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Today's guest post is by author and expert book marketer Penny Sansevieri.

12 Ways to Create a Mailing List that Will Sell Books

Penny C. Sansevieri

We've all heard this: capture email addresses on your website so you can market to them again. So we do, we capture email addresses and then we wonder what to do with them. What if you don't really have news? Do you mail the list anyway? How can I monetize my list, and how much is too much?

We've had The Book Marketing Expert Newsletter for over eight years now and the newsletter, bursting in content, is one of the best promotional tools my company has. We've never done a single piece of advertisement for my firm, all of it has come from word of mouth, online, and our newsletter.

The key to a good newsletter list is simple really and the biggest piece of this is you've got to have something useful to say. While your friends and family might enjoy hearing about your latest book signing, people who happened onto your site and subscribed to your ezine might become bored with this information and unsubscribe. If you have a list or are considering starting one, consider these tips to get you going and help you maximize your newsletter.

1.    Timing: How often you send the newsletter will really depend on your crowd, but I don't recommend anything less than once a month. I know some people who send a quarterly newsletter and that's fine if you don't really have much to say, but if you're looking for content so you can send the newsletter more frequently, then read on; I have some ideas and ways of maximizing the use of content for your newsletter.

2.    Distribution: How will you send your newsletter? If your plan is to email it, forget it unless you have less than 100 subscribers. Anything over that and you should consider using a service like Aweber or Constant Contact. These places will handle your subscribes and unsubscribes for you. If you start mailing to a list larger than 50 from your email service, you run the risk of getting shut down for spam.
 
3.    Easy Opt In: Make it easy for people to sign up. Make sure there's a sign-up on your website, preferably the home page and then a mention of it again on your most popular page which, for most of us, is our blog. The opt-in will take new subscribers to your welcome page (which we'll talk about in a minute) and handle sending your new readers right into the mailing list.

4.    Ethical Bribe: So what will you give readers to get their email? It might not be enough just to tout that you have this fabulous newsletter; in fact, often it isn't. Have something that they'll want, a key item: e-book, tip sheet, whatever will entice readers to sign up for your newsletter. Here's a hint: give them something they'll have to keep referring to again and again so that your name and book stays in front of them.

5.    Free: There are some folks in the industry who try to charge for their newsletters. Listen, I get it. A newsletter is a lot of work, but if done properly, it is a key promotional tool and therefore, should be free. Magazines can charge for subscriptions, you can't. Make it free. Don't even put a value on it. I know folks who do this, too. I think the value of the newsletter should be evident in its content, not in the price you chose to put on it.

6.    Welcome pages: After someone signs up for your newsletter, what will they see? A simple thank you page o

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Writing, publishing, promoting, publicizing. It all seems quite daunting, doesn't it? Well, it doesn't have to be. First you need to start out by doing the right things and knowing what can help, or harm, your success. Keep in mind that while there is always a creative element, publishing is a business. It's important to know your business to be successful. Here are a dozen ideas that I hope will help you on your journey from writer to successful author.

1. Waiting too long to market. When it comes to marketing, some authors wait too long to get the word out there. If you're sitting on top of your publication date wondering where to start with your marketing, you're about six months behind the curve. Book marketing is what I call the long runway of promotion. A great campaign will consist not only of a focused marketing plan, but a plan that starts early enough to support the ramp up that a good book marketing campaign needs. And this isn't just for the self-published market, any book that's being released these days needs a minimum of a six-month ramp up. This doesn't mean that you are marketing during that time, but ideally you are getting ready for your launch by having a website designed, starting a newsletter, building your mailing list, building your media list, planning your events, etc.

2. Not having enough money. I see it all the time; authors spend all their money on the book process (book cover, editing, etc.) and then don't have enough for the marketing. That's like opening up a store and not having money to stock it with inventory. Before you jump headlong into publishing a book, make sure you have the funds to do so. So, how much is enough? It depends on what you want to accomplish. Be clear on your goals and market, then sit down with someone who can help you determine a budget.

3. Not getting to know others in their market. Who else is writing about your topic? If you're not sure, then you should do your research. Getting to know your fellow genre authors is not only important, but it can really help you with your marketing. How? Because most readers don't just buy one self-help book, or one dating book, they will generally buy in multiples. So getting to know others within your market can not only help you market your book, but it could also help you connect with fellow authors, and there is truth to the fact that there is power in numbers.

4. Ignoring social media. While social media may seem confusing to most of us, it's important to know that it can sometimes be a make or break situation when it comes to marketing your book. If you can't make heads or tails out of Twitter vs. Facebook, then hire someone who can help you or guide you through your choices.

5. Thinking bookstores don't matter. While it's nice to think that most of us do our shopping online and via Amazon, bookstores (especially local stores) can really help or hurt your marketing efforts. If your book isn't going into bookstores, then you'll want to get to know your local area stores to see if you can present your book to them for consideration and/or do an event in their store. Having a local presence in bookstores is important, especially if you are doing local events and local media. If the bookstore won't stock the book (and many of them won't if you're a first time author), then make sure at the very least that your book can be ordered. You don't want people walking into your neighborhood store and being told "Sorry, we can't get that book."

6. Printing too many copies. In order to get large printing discounts, authors will often print huge numbers of their books. I've seen ranges from 10,000 on up. Generally I recommend a run

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Today I have a great guest article by Penny Sansevieri from the "The Book Marketing Expert newsletter."

Ten Ways to Know if Your (Internet) Marketing is Paying Off


So you're out there marketing. You're doing all the right things (or so you think). You're following the book marketing advice of some leaders in the industry. You've got a checklist and you're methodically checking off your goals. But how do you know you're doing everything right? The fact is, most of us don't. Yet we forge ahead, keeping pace with our marketing plan, without ever knowing if it's paying off. We don't see it in sales.

Does that mean it's not working? Not at all. You could be seeing the effects in other places but just aren't keeping track of it.

I find that especially in social media you need to keep a close eye on what's working and what's not. If you've spent *any* kind of time online you know that you can be in front of your computer for what seems like 20 minutes and yet three hours have gone by. If the three hours of marketing is paying off, then it's fine to spend the time. But you need to know the difference. Here are a few things you can review to measure the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of your marketing.

1. Jumping in without a plan: Set clear, measureable goals because most marketing is invisible. Let's face it, you send an email and wonder half the time if the intended recipient got it or if it ended up in a spam filter, never to be seen again. That's the power behind goals. You need them and you need to run your campaign by them. So what are your goals? And no, you may not say sell books. Yes, that factors in - but there are a million small steps along the way before you even get to sales. Consider these goals and see if any of them fit your book, topic, and future:

a. Establish yourself as an expert or get known in your particular field. Hey, maybe you just want to be known as the go-to person for everything related to paranormal romance. That's great and it's a realistic, attainable goal.

b. Increase the visibility of your brand. OK, sort of the same as the bullet before this one but more geared to the non-fiction author.

c. Increase traffic and incoming links to your website. This is a great goal. Whether you are fiction or non-fiction, it's a great focus.

d. Do what makes sense for your book: If your followers aren't on Twitter then why have you spent the last month or so promoting yourself on there? Mind you, Twitter works for most of the books we manage, but there are a few that don't make sense. Twitter skews older than most people think so don't be surprised if your YA reader isn't on there. Before you launch head first into a campaign, make sure it fits your demographic.

2. Neglecting other marketing: I know it's easy to get all a-twitter about Twitter, but what else are you doing to promote yourself and your book? If you're good at events and speaking, are you still focused on that? Don't get too myopic on doing just one thing for your marketing. The truth is, you need to do a lot of different things, balanced out over a week or a month for your marketing to really make sense.

3. Set goals - be clear on what you hope to achieve in social media: What are your goals for Twitter? If it's just about gathering followers then you are missing a big piece of this social networking tool. For many marketing people it's all about the number, but numbers don't make as much sense unless they are driving interest to you and your book. If the numbers keep growing, along with traffic to your website, then you're on the right track. But if you're just growing numbers for the sake of being able to say that you have 10,000 followers then

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Thanks to Deb Gersh Hernandez (@DebGH) for pointing me to Penny Sansevieri's (@Bookgal) post in the Huffington Post on Why (Some) Authors Fail. Important advice for authors on the importance of knowing your market, your fellow writers, and your craft.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri/why-some-authors-fail_b_534629.html

Happy reading,

Martina

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I’m back with Part 3 of How to Improve Your Website. I know this was suppose to be posted a week or so ago, but we’ve been implementing new and improved strategies at VBT – Writers on the Move and time just slipped away.

Since your ultimate goal is to sell your product or service I’ll start with the Call to Action. Every page of your website should have a call to action with ‘buy now’ buttons. And, when it comes to ‘buy now’ buttons, classy beats flashy every time. These buttons should be at the top and left of your pages since readers usually start reading there. Remember, you don’t have to hit your readers over the head; you need to draw them in by providing valuable information, something they need or want. You can also draw in readers by providing freebees, possibly an ebook. And, don’t forget, good action colors are red, orange and yellow.

Another aspect of your site is imagery. I know in the first post of this series I mentioned the importance of creating a desired affect, well the use of 3D imagery should be included. In the myriad of research and studies that are done, it’s been determined that a 3D image is more effective for selling than flat imagery. To see if there was any validity to this determination, I did my own test. I have been promoting my book with a flat image, but after learning about this new information I took a picture of my book with it standing up and open. Well, this new data is correct; the 3D image is much more appealing than the flat image. So, when able use 3D imagery.

Now that you’ve improved your site, how do you bring traffic to it? One marketing strategy is viral marketing. Viral marketing is an internet term taken from the old ‘word of mouth’ strategy. With the computer age, the ‘word of mouth’ term needed to take on a global quality and be more descriptive of the results it can afford, thus viral marketing.

So, how does viral marketing work. This is very simple: I have a product or offer a service that others need or want. I write informative articles on the topic and offer freebees – this peaks my readers’ interest. They think it’s worthwhile and tell their friends via the internet. Their friends tell their friends and so on and so forth. Allowing reprint permission on my articles and including an Email a Friend button on my posts this information can spread like wild fire! With the click of a button my articles can travel the world. This is what makes viral marketing so effective.

An excellent example of viral marketing in action is Penny Sansevieri’s articles. I’m a huge fan of Penny’s marketing articles. She is the creator of Author Marketing Experts. When I read one of Penny’s articles I usually find it so informative I want to pass it on to the readers on my sites. This is viral marketing. By allowing reprint permission Penny not only reaches me, she reaches my readers and their readers (if they chose to reprint it also). This ultimately leads visitors seeking the kind of information Penny is providing back to her site. So, she’s not just getting visitors, she’s getting visitors who are interested in her products and services.

This type of viral marketing is just one of many. Other forms of viral marketing can be video clips, flash games, ebooks and so on. The amount of marketing information available seems to be unending. The time needed to read it all seems to be unending also. I’ll periodically provide posts sorting some of this information out.

Se1e you in blog world,
Karen Cioffi

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I am posting this again as a reminder: I have exciting news: On March 18th and 19th at 4pm PST (7pm EST) Penny Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., will be giving two marketing teleclasses for Virtual Book Tours, but everyone is welcome to join in.

If you don't know who Penny is, she is a marketing guru. Her articles, blogs, teleclasses and lectures are jammed packed with timely, pertinent and valuable marketing and promotional advice and tips. I have attended a number of Penny's teleclasses and read a number of her articles. The best way to describe the information Penny provides is it's useful, practical and doable.

The first teleclass on Wednesday, March 18th is:

Red Hot Internet Basics: Touring Yourself Online
If you’re ready to market your book online but don’t know where to start you’ll love this class. We’ll look at creating and launching your very own Virtual Author Tour. During this class we’ll look at:

• How to find sites to pitch yourself to
• How to set up a social networking page
• How to find bloggers and contact them
• Crafting your pitch
• Networking online, how to do it and why you *must* network with bloggers
• What is social book marketing and how to use it

Come with ALL of your Internet questions, this class will get them answered!

The second teleclass on, Thursday, March 19th is:

Red Hot Internet Publicity 2.0

If you think you have your Internet marketing covered with just a web site, you might be missing out on a bucket of Internet gold. This class is packed with information with everything from understanding social media to monetizing sites like Facebook, Squidoo, and Twitter. We’ll also talk about what you should never do on your web site and why a blog is a must-have part of any Internet campaign. We’ll also look at some of the hottest online trends too!

• The secret to getting thousands of hits on your web site and then converting them into sales!
• Top internet promotion techniques that won’t cost you a dime!
• The Virtual Author Tour™, how you can “tour” yourself on the net
• How to use site like Facebook and Squidoo to build your customer base
• What is Twitter? We’ll talk about Twitter and how to use it to drive more sales to your web site
• How to create a web site that sells your book
• Simple steps to blogging effectively!

Bonus: We’ll even include some time-saving hints to maximize your online efforts without spending HOURS online!

Sign up now by simply sending an email to [email protected] with ‘sign up’ as the subject. An email will be sent to all those who sign up - it will include the dial in information, and any other information needed to participate in these great teleclasses.

See you in blog world,
Karen

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Enter the Promotion Quiz Contest at Jessica Kennedy’s website.

This month Features Children’s Author Donna McDine.

Answer the seven question quiz about the “In the Spotlight ” site, blog, writer, and/or illustrator and be included in the drawing to be the next featured.

Questions will come from the featured’s bio, website(s)and/or blog(s).

The contestants will read the biographical description, visit other’s sites/blogs and/or learn about their art, business and/or writing. In order to be able to answer the questions on the quiz, contestants will visit other’s sites and dig into them to find answers to the quiz. This will create a promotion conduit.

The contestant will visit my site to join the contest. Each question will be accompanied by the location of the answer to the question. Ideally the contest quiz will cause a participant to learn about the featured’s work, website(s) and blog(s).

The newly featured entity will help create the focus of their bio/feature page. What do you want people to know. Help create a quiz that teaches people about you, your family, your business and/or website(s)/blog(s).
Good luck!

Warm Regards,

Donna M. McDine
Children’s Author
Member SCBWI

Website:
http://www.donnamcdine.com

Blog:
http://www.donna-mcdine.blogspot.com ~ Write What Inspires You!

Donna M. McDine, Jessica Kennedy, promotion quiz contest

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