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Readers, pardon me while I geek out with my fellow authors for a bit.

The meat of this post comes from a forum post I made over at RomanceDivas.com recently. The question was: what are you doing to get newsletter subscribers.

Here’s my answer:

1: I wrote a serial for my subscribers. 20 something chapters. It’s just over 40,000 words total. If you’re going to do something like this, I suggest writing the story first, then distributing it to your subscribers. I had large gaps of time in there. Luckily my readers loved the story and hung in there. Likewise, I have another serial that’s 5 chapters in and I haven’t updated it in months. This is pointless, marketing wise. Consistency is key!

2: I offer five free reads to my subscribers. 1 Novel, 4 short stories. I advertise this everywhere I can. One of these shorts is tied to my Girls’ Night Trilogy and I advertise it in blurbs and in the books.2017-02-08 11.33.53

3: I exchange space in my newsletter with other authors. This is especially helpful if we’re both advertising our free reads, which readers must sign up to get. You can get 100+ sign ups in a day with the right partner.

4: I have a members only section of my website that you have to be subscribed to my newsletter to access. I use mailchimp and had my husband write some code so that they simply have to enter the email address they signed up to my mailing list with. http://members.selen…com/signin.html If they unsubscribe, they can no longer access the Members only section. This is actually a different WordPress installation. I have my free reads in there along with exclusive excerpts, first looks, cover reveals, A/B testing, polls, and calls for Beta readers. This has been pretty popular.

5: I collect snail mail addresses (again, via mail chimp) and occasionally send out goodies to subscribers. This has been good for sign ups but nothing else. I can’t measure retention and I haven’t seen nearly as many folks chatting about the goodies they just got in the mail from me as I thought I would.

6: I have sign up forms all over my website. Have a look.

7: I have a sign up form on FB. I post sign up links to social media fairly regularly as well. This used to work really well but two things have happened. A) There’s so much noise online these days, that an offer for 5 free reads goes unread, if you can believe it. B) Social media doesn’t reach as far as it used to. I have 5100 likes on FB and only 50 people see any given post I make. That’s pathetic.

8: I have a segmented list. All Selena Mail, New Releases, and a section for bloggers/reviewers where I send review request information and content that they’re welcome to borrow.

 

star_orange If you’d like more tips and thoughts on this topic, listen to a podcast interview I did with Ivy Sinclair for the Romance Writers Rodeo.

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