Grow Your Email List And Sell More Books!

Every author knows that if they want to sell more books, they need to grow their readership. Unless you are fortunate enough to have a huge publisher to do your marketing or happen to have written one of those books which just seems to have a snowball effect and suddenly becomes a bestseller, then you need to grow your readership yourself.

When it comes down to it if people don’t know about your book they aren’t going to buy it, and that is one of the most challenging aspects of self-publishing. How do you get readers to not only find your book? And when they do to think ‘yeah I’ll give that a go.’

Unfortunately, there are no guarantees, but what is certain is that those authors who put work into building their fanbase are more likely to have success when it comes to selling their books and making their careers possible.

To let people know about your book, you need to be able to contact them. So how do you go from having zero contacts to a sizeable list? While there is no one approach that is a sure-fire route to success, there are several things you can try, and patience, persistence and perseverance are all key.

Here is what you can do:

Make your presence known

If you want more readers, you have to reach out to them. Getting the right sort of people to notice you i.e. the ones that would be interested buying your book is all about finding ways to connect with them. Writing a blog, keeping your social media accounts active, relevant and engaging, joining in online conversations, guest posting on high profile blogs, going to networking events and hosting events such as books tours (virtual or otherwise) will get your name out there. This part takes time, but if you consistently publish great content you name will start popping up, people will share your posts, like your social media accounts and begin to actively follow you and pay attention to what you have to say.

Give something back

Everyone is busy these days, too busy to sign up to yet another email list out of the goodness of their hearts. If you want people to sign up to yours why not offer them something in return? Some authors offer a free signed copy of their books to each subscriber - of course, not all of us can afford to do this so you could give them a short story, or free entry to a competition to win a copy of your book, or a discount if they do buy a copy. Those who don’t win will now have your book in their minds so when you next email them promoting it they are much more likely to want to click on that ‘buy now’ link.

Don't give up!

Once you see your subscriber list start to grow is your job to keep them there - remember subscribers can just as easily unsubscribe, so now it is important to provide them with interesting, useful content and information - enough that they remember you but not so much they get sick of you! Make sure you thank every subscriber, ask them to connect with you on social media too, immediately give them a reward such as a free snippet of your new book (this will hopefully want to make them buy it too!). Make sure you let them know what you are up to, any events you have coming up and what you are working on. Keep your emails lighthearted, friendly and fun, and slowly but surely you will turn your subscribers into true fans.

Remember as with many of the strands of marketing a self-published book, the more time and effort you put into growing your email list the more likely you are to increase the number of people signing up for it. So just keep working at it and hopefully you will soon start to see results!

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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