Email Marketing?

If you are a writer and/or a publisher, do you use email marketing in promoting your books?  If not, have you considered it but don’t think you should, for fear of spamming people?

Believe it or not, there is a non-spammy and ethical way to do email marketing.

I have been adding email marketing to my book promotions for a year or so and I always start with two free books.  The first book is perma-free (always available to download on Amazon for free) and inside that book, there is an offer for another free book.  In order to get the second free book, the reader gives their email.  That is the beginning of my email marketing.

I hate getting spammy emails and I definitely don’t want to be that person who just spams everyone trying to make a buck.  So, my philosophy is to give lots of great content and a little bit of book promotion.  Perhaps 3 or 4 emails of gifts or valuable content followed by 1 email promoting a book.

Here is how I approach it:

• Divide my books into niches (business, writing, crafting, etc.)
• Decide which book will be perma-free in each niche
• Upload perma-free book to Draft2Digital and make it free
• Send an email to Amazon with links to the free version of my book on the other retailers
• Add an “opt-in” notice to readers to download my second free book by providing their email address
• Plan my auto-responder sequence to give lots of valuable content
• Set up my aut0-responder email sequence

Here is an example of how I would approach email marketing for my crafting niche:

• Delivery of opt-in
• What to expect from me
• Launch team (free copies of my new books a week before everyone else)
• Social media links
• Link to free resource
• Link to free resource
• One of my favorite crafting authors
• Free excerpt from one of my books
• Time for a review?
• Link to free resource
• Link to free resource
• One of my favorite crafting authors
• Free excerpt from one of my books
• Time for a review?

You can see the pattern starting here.  I provide two free resources, links to other people’s books, a free excerpt from one of my books (hoping to get some sales if they like the excerpt) and then asking nicely if the reader would be willing to write a review, if they have checked out the book.  I explain that reviews are very important for indie authors like me.  If they write a review, great.  If not, that’s okay, too.

I make sure that all of my emails are written in my voice and not “spammy” at all.  I always make sure that I give much, much more than I ask for.

What do I use to set up the form to capture the email addresses and send the auto-responders out?  I use Aweber.  There is no free version of Aweber like there is for MailChimp, however, I find it easy to use and I find the price to be very competitive as compared to the other auto-responder programs out there.

Happy marketing!

Barb Asselin