people still read emails | Newsletter tips | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's booksBook marketing gurus like Mark Dawson swear by the power of newsletters. The idea is that you have a free medium to contact your readers. Essentially, this turns you into a one-man Bookbub. I have posted in the past about ways to add more subscribers, while Mark advocates Facebook Ads.

My way, which is pretty much organic, adds a couple of new subscribers daily. Facebook ads have been more successful, adding maybe 200 subscribers (depending on the budget). They’re expensive, though, and about half of them unsubscribe after receiving the first newsletter. So, when I added over 1,000 new subscribers in the last month for $40 and only some 10% of them unsubscribed, I thought you might wish to know about it.

Even better, there’s a free way of doing this; more about it below.

AuthorsXP

Amy Vansant of AuthorsXP offers a variety of tools of interest to authors. I have used her review service and her newsletter service so far. The former has had relative success: a lot of readers have requested to review my book, but, two months after the first reviewer requested my book, just one of them has actually reviewed it so far. With some of the reviewers listing hundreds of books on their Goodreads tbr list, I have no idea how long it will take them to get to my book. Still, it may be worth considering if you don’t mind the waiting.

Where AuthorsXP has impressed me, however, is newsletters. I have participated in two giveaways so far, each costing me $20 and a free ebook. Between the two of them, I have gathered over 1,000 new subscribers. The list has an impressive 35% open rate and an even better 13% click rate. This means it’s highly focused – the industry average is a measly 2% click rate. The only drawback is that I’ve had to increase my MailChimp budget!

Upcoming mailing list building events include:

  • SEPT 26 – Young Adult
  • OCT. 3 – General Fiction/Women’s Fiction
  • OCT. 10 – Mystery
  • OCT. 17 – Fantasy/Urban Fantasy

As an added bonus, Amy is super-helpful and a pleasure to work with. You can register for her newsletter service on the AuthorsXP website or fill in the event participation form on authorsxp.com.

A Free Alternative

Every now and then, authors of a certain genre will join forces to run a giveaway of multiple works. These are usually word-of-mouth affairs, although you can also find out about them in social media (especially Facebook author groups). At the moment, there is one such giveaway available to science fiction authors that I know of. This only requires you to have a sci-fi book available through Instafreebie. As this is a free service, it may be worth considering.

The giveaway will take place between October 24 and 30. You can join the fun by filling in this form. Many thanks to Fleur Camacho for alerting me to this opportunity! I’ll let you know if I hear of any giveaways in other genres.