By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I may have been slow to the email newsletter party. I believe, in fact, that I was the last guest to show up. I’m finally making up for lost time.
I mentioned recently that I’d actually decided to subtly promote my reader newsletter. This may not really qualify as promotion since it actually means I’m helping readers just locate the newsletter signup. It was almost secret before. If readers somehow found their way to my website, perhaps they could miraculously locate my newsletter signup in my crowded sidebar.
Realizing that this was (however accidentally) rather anti-reader in approach, I thought the whole thing through a bit more. I started putting my newsletter signup in my email signatures, on my profile at Wattpad, on Goodreads, on Facebook, and other places that readers were likely to congregate or look me up. I also pitched my newsletter on this site on the reader-oriented pages (books, buy my books, etc.) This has resulted in over 30 signups since I started this drive in mid-March.
I’ve been reading noticing on writer sites/blogs that many writers have a visual prompt, sort of an ad, for their newsletter. I decided that I’d like to come up with a visual that would hopefully stand out to readers. Designs that I create myself tend to be hideous. This is why I hire professionals for covers, websites, etc. But for something small like this, I decided I could do it myself with Canva.
I wrote about Canva here. It’s a free tool that helps me handle small projects that I would rather not pay for. No design skills? No worries! The ability to drag and drop is all that’s really needed for Canva.
Now…don’t judge. But with minimal work (ten minutes?), I was able to come up with this:
So, pretty simple elements here, nothing fancy. Book cover, call to action that sort of looks like a button, a bit of text, and a picture of me.
While I was on Canva, I made the whole image hyperlinked to the signup page for my newsletter. So readers can click anywhere on the image and it will take them to my newsletter signup page. I use Mail Chimp (free for up to 2,000 subscribers) for my newsletters. Here is a link to Mail Chimp’s directions for generating a link to your signup form. You scroll about a quarter of the way down the page. Basically, you’re going through the ‘Lists’ tab on your account and then clicking ‘signup forms’ to get Mail Chimp to generate a link.
But the big thing here is the incentive to sign up…a free book. I recently watched a very informative free video series from author Nick Stephenson on, among other things, the importance of incentives for newsletter signups. What’s more, the incentive is not my perma-free book, it’s a book that, while inexpensive to begin with, would cost readers several dollars if they were to pay for it online. So a fairly decent incentive…a free full-length novel. But then I do have 8 books in this series, so I can afford to give this one away. I put it on my reader-oriented pages on this site.
I also had this newsletter ad placed in the back of one of my books. I had my formatter (thanks, Rik Hall) stick it at the end of the perma-free book. So the readers who are being introduced to the series via the freebie get another freebie for signing up. The perma-free book acts, as Nick Stephenson put it, as a funnel that draws in new readers and the incentive encourages them to sign up for the newsletter. Works for me.
What if you don’t have 8 books in a series? What if you don’t want to give away an entire book? There are other incentives for signups out there. I’ve seen things like “sign up for my newsletter and automatically be entered in a drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card.” I’ve seen short stories and novellas as giveaways. You can give away swag like notepads, tee shirts, coffee mugs. Putting your cover image on these things is easy and cheap(ish) through VistaPrint or CaféPress or Zazzle. The sky is really the limit.
Obviously, the cooler the giveaway, the more likely it serves as encouragement for readers to sign up.
My reader newsletters are fairly chatty updates. I know my readers pretty well and I create the newsletter with them in mind. I give a (somewhat) personal update, I include Southern recipes, I tell them what I’m working on, and lately I’ve given book recommendations based on what I’ve been reading.
How do you encourage readers to sign up for your newsletter? What types of things go into your newsletter? If you haven’t started up a newsletter, it’s never too late…I promise.
Tips for attracting readers to our newsletters. Click To TweetImage: Death to the Stock Photo
Since I’d like to do one for the IWSG, that’s good to know freebies attract people to sign up. Of course, the IWSG book is already free, so might have to think of something…
Alex–Maybe you could give away a PDF that’s got a list of resources. Something like that. I think it’s easier for non-fiction than it is for fiction, honestly. Someone in the IWSG could do an in-depth look at one particular aspect of the industry and that info could be your free PDF.
These are great ideas, Elizabeth! I’ve been thinking about whether I should do a newsletter, actually. There are of course dozens of good reasons for it; it’s just a matter of what I’d include and so on. But you’re right that letting readers know about it and making singups easy and appealing is important. Lots of ‘food for thought’ here, so thanks.
Margot–You should definitely do a newsletter! I would sign up, for sure. You’ve got so much content that you could even recycle older posts. And you could have book recommendations, etc.
Great newsletter ad AND idea for a free book. I can’t think of one person who doesn’t like getting something free.
I’ve always felt the Ruralhood needs a newsletter.
Teresa–That would be perfect! You could also put a question at the end of each newsletter…asking your readers to respond to the email with their own tales and pictures.
You’re not the last, LOL. I’m going to be doing this either this fall or next spring. Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I think I may be able to handle Canva, too.
Carol–Great! And I’ve no doubt you can handle Canva.
Hi Elizabeth – what a great post, full of helpful ideas … and I like the idea of including recipes in the newsletter – I imagine that can easily attract extra readers.
Thank you too for your amazing comment on my E post … I am somewhat overwhelmed, but obviously delighted!!
Cheers Hilary
Hilary–I meant every word. Really…great job. And I’m very envious!
I think one thing that’s important to do is to make sure you explain the difference between what’s in your newsletter and how it will be different from subscribing to your blog by email. I often hesitate at signing up for a newsletter if I’m already subscribed to the blog since I’m concerned I’ll just be getting duplicate content. And my email is already clogged up enough as it is. :) Thanks for the ideas, Elizabeth.
Ken–Yes! Very good point. I’ve tried to emphasize “readers” in the areas where I’ve got my call to action. The problem for me, frankly, is that my platform for writers swamps my platform for readers. I’ve been shy with readers and need to play catch-up. So this is a newsletter that would be of no interest to writers. Every now and then I get readers signing up to my blog and writers signing up for my newsletter. It makes me a little anxious, but it all seems to get sorted out in the end.
Wow, good tips! Seems like a no-brainer on that visual image, and much better than the HTML thingy Mailchimp gives you. Why didn’t I think of this?
Greg–It took me a long time for the realization that images work better than text in ad-related content to sink in. :) Finally I thought…hey, this is something even I can do.
When I started my fiction newsletter I had to completely rethink the signup freebie.
For my writing coaching newsletter, I do not give anything away because I don’t want the free-seekers, I want folks who are genuinely interested in what I have to say, some percentage of whom will be willing to hire me. Prunes out the least likely candidates right up front.
With my fiction newsletter I need to take a different approach (which is in the works, but being a web developer, of course my own site changes take aeons.)
If someone signs up for my Chandleresque Cozies newsletter just to get the free copy of Through the Fog, well, that’s okay, because they’re expressing interest in my writing and that’s what I want. (Giving away a steak dinner for each signup would be less aligned, methinks.)
Images work. For anyone who wants to get the most out of a DIY tool like Canva, I highly HIGHLY recommend Robin Williams’ Design for Non-Designers book. Simple, direct, but will fundamentally improve your DIY imagery.
Joel–That’s why I like the freebie novel for the reader newsletter incentive…you’re right…more aligned and more likely to serve us well in the long run.
Thanks for the tip on Williams’ book!
Great post and comments. Definately something I’ll try down the road. I’ll have to write a novella to give away. I like the idea of a freebie. I’m going on advice here, because I almost never sign up for newsletters. It seems many do though.
Silas
Silas–Neither do I! I’m one of those inbox zero weirdos who really wants a clean inbox. But those sales…those newsletter-related sales! I’m a believer now.
I don’t send out my newsletter anymore, but I really wish I’d used Mail Chimp when I did.
Diane–Sometimes it takes some tinkering with, but I do like Mail Chimp.
I started an astronomy newsletter at the beginning of the year but it got buried under an avalanche of other more important stuff. I’ll have to take another look at it after A to Z.
Stephen–Hope you can take a look at it once things settle down a little again.
Oh, the long list of things I should be doing. I really appreciate the help, though, and than Canva aid is going to be very useful–I bookmarked that other post.
Hart–Canva has been a huge help to me. I’ve used it for Facebook and Twitter headers, ads, etc. And it’s easy, too.
I use Tiny Letter to manage my newsletter subscription. It’s a stripped down MailChimp and I like it. I had to go on Facebook and beg my friends and family to sign up though, which worked. I’m up to 60 subscribers and that includes readers! Woohoo. I’m just starting out in my indie career so I don’t have any free books to give away as incentives, but that will change in time.
Also, I love Canva! I made a book cover on it for a short story and it only cost me a $1.
Kimberly–Thanks for letting us know about Tiny Letter–sounds like a good alternative. And you’ve done a good job getting the word out, too! There are always other types of incentives (entering a giveaway for gift cards, etc) so it doesn’t always have to be a book. And…Canva is great, isn’t it? I think using it for a short story is a great idea.
Nice advice here. My sister (who is much more savvy about these things than I am) already advised me to offer something free for the newsletter signup that I will be doing sometime in the future (hopefully next year). She suggested a novella but I might do a small collection (3 or 4) of short stories, as I have quite a few short stories already written that I can just polish off while I would have to write a novella (and I’d rather focus right now on revising and writing to get a few books out at the same time, since I write in 2 different genres).
Any tips on how to handle the author newsletter if you write in more than one genre? I write women’s/feminist fiction and historical mysteries, though the mysteries also feature strong women characters and women’s issues. So they do have some things related, but they still appeal to two different audiences (with some overlap).
Djuna
Djuna–The authors that I know who write in more than one genre (most notably, Joanna Penn) create 2 separate newsletters for the two genres. I know that seems like a lot of work! Maybe you could alternate them on a schedule and it wouldn’t seem so bad. I’m actually writing a book under another name right now and plan on *mentioning* the book in my mystery newsletter, although I doubt it will appeal to those readers. Then I’ll have a separate newsletter for the book I’m writing now (zombies…I know…) :)
I think your short story collection sounds good! Much better than simply one free short story.