Creating a Thriving Email List. Can I Do This?

According to Holly Darling, I can with Automation.

It has taken me over a year to build my mailing list to one thousand thirty-five subscribers. These are Kay's Readers Club subscribers—and I use this list to market my romance books. I think many writers would agree that marketing our books is the single most taxing thing we do. One thing that I wish I had taken more seriously sooner is my email list. I basically started with nothing. I might have had about thirty-two names to start, mostly friends and family. Bookfunnel did help me build a list and if you need to find out more about them, check this earlier article out.

I will share my open, click, and unsubscribe rates and Holly Darling's suggestions and explain how my convoluted ideas may have delayed my mailing list's initial growth. First, let's define Holly Darlings definition of automation:

"Automation is defined as the technique of making an apparatus, a process or a system operate automatically. And when it comes to email, this can look like many different things. But ultimately for authors, automation happens when a reader trips a tripwire or triggers an automation, and emails head their way automatically."

Holly strongly suggests you use the following:

• Double-opt in. You have the choice in whatever email service you use to click the box to double-opt-in. In many countries, you don’t have a choice, you have to. In the United States, you have a choice. This means that when someone signs up for your newsletter, you can just send it to them unless you choose to send another email asking are you sure you want to do this? In this case they have to say yes again. If they don’t they don’t join your email list. Until three months ago, I did not use double-opt in. I was afraid to, thinking people would forget to check their email or the second email would go to junk.

  When you don't have double opt-in, you get people who don't even remember they signed up. This may explain why I have a higher unsubscribe rate than some of my peers, 1.9%, instead of .03 %. Over the last three months since using double-opt-in, I've noticed fewer unsubscribes from new subscribers than I had before. Holly said not to think of it as legalese but to use it as an opportunity to connect with your reader. You know the reader really wants to subscribe when they click twice.

• Have a Welcome sequence, sending Email number 1 all on its own. I didn't believe in a welcome series when I started keeping an email list. I only started a welcome letter for this particular newsletter list three months ago. I thought sending them was a surefire way to make readers dislike you. Holly Darling believes otherwise:

"Here's our story. This is who I am. There's the picture of me." She strongly believes in sending them.

• She says even if you need to stop at this juncture, it's okay, but at least send one. I started sending one with a picture of me, and the open rate increased considerably; even though I don't like my picture, I don’t like sending emails and don't like getting emails. I put my own feelings aside. I send my first email right off my webpage after the double opt-in. The open rate of this first email is high, 74% on this first one, and a click rate of 37%.

I keep this first email very simple. I welcome my readers and let them know they are now members of my reader's club and what they can expect. It would be good to send them another email, telling them more about yourself.

• Holly Darling says you should not worry about your unsubscribe rate. If they are not interested in buying, they should leave. Never thought of it that way, but over the last month, as I've deleted three hundred and fifty subscribers that had not opened the previous five emails I'd sent them, it makes perfect sense to dump dead weight earlier. When a person doesn't open an email, they cost us money. They take up space on your email list. Any name over 500 on my MailChimp account is an additional cost. Stay on top of this. How many emails will you allow the person not to open, and how will you deal with this? Some authors want to send an email to ask, but if they aren't opening their emails…see the dilemma? I've now changed my policy, deleting them when they don't open four. They can always sign up again.

• Use Post-it notes to figure out your automation sequence. For instance, if they sign up at your website for your newsletter, great. What happens when they get to the end of your book? If they sign up while you sell at a book event, what happens? What happens when they read the last book in your series?

• Think of automation as a series of bridges. Holly Darling has four emails in her main sequence, Bridge number 3. Right now, I don't have anything like this set up. I send emails, but nothing is sent up as a series of bridges or sequences. I've never thought of my emails in such a fashion, and I need to. Have a bridge for enemies-to-lovers trope readers. Have a bridge for age gap trope readers, older men, and younger woman readers. Have a bridge for age gap trope, younger man, older woman readers. This would be especially appropriate if you have several series.

• After an initial email, I send one approximately every fifteen days. I do them around bookfunnel's promos. I try to participate in two promotions a month. One at the beginning of the month and one in the middle. I advertise the book funnel promos in my newsletter. There may be more turnover in building your mailing list using only bookfunnel people. This could be because they sign up to get your book and unsubscribe, and many authors use the same subscribers, which is incestuous. This is one reason I've also begun using Facebook to build my mailing list.

• I want to become more sophisticated in using automation and making bridges work for me. But you need to know your readers well enough to do this.

• My open rate from my September 15 newsletter was 40.5%, and the one from October 3 is 36.7%, but that email is still getting opened, so it could push a bit higher.

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My Click Rate, was 10.7, my average campaign is 10.7:

I have sales the day after and several days beyond after sending my emails out due to the free chapters in the Bookfunnel offerings. This is why we do emails…to sell ourselves and our books.

How do we increase our open rate? Use interesting subject lines and one emoji. Again, I may think they're lame, but others love them, and it's about my readers, not me. Writing a compelling subject line that will get them to open the darn thing. FREE is a good word because everyone likes free. I've used FREE BOOKS and get a nice amount of opens with that, but some of my higher open rates are Barbie Forever & Free!; Mission Impossible, But Not 4 U!; Discover the Next Nora Roberts; Notice a trend here? Yes, I’m hooking it on to something trending at the current time that the reader might be interested in, a movie that they’ve heard of or an author they know.

How do we increase our click rate? One word: video. Whenever I've used an exciting video, my click rate increases. It has to have a reason for being, connect to the subject.

Call to Action. This is something I have to remind myself to do. Buy my book, Click on my Website, or Leave a Review. I know this is difficult because we don't like to ask or beg anyone to do anything, but the point of your email is to get them to engage with you. Yes, we'd like to go back and get some writing done, not engage, but remember why we are sending this email.

Email Providers, here is a list:

Convertkit, MailerLite, Mail Chimp. I'd love to hear how you're growing your list, so please share.

If you like what I’m doing with this newsletter and want to support my work please do the following:

• Forward it to another author you think might appreciate it.

• If you haven’t subscribed please do.

• Like and comment because I always enjoy hearing your thoughts 🤗 Who wants to talk to themselves?

• Post a comment in Notes.

Next week, it's all about how to avoid info-dumping: Yeah, sometimes a good info dump when you gossip with friends, drinking Mezcal Cosmos is right on, but it's frowned upon in books. Have a great week!