1000 True Fans – I Have a FREE Giveaway, Now What?

In my quest to find 1000 “true” fans, February’s focus had been on social media, but we’re taking a detour this week. I stumbled upon something that I need to blog about–otherwise the rapid jump in my statistics will be out of place. If you want to get caught up on 2017’s journey to find 1000 fans, check out the 1000 “True” Fan Landing Page.

Review of Past Week (Mission 6: Facebook Author Page): Success.

I’m calling last week a success. I finally feel like I have a plan for my Facebook author page with ideas on what to post and working on growing the engagement there. I posted a question about villains and had some discussion, posted my new feature…”Sunday, Punday” which had a few likes, and slipped in some self-promotion, asking for nominations for my Kindle Scout campaign.

So…How did this week turn out in terms of mailing list growth (my measure of success)?

Drum Roll…Ready?

Current Mailing List Subscriptions: 75 fans / 1000 true fans (Up 37 from last week…NEARLY DOUBLED!) (Okay, okay, stop. It wasn’t what I posted on my Facebook author page that got me this big jump. It’s some promos I found–THROUGH Facebook. Keep reading, that’s the focus of this week’s mission.)

This Weeks Mission: Using your free giveaway to grow your mailing list.

Back in week 3, I created an “ethical bribe” – a freebie to giveaway as a thank you for joining my mailing list. (Read about it here and here.) At that point, I figured, GREAT, I now have this freebie, everyone will want to join my list, right?

Wrong.

(I’m wrong a lot, if you didn’t notice.) It turns out, EVERYONE is giving something away for free. Either the first book in a series to hook you on the whole thing or a “subscriber magnet” to lure you into their mailing list.

I stumbled upon a post in a Facebook group referencing “My Book Cave”. I went to check it out. They have a free trial for 60 days, where you can put up  your “subscriber magnet.” Well, what the heck? I’m game for anything. I already had my short story collection created, so in a few minutes, I had an account and this collection uploaded to My Book Cave.

Then I joined a Facebook group specifically for group giveaways on My Book Cave (Located here) and quickly joined in a Fantasy & Science Fiction one. (CLICK HERE to see the put together promotion and, perhaps, grab a FREE book or two. These authors WANT to give their stuff away.)

Piece of cake.

The giveaway went live yesterday, and I already have 18 new subscribers from that one giveaway…that was completely free. (Plus, I have 14 more days that it’s live.)

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Are they “fans” or just people looking for something free. Will they even read my stories? Who knows, but if some of them do…or even open my newsletter, it’s better than nothing. If they don’t like what they see, I hope they simply unsubscribe. I’m not out anything, as I never planned on selling those short stories for money.

The other thing that’s helping to grow my mailing list is Instafreebies. Instafreebies is completely free, unless you want the mailing list opt-in option. I bit the bullet and started a free trial for 30 days. I’m currently in day 10 of the trial, and like it so far. (It will cost $20/month if I stick with it.) I’m doing a few things, trying to maximize it’s use right now.

1. I have my first three chapters of both LOVE, LIES & CLONES and BLOOD & HOLY WATER up there. Downloading is free and the mailing list opt-in is completely optional. (In fact, the reader has to click a box, requesting to be put on the list.) I’ve had a few new subscribers this way. (No advertising, except for what the site does automatically–I have the links set to public.)
2. I have my entire advanced reader copy of BLOOD & HOLY WATER up on the site as well. I made the mailing list opt-in mandatory with that one. I want to be able to send out an email reminding people to put a review on Amazon when I publish the book. I’ve netted 12 downloads/mailing list subscribers from that already. (The link to this one is private. I don’t want it public, because I only want to give this away to people willing to give me a review. I’ve advertised it myself on my blog and through goodreads groups. I’ll send the request out in my newsletter too.)
3. I’ve got my short story collection, QUICK ESCAPE: FANTASY TALES up there too, with a mandatory newsletter opt-in for the download and have gained 13 subscribers from this. (No advertising, except for what the site does automatically–I have the links set to public.)

Then, I have one more exciting mailing list growth promotion I’m organizing. I’ll be positing a link to it on Friday, but I connected with authors I know, wanting to organize our own giveaway. There’s 20 of us participating and came up with our own book bonanza for this weekend. I’m hoping it works out.

My goals this week: My week is full, as I’m hosting/coordinating (yeah, I’m ambitious) a 20+ Author, multi-genre giveaway event this weekend. Watch for that blog on how it went. Here’s a teaser of the graphic I made to advertise it. (Plus, because of this promo, I need to actually send out the first edition of my newsletter. That makes me so nervous.)

Next Week: Blogging. (Finally, since I skipped it this week.)

Thoughts? I always love hearing your input.