New plan for the newsletter

So my fiancee helped me to put together a proper newsletter template for my email list, and it looks pretty good! Much better than the template I wrote myself, and I’m not a programmer (she is).

This gives me the opportunity to make some changes to the way I do things, and I’ve decided to grab the bull by the horns. I’m going to write a proper newsletter, not just a simple “here’s some book deals and a couple of promos to check out!” Here’s the new format:

Welcome

A short, 1-3 sentence “Hello, dear reader! I hope this email finds you well,” etc etc. Kind of like I already do.

Featured Book

The main call to action, put at the top for the casual readers who don’t have a lot of time or interest for much else. This may be a preorder, or a new release, or a special offer. Or it may just be a full-price book that I want to feature, for whatever reason. I’ll have to play around with it and see what works.

I’ve decided to go back to the two-button approach: one that says BUY ON AMAZON and goes directly to Amazon, albeit without an affiliate link, and one that says ALL OTHER STORES and goes to the book page here on my blog. For some reason, Amazon won’t let you put affiliate links in emails, which makes this a tough either/or. I’ll get more click-through and sales with a direct link, which is going to cost affiliate income, but I think it’s more important to focus on my own books than it is to game the affiliate system—at least in this section.

Writing Update

This is a brief, 1-2 paragraph section just below the featured book, where I give an update on my current WIP, along with a status bar. Basically, an accountability section, as well as something to keep the fans up-to-date on my writing progress.

Author’s Note

This is the meat of the newsletter, where in 3-5 paragraphs I share something personal with my readers: either a story or insight from the writing process, a behind-the-scenes look at what I do, or something else. In a recent newsletter, I talked about my grandfather and how his entrepreneurial spirit has rubbed off on me. Stuff like that.

From time to time, I also plan to share book recommendations. With my fiancee’s help, I may design a second template with an Author’s Note section that’s better set up for that.

The goal is to provide my readers with a personal connection and something of value that goes beyond “buy my book!” I already do this in the back of all of my novels, and have from the very beginning, so it will be fun to do something similar in my email newsletter.

Book Promotions

This is where I put all the links to all the promotions that I’m currently participating in, usually with other authors. I already do this in my newsletters, and it seems to be fairly popular, so it seems like something I should integrate into its own section, probably towards the bottom so as to incentive readers to scroll down.

Parting Quote

This is something new: a pull quote from the featured book to close out the email. Nothing too long; just enough to give my readers a taste and hopefully leave them intrigued, or thoughtful, or otherwise interested in reading more.

Farewell

The standard “so long, and thanks for reading!” that I always end on. Not a bad catch-phrase for a writer, I suppose.

So that’s the new format. Because I plan to share frequent writing updates in my newsletter, I’ll probably leave off sharing those updates here on my blog. Besides, that’s not really the strength of this medium: blogging is much better suited for community building, brand engagement, and public discussion. I may still share major updates, but not regularly.

That’s pretty much it. If you have any suggestions or other opinions, feel free to share. Also, you can sign up for my newsletter here if you haven’t already done so. That’s going to be the best way to keep up with me from here on out.

Take care, and thanks for reading!

January Recap

It’s been a busy, busy month. I finished a major WIP, published a new bundle, started a new job at the local bookstore, and made a bunch of changes and adjustments behind the scenes. And that’s just my writing life!

Nothing Found

First, I published a new Star Wanderers bundle, containing the complete series. This replaces The Jeremiah Chronicles and Tales of the Far Outworlds, the two previous series bundles that have been up for the last several years.

Eventually, I plan to release Star Wanderers: The Complete Series as an audiobook. That’s one of my big projects for the year. I want to narrate it myself, but I also want to do a damn good job of it, which means I have to learn how to properly record and produce a quality audiobook. That’s going to take time.

I will probably release Star Wanderers: The Complete Series in print too, once I’ve gotten set up for that. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve pulled all my books from KDP Paperback and plan to go with a different print-on-demand publisher in the not too distant future. But again, that’s going to take time to do properly.

Gunslinger to Earth

Phase:1.0 Draft

100%

MyBookProgress by Author Media

Second, I finished Gunslinger to Earth! At this point, I’m just waiting to send it out to my editor. Another few weeks, and it will finally be up for preorder!

There’s a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes, too. I’ve sent out more than 60 short story submissions this month, sold one to The New Accelerator, and hope to sell a lot more in the next few months.

I’ve also been rethinking my email newsletter. Until now, I’ve been using it mostly just to share free and 99¢ stories, and tons of links to giveaways. But now, I think that might not be the best way to provide value.

From what I can tell, there are basically two approaches to newsletters: as a vehicle to convert casual readers into fans, or as something much more personal to keep the existing fanbase active and motivated. Obviously, there is some overlap.

With the way I’ve structured things, I lean a lot more to the first approach. However, I do think there’s a lot more that I can share to add value, even to casual readers. Here are some things I’m thinking about sharing:

More detailed updates about my writing, current WIPs, and what I’ve been up to.
Recommendations of other books that I’ve read and reviewed. To do this properly, I plan to set up a separate book site.
Extended descriptions and background information about my books, kind of like what I’ve got in the author’s notes, but with links and detailed by series.
Stories from my personal life tha readers might find interesting, such as experiences from working in a bookstore.
Better curation of the group promos that I participate in. Until now, my approach has basically been to spam InstaFreebie / Prolific Works, but I think it will be better to participate in a smaller number of group promos that more closely match the kind of books that I write.
I still plan to do free and 99¢ book deals, but not necessarily with every email. A book deal is still more of a take (“read my book!”) than a genuine give.

Those are a few of my current ideas. Do you have any of your own? If so, I would very much like to hear about it!

The other big change to my newsletter is that I’m branching out to other sites, like Story Origin, Book Cave, and Bookfunnel, to build my email list. I’ll probably also add preview editions of my books to Prolific Works and put more emphasis on those. It’s something to experiment with.

Still trying to figure out how this blog fits in to everything else. At this point, I’m just doing my best to keep it updated. I have lots of ideas for blog posts, but not a whole lot of time to write them.

There’s a ton of books that I’m reading or want to read, and at some point I really need to revamp my Goodreads profile and get all of my book reviews up there. Probably after I set up the new book site, which will mostly just be a repository of affiliate links for all of the books that I review. I can’t put them up on this site without commingling them with my own books, and I don’t want to do that.

That’s most of the big stuff, at least for now. The main focus for the next couple of months will be growing my email list and figuring out my newsletter. My girlfriend is a programmer, so this weekend we’ll fix up the newsletter template I’ve been using and hopefully make it cleaner. If you have any other ideas for that, please share!

Reconsidering my newsletter

One of my writer friends made an interesting comment the other day. We were talking about email newsletters, and he pointed out that Jordan Peterson’s 5th rule, “don’t let your children do anything that makes you dislike them,” also applies to newsletter subscribers.

Obviously, I don’t think that my newsletter subscribers are my children. But the principle is the same. We tend to care more about people that we like, and are more willing to spend time and energy on them. When we dislike people, we either try to avoid them or we end up harboring resentment in some fashion.

My goal for my author newsletter is to attract casual readers who have read, at most, only one or two of my books, and convert them into loyal fans who eagerly await my next book. Until now, one of the things I’ve advertised is that I have a free and a 99¢ book with every newsletter. I have enough books out that I’ve been able to keep that up for the last two years or so, although most of the freebies have been short stories.

But I worry that I’ve been training my newsletter subscribers to only pick up the free books, or to wait until the book goes free. That’s a problem. I don’t mind giving away free books from time to time, but I’m not going to give away the store, and if readers come to expect that then I run the risk of breaking Jordan Peterson’s 5th rule.

So I’ve decided to make a change to my email newsletter, or at least to how I advertise it. Instead of giving away a free and 99¢ book in every newsletter, I’m going to look into other ways to provide value and convert casual readers into fans. Don’t get me wrong—I still intend to share free books from time to time. Just not with every newsletter, or not a different selection with each one.

I do want to share more book recommendations, especially since one of my new year’s resolutions is to read a novel every week. What I’ll probably do is set up another blog using MyBookTable with all of the book links, so as not to mix my own books with the ones I’m recommending, and include those in a newsletter every one or two months.

In the last few months, I’ve also been sharing updates on my writing with each newsletter. That may be a better place to share that stuff than here on my blog. What do you think? Blogs are better for public discussions, since they’re indexed by search engines and usually have a comment section with each post.

Either way, I definitely need to update my newsletter templates. I cranked those out way back in 2015, and they’re not too pretty. My girlfriend is a programmer, so maybe I could persuade her to help me out with that. But first, I should probably figure out all what I want to put in them.

What do you think? Are there things you’ve seen in other author newsletters that you’d like to see in mine? Any other interesting ideas or approaches? I’m open to anything that adds value without giving away the store.

Rethinking free

I recently read an interesting blog post on Dean Wesley Smith’s blog, about how, how not, and whether to make your books free. The conclusion he comes to is this:

Free is short time, limited supply, and never on the major bookstore shelves.

In other words, no permafree, no free pulsing, and no publishing free online content on sites like InstaFreebie unless it’s for a limited time.

Three or four years ago, I probably would have pushed back pretty hard against this advice. There are still points of it that I disagree with, such as the idea that giving anything away for free devalues all your other work. Perhaps that’s true for physical product, but for digital content I think there’s a solid argument to be made that the rules have changed.

That said, a lot has happened in the last three or four years. Permafree worked really great until about the middle of 2014, at which point I noticed that it was a lot harder to generate any kind of interest in my free books. I switched to a free pulsing strategy in 2015, which was a lot more effective at giving away free books, but that didn’t always translate into more sales.

In fact, there’s a passage from Dean’s blog that sums it up real well:

A customer walks through your door and you have a wall of twenty pies in glass cases, all the smaller short story pies in a case in the center, and some specials near the cash register.

And there on your wall are three pies that say, “Free.”

And a bunch of short stories that are “Free.”

The customer can take an entire pie for free or buy one. As a customer, what would you do? Duh. You take the free pie and leave.

…

And pretty soon your customers start to change. The only people who come through the door are people who only want the free stuff. They would never buy something under any circumstances, but you are giving your pies away for free, so they take one.

Pretty soon there would be lines out the door to get your free pies and you would make nothing. The free takers would crowd out and devalue the pies you are trying to sell.

Now, I don’t entirely agree with Dean here. My 90-day sales chart on Amazon shows a predictable uptick in sales every time I set a book free and send out an email to my list. Most of my subscribers signed up through InstaFreebie, which means they’re probably not quite fans yet (and probably signed up for a bunch of authors’ lists).

But my long-term data tends to agree with Dean. Back in 2012 and 2013, there was a very clear correlation between free downloads and royalties / paid sales. Then, in 2014, that correlation started to become fuzzy. Over the next several months, it got progressively fuzzier (even though I was giving away more books), until today there’s really no correlation at all.

Obviously, YMMV and I can only speak for my own books. But there have been a lot of major shifts in the ebook market over the last five years. Kindle Unlimited has had a huge impact on the effectiveness of permafree, or any kind of free book strategy for that matter.

Point is, it may be personally useful to rethink my free strategy. I’m not going to stop doing the free book thing altogether, since I do think there’s still value to it (if for no other reason than that little sales bump, plus the handful of “thank you!” responses I get from my email subscribers each month). But instead of free pulsing two books each month, usually including a first-in-series novel, it may be better to do a 99¢ novel and a free short story.

The two biggest mistakes I’ve made so far in my writing career have been 1. underpricing my books, and 2. unpublishing books that were still selling. (I still can’t believe how stupid I was) Holding onto a free books strategy that isn’t working could easily become a close third. I’m not going to throw the bus into reverse while it’s barrelling down the highway at 70 mph, but some experimentation and a course correction may be in order.

Odds and ends

A couple of quick things I neglected to mention in my last post:

First, I ran a promo for Star Wanderers: Outworlder (Part I) on The Fussy Librarian over the weekend. If you’re looking for a daily newsletter with good book recommendations, you should definitely check them out. The team behind the site puts a lot of effort into making it a quality newsletter, and they tailor your recommendations not only by genre, but by the level of sex, profanity, and violence as well. I’ve subscribed to them for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve already seen some excellent books on their list, including Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings.

Second, my latest book, Science Fiction from A to Z, is now up on Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and Kobo! Feel free to pick up a copy. It’s up just in time for this year’s Blogging from A to Z Challenge, which starts tomorrow! I’ve already got a couple of posts lined up, so it should be just as fun as last year.

When I finished last year’s A to Z challenge, I realized that those blog posts would work well together as a book. You can still find the original posts on my blog, of course, but I’ve collected them here for your convenience. It was a fun side project, and at $2.99 you can consider it like buying me a drink or tossing a couple of bucks into the tip jar.

That just about does it. See you tomorrow for this year’s A to Z challenge!