April’s focus in the 1000 “True” Fan blog series is SMALL CHANGES.
This Weeks Mission: Newsletter signup in book back matter
I know how important it is to have a newsletter sign-up link in the front and back of your published novel with a goal of capturing readers to join your mailing list. With my new novel, Blood & Holy Water, I’ve tried something new.
Right after “The End” it says this:
If you enjoyed this novel, a prequel to the next story in this journey can be found in the short story collection, Quick Escape: Fantasy Tales. (The prequel is titled, Bitten.)
You can download this collection free by signing up for Joynell Schultz’s newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/ccWKDn
I took a chance, as I have never seen this before…
Well… Since implementing it, I’ve had 26 sign-ups from the link in the two weeks since publishing this novel. That’s 26 people who read my novel and wanted more. Now, we’re getting closer to “true” fans.
So, this week, I’m working on a prequel to Love, Lies & Clones as well…and adding a similar offer in the back of that novel. It will now be my norm going forward: A little bonus to readers who want more when finishing a story. Also, I’m going to try a “free” day for Love, Lies & Clones, so I was hoping, at the very least, to at least gain subscribers by giving the novel away free.
So…a summary of how last week went, for those of you who are following this journey on a week-to-week basis.
Review of Past Week (Mission 14: Website Popups): Epic FAIL!
I added a pop-up to my website, to capture mailing list subscribers. I had one sign-up within an hour of turning it on, but after some help from blog followers, I turned it off before 24 hours had passed. The annoyance to my readers and the potential penalty google search engines give pop-ups, I decided it wasn’t worth it.
So…how’s my progress going on my way to 1000 true fans?
Drum Roll…Ready?
Current Mailing List Subscriptions: 1635 fans / 1000 true fans (Up 152 people since last week.)
Next Week: Is it worth paying for your own domain name/email address?
Joynell Schultz, Author 
Congrats on the rapidly growing list! I also have decided not to do the popup window for a signup b/c i’ve been told by so many that it’s more of an annoyance than it’s worth.
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I had to give the popup window a try…I may try it again if I can figure out one that’s not so annoying and that can be turned off on mobile devices. I don’t have the time to put into that now, though.
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Fabulous idea!
I hadn’t thought of that before, but when I’ve loved a book and the author put a link to their page at the end of the book, I have been very prone to follow it. Sadly, some of those authors’ pages didn’t work anymore.
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Yeah, that’s a problem when the authors no longer have their webpage. I guess that shows there’s no reason to sign up for anything then…probably stopped writing. I’m happy you found this a good idea! I just added a similar thing to my other book and am doing a “free” day this week to get some downloads. We’ll see if it amounts to any newsletter sign-ups.
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Maybe it’s time to put all this away and focus on the next book? Let that be your marketing! 🙂
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Didn’t you see the last post? I finished a novel and a novella this week. Point taken tough. I’ll use that as a topic in one of my posts…and I was planning on going down to once a month on these starting in May.
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I didn’t mean for that to sound as harsh as it did. I have been told by many a fellow author that our best advertising comes from writing the next books.
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Here I thought you were getting sick of me. 😦 No worries, I was going to post on this exact topic once I was 30 days out from the release of Blood & Holy Water.
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Never!! And hey, no worries, I’ll keep reading what you’re laying down!
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OK, at this point we’ve established that I am a fan and a fellow traveler on this road with you. I’ve struggled to actually step off on this 1,000 True Fan process myself, but I’m going to start now. One of the reasons is because you’re not some guy who suddenly showed up in my inbox trying to sell my stuff by telling me sorta how to do it. The other is that my kids are growing up and need me less, so I can use time away from writing to market myself some. My youngest will be with his mom in May and June. The next youngest will be off to boot camp in July. The oldest of those still at home just got engaged. In about 16 months she’ll be married, but not her fiance is the one she wants to go do stuff with. I’m excited, and very nervous, how my journey will go. I’ll be sure to keep you posted though. Final word — I’m really impressed with how this has worked for you. I’ve loved getting to know you through all this.
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I’m flattered you’ve joined me on this road, and happy you don’t think of me as one of “those guys” 🙂 I understand about the kids growing up. I have two teenagers who don’t need me nearly as much as they had…it gives me time to do things like this. So, what are you doing first to build your fan base? (Oh, I’m one of yours. I can’t wait to read that werewolf book of yours.)
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