Using Magnets

Yikes, can I attract?

A year ago, I had never heard of such a thing, well, not in how it’s used here… as something to entice a reader to sign up for your mailing list. I didn’t expect having any problem getting someone to sign up to receive information about me and my books. Like many of my other thoughts about publishing, I didn’t have a clue.

Why did I think people would be interested in me? Because I’m obviously a self-centered nut, I guess. Whatever. Perhaps people are interested, but not enough to hand over their email—it’s a trust issue. They’re frightened I’ll swamp their mailboxes with spammy mail or send crazy, inappropriate stuff. Ha! I might.

Truthfully, I’m just as cagey and have backed out of websites when I’ve decided what I’m receiving isn’t worth providing my email.

I concluded that I needed to do something about my subscriber list when I realized it looked more like the last survivors of a dying planet. What could I do? No, not bury myself in a book and read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, although that’s an outstanding book. No, dear reader, it was time to put some effort into building a mailing list. “But how can I build a mailing list when people don’t like me?” I cried. What’s a poor author to do?

This is where the magnet idea comes into play. Entice, lure, persuade and provide something cool, exciting, and valuable for that precious contact info. As it so happens, while I was in Washington at the RWA Conference a few months ago, I came up with a plot idea for a novella, and it poured out of me in one weekend. If only every story could be like that. It could be that all the tequila I poured into me that night plotting, had something to do with it. The editing, of course, took much longer, but the plot and the characters were all there.

The heroine of my story, Rylee Reed, finds her world thrown upside down when during a Romance Writers Conference, her husband serves her with divorce papers, freezes her bank account, and takes possession of their home (no, that didn’t happen to me.) She meets the hero, Connor Jackson, a mysterious Irish man, staying at the same hotel and spends a romantic evening with him (no, dear husband, I didn’t meet anyone during the conference.) Unfortunately, the mysterious man is a hitman working on an assignment, and neither character knows that within twenty-four hours, his agency will assign her as his next target. Whoops.

I was so jazzed about my story I immediately came home and started writing, deciding it would become my magnet novella. I liked the idea that it had two older characters and that the hero was morally gray but redeemable, much like my hero in Truth Moon, the book I’m releasing in the spring. I also like opposites attract and a second chance at love tropes. I am sure you can find inspiration in one of your books. Perhaps, use the villain or another character and write a novella using one of them.

The most common magnet is an entire book. However, there seems to be a bit of disagreement on this. Some writers believe you shouldn’t give an entire book away. However, others feel it can only help gain readers.

It doesn’t have to be a regular word count book. It can be a novella, a short story, or flash fiction. If you’re artistic, maybe turn a page of your novel into a graphic novel. Magnets can take many forms. Some more ideas:

• Create a hidden chapter of your book that is only available through subscription by signing up to your email

• Your favorite book list

• Contests, where the winner receives a book box designed by the author

• Bookmarks (you could mail or offer a template the reader can print for free)

• Reader giveaway of some type (name one of your characters after a winner, or let them influence a location.

• Audio files

• A video version of a scene

• Music playlist for one of your characters from your book

• An advanced signed copy of your next book

• Recipes from your characters

• If you have a hobby or a skill, pull something from that

• Guides or maps on where to stay (perhaps where your story is located)

• Directors cut, share key scenes, why you wrote it like that (hidden meaning) from one of your books

• Alternate endings, deleted scenes, a pivotal scene told from another character’s POV

On Facebook the other night, I came across a YouTube video with Sophia Aves. She has some good ideas for creating magnets. She strongly believes every series should have a different reader magnet with similar tropes and heat levels. Who am I to argue with a best-selling author? This is definitely worth watching if you don’t have a magnet yet. I totally agree with her, the magnet book should be high quality. Don’t skimp on editing or the cover.

Sophia uses bookfunnel to drop her books, and it’s something I’m exploring to give readers another way to read. Using this platform is also great for promotion, as there are all kinds of newsletter/promos for free books. Right now, my book appears on my website, serial style, but I’d like to give readers a choice, whether to read serial style or download the complete book. To put your book in the ePub required by bookfunnel, you can go to Draft2Digital. You only get charged if you charge for the book.

I would love to hear about your ideas for readers’ magnets; and how you deliver them. If you have a readers magnet, I think it would be neat if you left your web link in the comment section so we can share with each other. I invite you to sign up for my mailing list and read my new readers magnet, Hitman’s Honey. I know… I’m shameless.

Have a productive week and don’t forget to have fun. I know we’re all working too darn hard.