown that Mail Chimp gives you showing geography settings:
Where are these people? Here’s a cool rundown that Mail Chimp gives you showing geography settings:
Geography settings for your email list
Conclusion
Anyways, it’s pretty easy to get a mailing list set up, and as you saw, some people will sign-up even if you do nothing…or at least very little. You will need at least some kind of sign-up form, like my main one:
email sign-up form (click to sign-up!)
Offering incentives like I did is a good way to get your list going, but as you can see from my own statistics, not that many will be engaged.
Author email list
That’s why I like users that add of their own accord, because they like what I’m doing. They come, it just takes time. But if you don’t have a mailing list, they won’t come, so start one today – it’s free (up to 300 subscribers, of course)!
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