It's a tough sell, for sure. You're basically asking permission for the reader's ear in their email inbox indefinitely, or at least until they unsubscribe.
The three bigs I've seen is by using reader magnets, "selling" the magnet so that it sounds like something they'd love, and using a lot of incentive to grab readers.
You know that reader magnets makes good sense, but I totally agree that it can be a pain when it's not enough.
The best practices I've seen among best sellers are:
-Offer something large and exclusive, like a full novel, or something that the reader obviously wants. This could be a short story that explains an important plot point in your book universe, maybe, or a data-report for non-fiction folks.
-Make the magnet super easy to find. For instance, the front and back matter of all your books, as well as an eye-catching image. This, as well as a catch page on your website that also offers it.
-Phrase it well: And this is where it gets a little shady, I've found, so it's something of a personal, ethical decision as well as a marketing tactic. Many authors have a pop-up on their sites that don't mention anything about an email list at all, but they still have a super easy email sign up form. It's usually set up something like:
Hi, welcome to the site!
Tell me where to send this FREE BOOK:
Email:____
And it's really that simple for a lot of them. The site-goer might not even realize they'd just signed up to the author's email list, but I've seen that works very well for grabbing fast numbers.
Anyone else have any good tips or tricks? It seems like continual optimization is super important for making conversions in this case, just like ebook and amazon page design.
It's a tough sell, for sure. You're basically asking permission for the reader's ear in their email inbox indefinitely, or at least until they unsubscribe.
The three bigs I've seen is by using reader magnets, "selling" the magnet so that it sounds like something they'd love, and using a [i]lot[/i] of incentive to grab readers.
You know that reader magnets makes good sense, but I totally agree that it can be a pain when it's not enough.
The best practices I've seen among best sellers are:
-Offer something large and exclusive, like a full novel, or something that the reader obviously wants. This could be a short story that explains an important plot point in your book universe, maybe, or a data-report for non-fiction folks.
-Make the magnet super easy to find. For instance, the front [b][i]and[/i][/b] back matter of all your books, as well as an eye-catching image. This, as well as a catch page on your website that also offers it.
-Phrase it well: And this is where it gets a little shady, I've found, so it's something of a personal, ethical decision as well as a marketing tactic. Many authors have a pop-up on their sites that don't mention anything [i]about an email list at all[/i], but they still have a super easy email sign up form. It's usually set up something like:
[b]Hi, welcome to the site![/b]
[b]Tell me where to send this [i]FREE BOOK:[/i][/b]
Email:____
And it's really that simple for a lot of them. The site-goer might not even realize they'd just signed up to the author's email list, but I've seen that works very well for grabbing fast numbers.
Anyone else have any good tips or tricks? It seems like continual optimization is super important for making conversions in this case, just like ebook and amazon page design.
Authors are usually told that the way to get someone to sign up for an email list/newsletter is to offer something free, such as a short story. However, sometimes this doesn't work. I don't mean that people just take the free short story and leave, never to return; I mean they can't even be bribed to sign up in the first place. What's the solution to this?