Is "the mailing list" still the number one promotional tool?

[The Bass Bagwhan]

I'm dabbling with a few ideas that might end up in that formula, "I'll give you this, if you sign up to my mailing list" kind of thing.

How do people react lately when they discover something free (in this case an audiobook) asks them to sign into a mailing list?

Are mailing lists, used effectively with good content and social media skills, still working?

[TimothyEllis]

"I'll give you this, if you sign up to my mailing list"

This is actually against Amazon ToS.

You can give anything away, but you cannot expect anything in return, and especially not ask for it.

[Lysmata Debelius]

"I'll give you this, if you sign up to my mailing list"

This is actually against Amazon ToS.

You can give anything away, but you cannot expect anything in return, and especially not ask for it.

Surely that can't be right? You can't ask for reviews for giveaways, because they want honest customer reviews not motivated by "I'll get this thing if I get a good review". I can't imagine that Amazon can control how we get people to sign up for our mailing lists?

[Max]

Seems that depends on how you're giving it away. If it's a code to an ACX product, sounds like it might be a problem if that's against TOS. If you're giving it away through BF or IF or a popup on your site, probably not, unless it's in Kindle Unlimited. There are rules about how much you can give away of a book that is in KU.

[Simon Haynes]

Lysmata is right - you can't give away books and demand a review in return, but you can most definitely offer a free book in exchange for someone signing up to a newsletter.

Ah, I think I understand the confusion. What you can't do is give away ANY book which is enrolled in KU. That's against the Amazon TOS as well.

[Lysmata Debelius]

Lysmata is right - you can't give away books and demand a review in return, but you can most definitely offer a free book in exchange for someone signing up to a newsletter.

Ah, I think I understand the confusion. What you can't do is give away ANY book which is enrolled in KU. That's against the Amazon TOS as well.

That makes sense  

[Lysmata Debelius]

OK then I have another question (if the OP doesn't mind!)

KU is only for ebooks, right?  What if I do a giveaway of a print book that was published on Createspace? Even with the Createspace / KU merger, that shouldn't be a problem?

I'm thinking of doing some kind of raffle that you can enter by joining the mailing list, not sending a print book for every signup, that would be nuts

[Post-Doctorate D]

Be careful with raffles.  There you run into state laws and regulations and stuff, if you're in the U.S. and probably other countries too.

[Max]

Good point, Dan. Boy, is that ever a good point!

Yes, KU is only for ebooks.

PS. Just a thought, if you are going to spend money like that (postage isn't cheap, especially to other countries) I'd find a more cost effective way to garner subs. Maybe get more bang for your buck.

[LilyBLily]

We should mention Instafreebie even though it now is dorky "Prolific Works," and there have been recent reports that it doesn't give great results anymore.

A responsive mailing list is a wonderful thing, but if the people only respond to free stuff, you can be very busy giving things away and not get the sales you hope to reap. According to the experts, you have to cultivate your mailing list with a series of autoresponders that will turn them into fans. This is probably true. I haven't done it. 

[Simon Haynes]

I had success with facebook ads and a Bookfunnel landing page. The ad was along the lines of 'magnificent book yadda yadda' then 'Grab a free copy when you sign up for my newsletter' or similar.

Unlike using amazon/apple/etc for a landing page, with BF you know for sure they came from FB.

[Joe Vasicek]

Dabble away, Bass Bagwhan. That's how I built my list and learned how to use it, violating most of the established self-publishing wisdom in the process. It's the most effective tool that I have for turning readers into fans.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

[PaulineMRoss]

A responsive mailing list is a wonderful thing, but if the people only respond to free stuff, you can be very busy giving things away and not get the sales you hope to reap. According to the experts, you have to cultivate your mailing list with a series of autoresponders that will turn them into fans. This is probably true. I haven't done it.

It depends how they found out about the free stuff. If you advertised to them on FB or they found you on the site-formerly-known-as-Instafreebie, then they may not be very committed to you as an author, and will unsubscribe or (worse) report your newsletter as spam. But if they're organic signups, who read your book and found the signup link at the back, they're much more likely to not unsubscribe and may turn into long-term fans.

On the onboarding autoresponder front, all I ever send is a welcome email a day after they signed up which tells them a little bit about me and gives them the links to all the freebies. That's it. I don't like a lengthy onboarding sequence when I sign up myself so I don't inflict one on my subscribers, but they are very fashionable these days, and reputed to be successful.

[Lysmata Debelius]

Such excellent responses. These are the reasons I've been holding back on doing giveaways before.

In general, is it better to try to get as many mailing list signups as possible and then let people drop out if they're not interested, or is it better to only promote the mailing list the people who are already connected to you as readers in some way? So for example, is it worth getting lots of possibly uncommitted readers through e.g. Facebook adverts and free giveaways, or is it better to concentrate on slowly building up a list from links in the back of your books, your website, your Facebook page etc?

You can do both, I know, but is there a significant disadvantage to doing option 1 - reaching out to people who have no connection to you yet?

I have trouble judging these things because I myself never sign up for newsletters etc unless the person is my ultimate utter hero. I wouldn't sign up for a mailing list myself, just to get a free short story or whatever from a writer I don't know anything about, but maybe I'm more grumpy than the norm?

[WasAnn]

Here's how to do it and stay within the boundaries of decency and laws and TOS. LOL.

-You can use proper verbiage, "Get the book FREE as a gift when you sign up for my newsletter" or some such. Use it on your site and maybe in other books.
-Never include a book in KU
-Try giving them a book or story that they can't get anywhere else.
-Don't have a long onboarding sequence. Just enough to be sure they want to stay.
-Instafreebie works well for me, but I'm always Opt-In, so the ones that come often come AFTER they read the free book they got on IS by using the signup page at the end of the book. That's a more committed signer right there.
-If you can, write something just for the giving that ties into your other works, because you want them interested and invested in your other work.


If you're doing the short audiobook you mentioned, then having it delivered via Awesound or something might be easier, but I don't think they have giveaways set up there, do they?

[The Bass Bagwhan]

I needed to be a little more specific, but I'm thinking along the lines of providing a free audiobook through the likes of Awesound. So rather than just give it away (which can be done) I might be able to "give it away" via a promotional code that gives me an email address that might be added to an email mailing list. In a way, it doesn't have anything to do with Amazon or ACX, it's all based from my own website.
I'm more wondering if people's general wariness about signing up to any mailing list is starting to hurt that "mailing list" strategy. Or maybe the question is whether AMS and FB ads have trumped (Jeez ... can we still use that word?) the mailing list approach.

[Simon Haynes]

I needed to be a little more specific, but I'm thinking along the lines of providing a free audiobook through the likes of Awesound. So rather than just give it away (which can be done) I might be able to "give it away" via a promotional code that gives me an email address that might be added to an email mailing list. In a way, it doesn't have anything to do with Amazon or ACX, it's all based from my own website.
I'm more wondering if people's general wariness about signing up to any mailing list is starting to hurt that "mailing list" strategy. Or maybe the question is whether AMS and FB ads have trumped (Jeez ... can we still use that word?) the mailing list approach.

I started with ads in march/april, and turned my attention to building a mailing list in June/July.

It's reached 1800 people now, after an influx of 600 from a list-building promo. Those are being sorted an integrated into the rest, before I weed out the non-openers and non-clickers.


With those 600, I offered them a free review copy of my latest novel. I figured that would tell me if the NL is going to spam or a dead-end address.


Recently I picked a sub-group of people who do a LOT of clicking on my emails, and I offered them the chance to beta read my next novel. I got 45 replies, and I believe 42 downloaded the book via BF and almost all submitted a report with typos or comments.


I'm more focussed on giving people on my list a reason to be there, instead of telling them about new releases and trying to sell them stuff.

[guest390]

I'm dabbling with a few ideas that might end up in that formula, "I'll give you this, if you sign up to my mailing list" kind of thing.

How do people react lately when they discover something free (in this case an audiobook) asks them to sign into a mailing list?

Are mailing lists, used effectively with good content and social media skills, still working?

Mailing lists are crucial. Any way you can find to build it is a good thing....well, almost any way. However, it's important to keep the list divided into groups. Organic email acquisitions are by far the best - people who have asked to be on the list without prompting. Those you acquire through other means are not as valuable: book funnel giveaways or some other form of promotion. These should be kept in groups according to the promotion you used to get them. This will help you learn what's working and what isn't. You'll always have better click through with your organic list. With the secondary lists, assuming you're using a service that can tell you who is responding and how, you can narrow down, according to data, what promotions yield the best subscribers.
You can also add polls and questionnaires to your mailers to gauge content value. Or simply to give the recipient something fun to do. Managed properly, an email list can tell you a lot about who your readers are and what they want. 

Addendum - I forgot to add that all of your social media (I mean all) should have somewhere to sign up for your mailing list.

[WasAnn]

I needed to be a little more specific, but I'm thinking along the lines of providing a free audiobook through the likes of Awesound. So rather than just give it away (which can be done) I might be able to "give it away" via a promotional code that gives me an email address that might be added to an email mailing list. In a way, it doesn't have anything to do with Amazon or ACX, it's all based from my own website.
I'm more wondering if people's general wariness about signing up to any mailing list is starting to hurt that "mailing list" strategy. Or maybe the question is whether AMS and FB ads have trumped (Jeez ... can we still use that word?) the mailing list approach.

There's a slight problem with the bolded part there, or maybe I'm reading it wrong. Anyway, that's a no-no. Adding someone to a newsletter because they took advantage of something free you offered, but without their express permission, is against all the rules governing the use of people's email addresses.

All you need to do is offer it as a free gift for signing up. Period. Don't harvest them without their consent. Give them the promo code to redeem it and the link to it in the confirmation email that they've signed up.

Also...what Simon says is the way I work with that as well.

Give them a reason to be there and make it a two-way street. I have a small list when compared to some...okay, it's not small at all, but comparatively speaking it is. I got about 1500 from a promo that I never even added because I felt weird about it. I like organic, and Opt-in for Instafreebie and that's pretty much it.

I give them a lot, and they like my work, and they buy my work. That's a great relationship. What you're doing is starting a new relationship with people you don't know yet, but hope to. Go ahead and start it with a big give, then foster it by being helpful.

The key with newsletters is that most readers who like books enough to sign up for a NL read a whole lot more than any one author can write. Certainly they can read more than I can write, so I'm not looking to push things on them all the time.

I have a "read and loved" bit where I tell them about my latest lovely read (sometimes I don't have anything lovely) or audiobook and ask about theirs. The key is that I never include anything written by anyone I know, so it's purely as a reader. This provides an avenue of engagement that isn't for gain, gets a lot of responses, and invests the VIP list in what we're all doing.

I also include snippets of things, cutting room floor stuff, images of my latest paintings done from book scenes. (Or their eyeballs! I was trying to learn how to do super-realistic eyes, so I did a painting of a reader's eyeball! I got loads of pics of eyeballs!) I don't have to write original fiction for them every week to get them to stay with me, though I'm also generous with that.

Approach your mailing list as the ultimate tool of the self-publisher. It releases you from depending so much on others for a good launch. It gives you more control over your destiny. That makes it important and valuable, but the people behind those numbers are the true treasure, so cultivate that.

[David VanDyke]

Are mailing lists, used effectively with good content and social media skills, still working?

I would say in the long run, yes.

I just attended a presentation about online marketing and FB ads for small business--not for authors specifically. 3 of the 12 attendees were authors. The rest were from other kinds of businesses--a safari tour company, an online specialty golf supplies seller, etc.

The presenter, who runs an online marketing business (the kind where you pay them to handle all your online marketing) said right up front that your email list is still your most effective tool for marketing in the long run--no matter what your business. There's always another product to sell, and your email list is entirely under your control, unlike ads and promos. It's a custom-built and curated audience that should be tailor-made for your product.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

Thanks for all the considered responses everyone. Yes, I realise you need to tread a fine line and make sure any mailing list sign-up is completely voluntary. I can't just grab an email address and add it. All the ideas so far are formative and I have to spend a lot more time on fine-tuning language, website landing pages and so on.

I'm actually pretty good at writing humorous blogs and reviews, etc, on my website that can make a regular newsletter worthwhile, and therefore (hopefully) keep audiobook sales organic rather than the result of any hard sell strategy. But I'm bad, really bad, at doing that regularly and it's something I need to fix. I'm a writer, professional editor (freelance), sound engineer and a musician, and life throws work and commitments at me in random handfuls, but I'm starting to convince myself that regardless of absolutely everything I need to schedule a set day and period every week ... maybe Monday mornings ... to social media.

For anyone interested, and it's being covered in another thread here (a discussion slowly migrating across from KB) I'm discussing with Mark from Awesound just how a short, free audiobook can be distributed from my website. And in doing that attracting those sign-ups. If side-loading books was simpler, I'd be looking harder at direct-selling those too, but it seems to be an obstacle too tricky for some.

[Post-Doctorate D]

It's also a good idea to tell people what to expect when they sign up to your list.  Do you plan to mail daily, weekly, monthly?  Let them know what to expect.

And be careful what you decide on.  You don't want to burn yourself out.  When I decided to start mailing my list regularly, I decided I would send out my newsletter monthly with four short stories per issue.  I did thirteen issues (had a special holiday issue) that year and decided to switch to quarterly the following year.  I did one the following year and the same the year after.  Probably only going to be one this year too.

Just be careful not to set up a schedule where you're going to burn yourself out.

[Simon Haynes]

For anyone interested, and it's being covered in another thread here (a discussion slowly migrating across from KB) I'm discussing with Mark from Awesound just how a short, free audiobook can be distributed from my website. And in doing that attracting those sign-ups. If side-loading books was simpler, I'd be looking harder at direct-selling those too, but it seems to be an obstacle too tricky for some.

I've been using a free audiobook of one of my shorts as a ML magnet for some months now.  The mp3 file is on my site, and I have a custom landing page which isn't linked from the rest of the site. Eventually I'm sure google will discover the page, and then I'll just change the URL (and the filename for the MP3)

Bookfunnel is the way to get past side-loading problems for ebooks, and you can use payhip to sell them.