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 Note: This is the thirty-fourth post in Free Fiction Fridays. These are short stories put up each Friday that you can read for free. By the next Friday the post will be taken down and a new one will go up. Enjoy!  The Four Corners The Dulce Files - Coming in November
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 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. 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. 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.
 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. 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.  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.
 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:  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)! You Might Also Like This is the thirtieth post in an ongoing series of useful and interesting content that goes up each Wednesday. Here you can find links to different SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, self-publishing, and other various articles from the past week that I think you might like. This week there are 13 articles…enjoy! Link stolen on Jan. 31 Content MarketingSocial MediaSelf-PublishingOtherAre you ready to get 3 amazing, fantastic, mesmerizing, and mythic fantasy eBooks all in one place? Good, because for the first time, The Jongurian Trilogy is available on Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and a few other retailers for the price of $9.95. Pretty good deal for more than 350,000 words and 900 pages of epic fantasy action and thrills! That’s right, I’ve put the book up on Smashwords, and that means it’s no longer exclusive to Amazon. The whole reason for this was the cover. I had an old 3D box set cover image, and those other retailers just won’t allow that. So I got a new cover made, and here it is: 
I had this done by Machine 4 Arts, which is a user on Freelancer, a site I do a lot of eBook cover work on and also do a lot of writing-for-hire work.
I had him do the layout on all three of my new epic fantasy eBook covers, and then he came up with this design all his own. I like that it’s fresh and new and different from other designs out there, the typical three images side-by-side kind you see in fantasy books and many romance book box sets as well. So what’s this epic fantasy trilogy about? Gosh, I’ve kind of talked that to death on this site, mainly with a 10-part series last year on How to Write a Fantasy Novel that Sells. To recap, these novels are East vs. West…so think medieval Europe having it’s diplomatic relations with ancient China severed. Imagine the two continents squaring-off to go to war, while at the same time all those vying principalities and small nation states in Europe are at each others’ throat, and coming in for the kill. Yep, there’s political intrigue, treachery, shifting alliances, and civil war. There are rebels and warlords and old war veterans put out to pasture and then pulled back to action. It’s a good book for YA readers and it’s good for people that liked fantasy books with lots of action and not a lot of that magic and monster crap. Think Arthurian fantasy, which is the category these books have ranked well in for the past two years. More than 10,000 people have downloaded the first book and Books 2 and 3 have sold more than 500 copies. Find out what so many have realized…The Jongurian Trilogy is epic fantasy action that will thrill and amaze the hell out of you!  I’ve got a warning for all the Google+ communities out there – stay relevant! This past Tuesday I decided to go to all my Google+ communities and do some marketing work, collect some links for Midweek Content Roundup, and post some comments on interesting things I saw. I do this nearly every day, and have been for months and months. One group that I decided to visit on this day was Author Rank and Google Authorship, a group I’ve been a member of since about April if not earlier. 
The group is quite large – it has nearly 23,000 members – and I could often find some useful SEO information there. Lately, however, I’d begun to notice that there was less engagement, and I was seeing the same things over and over. I decided to make a comment on this: 
As you can see, I got some engagement on that post, the first this group had seen in some time. Well, that was too much for the moderator of this group, someone or something named Digital Marketing. Now, this moderator was not the same moderator as when I joined this group. The original moderator left, and that may explain why my post was deleted and I was kicked out of the community, no notice whatsoever. See, I’d challenged the authority and the very existence of that group and that moderator. They were not doing a very good job, and anyone that wants to visit that group can tell that fact quickly. Here’s just a few screenshots of what that group looks like: 
Here is the group’s top page, or the beginning of the infinite scroll. It looks like there’s been a new post just today, a few hours ago. But let’s scroll down that page: 
Just a few posts later you can see that this group has only had a few posts in a month’s time. Right there below that post today (October 25) is a post going back to September 26. Scroll down a bit more and you see this: 
There’s a post going back to September 9, just a few posts down from the post made today.
Now, an engaged group with 23,000 members will have a few posts a minute, and people will comment on them. Here you can see that there’s very few comments and very little in the way of +1’s even. No, this group is dead. So I said that, because I’m one of those people that would rather have a problem pointed out before it sinks the ship than after. This moderator Digital Marketing isn’t one of those folks, and that’s how I know all their endeavors will fail. Don’t be like Digital Marketing – I can’t see what posts they make because they’ve blocked me – and keep an open mind. If people point out problems, don’t turn a blind eye, a deaf ear, or block them on social media. Don’t put your head in the sand and hope things get better. Take a listen and take a look – it might be just what you need.  Did you know that I’ve been writing this site for 18 months but hardly anyone ever comments on it? You’d think with more than 3,000 people a day it’d get some action, but no. So I figured I’d get to the bottom of it, or at least pretend I did while writing what I want. Now, these three reasons no one comments on my site could apply to your site as well, but I don’t know because I don’t visit it. I don’t visit it because you haven’t left a comment on my site. See…I don’t know you exist. So what are some reasons why wildly popular sites and sites with lots of daily visitors aren’t getting comments? Here are my top 3 ideas. You’re Smarter than Your Audience  This one has become glaringly obvious to me on this site. It’s obvious – no one else knows what I’m talking about! I mean, who can:
And more useful things like: and See, my audience doesn’t know that so they come here. And when you don’t know something you’ll often clam-up. Hey, I was an English teacher for 5 years and saw that shit firsthand. I know that most of you have no idea what you’re doing, just like my students. This is why getting you to talk is also like pulling teeth. It’s alright – ignorance doesn’t last forever. When I first started in blogging and self-publishing and other stuff online I didn’t know a damn thing, just like you now. But I put the pedal to the metal and learned, and I did that all online and by myself. No one’s going to hold your hand because no one gives a fuck about you. They’ll say they will, but chances are they’re just trying to get your money. I don’t really care about your money, for even if you bought every single one of my books on the same day I’d only make $131.33. That’s not a whole lot, huh? So really, I can talk to you anyway I want and you’ll take it or you’ll stop reading…it’s that simple. And unlike many sites out there, if you stop reading it won’t be the end of the world. But you know this – you go to dozens of sites, because you’re smart. Now, for all you serious folks that are still here, what does this mean? You’re Boring as Hell  I often see some interesting looking links while I’m going around my various groups and communities on social media. Sometimes I’ll click through and see what this person is doing on their site. Most of the time I regret it. There’s a lot of boring stuff out there. The worst is when people write about themselves. Many people only care about themselves so this strategy really doesn’t work. Sometimes you see sites that have information you read when you were in first grade…or whatever you’d like to compare the early training sessions of your industry or niche. Many times you just get a paragraph that’s badly formatted or worse, a few running together, small text…you just don’t even want to read it and hit ‘back.’ So maybe you can write but you’ve got design problems. What’s the difference? I see something that looks like a train wreck and I just go away and find something else – there are millions of sites out there and a shit-ton of crappy and useless links I can click. Your Tone is Shit I write pretty straightforward and don’t apologize. I hate people that say they’re sorry all the time so I rarely say it myself. That rubs many the wrong way, well, I’m sorry…but not really.
I wrote an article on The Book Designer once and everyone said it had good info but the tone was just terrible. Well, shit. You won’t find me commenting on boring and toneless sites. If you can’t take a stand, if you’re falling all over yourself to please everyone, damn – I don’t have time for that shit. Sometimes when I drink too much coke I get a sour stomach, and when I see sites with a tone that’s smiley and friendly and not at all helpful I get a sour stomach too. I don’t need two sour stomachs in one day. Don’t sour-stomach your audience, find your voice and tone and stick with it and don’t apologize and if no one wants to comment than God damn it aren’t they lucky? Alright, that’s three reasons no one comments on this site – I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t comment because it might negate this whole article. Thanks…but not really.  Note: This is the thirty-third post in Free Fiction Fridays. These are short stories put up each Friday that you can read for free. By the next Friday the post will be taken down and a new one will go up. Enjoy! This post was removed on 11/07/14...thanks! We haven’t done a monthly mailbox since the end of July, and that’s mainly because no one sends me email. Yep, these posts are complete BS...or are they? Let’s get to the first email. How do I get my site on the Midweek Content Roundup? That’s a good question – I’m not sure. I guess the best thing to do is have good and interesting and useful content that would appeal to my tastes, or at least look similar to what’s been in the other 30 or so Midweek Content Roundups. I don’t solicit links, if that’s what you’re getting at, Ricky. I also don’t typically include links people send me in email…mainly because no one does that. Well, maybe 1 or 2 a month – if even that. No, where I get most of the links to the articles you may or may not be reading each Wednesday is on Google+. As you know from my previous article on Google+ communities, I’ve got quite a few groups that I actively visit and post to and also pull links from. You could go and do this, but the thing is, you have a job and I don’t…well, you know what I mean. I can sit at home and allocate an hour or 30 minutes each day to going to those groups and sifting through the detritus to find the worthwhile content. We call this curation and I’m pretty good at it, perhaps because I have a history degree and we were trained to do that…to some extent. I’ve had to train myself to do it a lot more, and you can see my five history books to see what that looks like. So how do you get on Midweek Content Roundup? Probably by being an active blogger that publishes useful shit and that also shares it on one of the Google+ groups that I frequent. How do you make enough money to not work? I will say that I don’t make enough money from my books alone, Ted. If I lived on the money I get from my eBooks and print books, I’d be living on the street. So I write stuff for other people. I used to do a lot of content writing work, for people’s websites and such. Now I mainly stick to eBooks and editing jobs. I do alright, although some months (like this month) it feels a little tight. What tips do you have for starting a fantasy trilogy or open-ended series? If you wanted to start a series of books this is what I’d suggest to you, Dominique:
I could go into more on this but I just don’t really have much else to say now. Check out my ‘writing fantasy’ category for lots of articles on writing fantasy novels or series. You have a lot of great cover designers in your cover designer article, but can you narrow it down more? I’d narrow it down based on these three categories, Biff:
Let’s explain that:
Everything I try for eBook marketing doesn’t work, what should I do? Boy, I’m sorry, Chester – and I will just come out and say I don’t really know. The consensus goes like this:
Alrighty, that concludes this edition of the Monthly Mailbox. Thanks for writing…or not.  This is the twenty-ninth post in an ongoing series of useful and interesting content that goes up each Wednesday. Here you can find links to different SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, self-publishing, and other various articles from the past week that I think you might like. This week there are 14 articles…enjoy! SEONothing of value this week. This post was link-jacked on Jan. 31...thanks! Social Media MarketingSelf-PublishingOther My Bumper Sticker Every once in awhile it’s a good idea to do a little refresher, reintroduce yourself, and let everyone know who you are. The reason for this is simple – time goes by. When I used to be a teacher in China we’d have a course last for about 20 weeks, then a new one would start. Most of the time it’d be a lot of the same students returning for the next level, but quite a bit there’d be a few new students thrown in and of course some of the old ones would be gone. I guess you could call this turnover, and internet websites experience it a lot. Audiences change, and so too does the person running the site. So today we’re going to do what I’d do during that first class of a new course, a little introduction. I’d make my students talk about themselves a bit, and it was interesting to see how far some of them had come in confidence and ability level. You can read my first introductory post here, and there have been many more sprinkled along the way, usually as apologies for big blowups on my writing blog…this one, which now has more than 350 posts. But I’ll let you find those hidden gems on your own. Let’s roll! Greg Strandberg  You can learn most of the pertinent facts about me on my About Us page, but I’m a nearly-33-year-old poor writer living in Missoula, Montana. Last year I made $19,827.26 and this year I might just get up to $19,000 if I’m lucky. Just because I’m poor doesn’t mean I’m useless, however, as most great artistic and forward-thinking minds throughout history have had to contend with poverty at one time or another, perhaps constantly. I’ve got wife from Russia named Evgenyia and a 3-year-old son named Paul. She works at a daycare here in Missoula so we have some extra money to supplement my meager fare. We lived in China for several years and you can read all about that in my books. I don’t apologize and I don’t suffer fools gladly. I’m confident and I have authority. I say what I think and I say what I want – I have nothing so I have nothing to lose. Sometimes this rubs people the wrong way. What can I do…stop? Say ‘I’m sorry’? Get into a fight? When I see something I don’t like or can do nothing about – like maybe a pesky Republican talk radio show host – I just don’t listen or watch or pay attention to it. If that’s how I make you feel, do us both a favor and just go. Because I don’t have to be here and no one’s paying me to write this site. Thos ads you see on the sidebar? I might make $4 from those a month, if I’m lucky. So there’s no bought-and-paid-for message here, folks – this is about as authentic as it comes. For many of you that’s taboo, silly, or just plain stupid. The long-term consequences of actually saying what you think? Shit. Oh well. Here are a few of my areas of expertise: English as a Second Language  I know how to teach English, but even better, I know how to teach teachers how to teach English. Not as many people can do that, and I have a website to prove it, www.esladventure.com. You can check it out, as well as my 10 ESL books for teachers. It’s a pretty niche market, but golly, I make some money from it, which is better than just having what you’re good at sitting on a shelf and looking pretty. Writing I’m a professional writer and have been since April 2013 when I began doing it full-time to make a living. Isn’t that the definition of a professional – someone “engaged in a specified activity as one’s main occupation rather than as a pastime?” I say this because many of you writers are probably wondering if you should waste any time here, which I refer to as ‘putting a site on my bookmark bar.’ Well, that’s up to you. I’ve got my work right out there front and center, warts and all. I will tell you that my own books don’t sell for shit, but I do make some good money writing all kinds of stuff – some of it rubbish, some of it shining gold – for other people. They like it, most of the time. Alright, let’s be honest - I’ve got close to 50 books* on Amazon and some of them do sell. I make about $300 to $500 a month off of them, and that’s with barely any marketing, if any. I’ll put that little asterisk there because, let’s face it, some of them are more like pamphlets than books, if you want to whip ‘em out and go by size. But who’s counting? Mainly I put this blog up for you writers to come and look at, I guess. I started it as a way to write about writing so I could be a better writer, and you might want to do that on your site. No one will read the shit, but after a month you’ll run out of things to say and can start doing some real work. Besides that I have some marketing stuff and tips and tricks for eBook covers and editing and the whole-self-publishing-nine-yards. It’s all over there on the sidebar in the categories. I will say that I don’t write too much on this blog anymore because I just don’t feel the need to impress anyone and I’m getting bored of writing about writing. Montana History I’ve got a Montana history blog and I’ve got 4 books on Montana history so I call myself an expert on Montana history. Again, this might rub some of you the wrong way, but how many people do you know that have a book on history, let alone 4? Shit, many of the professors at Montana’s universities that are teaching Montana history don’t even have one book. I’ll brag because I’m confident and I produce results, and if you don’t like that, you can go – it’s that simple. When you know dates and names and facts and figures you become confident, mainly because about 90% of the population doesn’t know them. This allows you to defeat them in arguments more easily, at least until that pesky thing called ‘belief’ comes along and mungs things up. At that point no amount of facts will convince someone. But if you want to give it a shot, you’ll find it all on my Montana history blog and in my Montana books. I know a lot of smart people will look up those free and affordable resources in the coming years, and they’ll profit off them handsomely. Maybe you’ll be one, I dunno. Montana Politics Am I an expert in Montana politics? Ha, that’s a laugh, huh? I’m certainly an expert at failing in Montana politics, and that’s the first ingredient needed for success.
Let’s take a look at what we don’t know about Montana politics:
No one has the answer to these things, but the various camps are scrambling around as best they can to try and make their person win. I keep abreast of the latest developments in regard to these things, as well as how the media interprets them, or doesn’t. In the state of Montana I’d say about 5% of the population does this on a regular basis and with multiple sources. I’d say even less write about their findings and opinions on them. Even fewer know the procedures involved in getting elected, and fewer still know policies and procedures that come after. So am I an expert in Montana politics? I’m damn close, and in a year from now I will be, if I continue as I am. But why continue? It’s a good question, and one every ‘politician’ has to ask themselves at one point or another. Maybe after the election I’ll quit, but that never comes about. It’s far more likely that I’ll begin researching the upcoming race. Why? So we can develop strategies to counter that Americans for Prosperity money spilling into the state, the money that’s used to put corporate-backed candidates into office. Right now we’ve got Steve Daines, Ryan Zinke, and Lawrence VanDyke, and they’re all bought and paid for stooges working for the Koch brothers, big-time oilmen that want to control this state so they can siphon off its resources and turn their $100 billion into $250 billion…or however much they need to feel good about themselves finally, or get over their John Birch daddy complex, or whatever it is that’s keeping them from being men. So that’s the plan for November 5, mainly because when I don’t have stuff to write for other people I do this, because you can’t write books that don’t sell all the time. |
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