There are multiple resources from personal anecdotes to click-baity snake oil content that will tell you how to get your list of email subscribers from 0 to whatever number is big enough to sound impressive. For example, here is a recent offering from Miblart: Email Marketing for Authors: How to Build an Author Email List.
“Are you starting from zero with your email list? Don’t worry – you’re in the right place! Building an author email list from scratch might sound daunting, but email marketing is one of the best things you can do to connect with readers.”
This article covers all the basics, though it skips over that essential step, what specific email newsletter service to use.
But, does it really tell you how to get subscriber if you currently have 0?
Coming down to the nitty gritty it has this advice to: “Get the word out about your freebie…“
- Post it on Social Media
- Put a banner or pop up on your blog, OR
- Network with fellow writers.
So, in my opinion, if you are already in the game some useful tips. But if you are really starting from completely unknown and with 0 subscribers, then no.
How to Really Start From 0
Okay, I don’t know. I am still at 0. But this is a documentary series where I will try and figure that out and give feedback and numbers of what I do and achieve.
This exploration into this salient author marketing issue works with a couple of assumptions:
- An email subscriber list is an important part of a fiction author’s marketing plan and strategy,
- The author (me) is directly responsible for the planning and execution of the marketing plan,
- The purpose of the marketing is to develop a sustainable indie fiction writing business and income.
Though I have many personal reservations against an email list. I for instance do not read newsletters myself, hate being subscribed to lists, and make it a personal mission to avoid getting any email of any kind.
But I have to accept that I am an outlier and that there are people who do. And if enough of these people are also people who would read my fiction and I can get them subscribed to my list it would go a long way to make fiction writing and publishing a sustainable business and career.
Onwards Anyway
In that spirit I have been trying to find ways in which to grow an email subscriber list. And there is an abundance of information available. Some are conservative while others promises much.
What I have however found almost inevitably and without fail is that there is very little information available on how to get the first few subscribers. How do you get from 0 to something if you have literally nothing to start with.
Yes, I am writing this post and starting this investigation on growing an email newsletter subscriber list with exactly 0 subscribers. And I am working with the following limitations and restrictions that will hobble most of the glib advice given to start a list.
What Starting From 0 Looks Like
- I do not already have a reader or fan base. The number of books I have sold so far are in the single digits for any particular title and less than twenty for all possible titles and versions combined (including previously published but now unpublished stories).
- I do not belong to any reader circle, writing group, craft community, athletics club, professional organisation, church group or fan club with regular access to other people.
- I am not active (nor do I want to be) on any online community such as Reddit, Substack, facebook groups, online forums, or any such.
- My social media presence is minimal and the only one I regularly engage in is X, and that mostly because I use it as my dominant news and local information source.
- I do not have any money to throw at the problem (This is a topic for another blog series).
So, how do you grow an email subscriber list from nothing?
Ask an expert
I posed this question to Thomas Umstattd Jr. from AuthorMedia
Before you think I am hating on Thomas
I am using a lot of material and advice from Thomas Umstattd Jr., analyzing and criticizing it, not because I think he does not know what he is talking about, but precisely because he does. I came across his podcast and information when I stumbled on his Youtube video:
After this video I watched and listened to many of his other videos and podcasts. Of the multitude of people who had something to say about book marketing what Thomas have to say is the most practical, sensible, and executable I have come across. His advice is solid and grounded.
So why may it seem as if I am dissing the guy?
Useful Advice Require Context
I grapple with his advice because of a number of reasons:
- For his advice that is straight up usable with no mental gymnastics or moral objections on my part, why am I or have I not implemented such before?
- On his advice that seems eminently sensible but impractical unless you are in the US (being out here in South Africa myself) without access to many solutions, how do I translate or modify it to implement it?
- On aspects where I disagree with him is it because of my own reticence and prejudice against marketing and business, or is it because of assumptions he makes working within his framework from a US-centric perspective?
So, I am following his advice as best I can, kicking and screaming if I have to, unless what he advises is completely inapplicable to either myself, or the context in which I work. In these cases I am looking for alternative, but just as sensible and effective, solutions.
Back to my earlier question:
How do you grow an email subscriber list from nothing?
Thomas’ response can be broken down into three parts:
- The first 50 often come one at a time in person.
- Start with Timothy.
- Combine a reader magnet with paid ads.
Let’s get into that and figure out what to do:
1. One at a time in person
How to get email newsletter subscribers one at a time in person?
Here is what you have to get right in order to make that happen:
- Defining in person very narrowly as physically and face to face, that means you have to meet with a reader, identify that reader, elicit a response from that reader to interest them in signing up for your mailing list, get their sign-up info or direct them to a sign-up form, and follow up to ensure all that gets done. Basic old school networking therefore.
- Defining in person more broadly means the same but using some intermediary such as an online conversation on a forum or other social media or by developing a relationship after a reader have made contact having read something of the author.
No matter how you define the scope of the contact, in order to do this you have to come into direct contact with readers. Given that the idea is that your email subscriber list is the best way to directly contact your readers it is a given that any other way is second-best.
And not only second best but absolutely dependent on your ability to network. This require access to readers, the ability to identify readers, and the ability to pitch successfully.
2. Where’s Timothy
Thomas’ article/podcast on Timothy very good reframing of the problem of setting up a reader avatar for your marketing planning and efforts. Not much to fault there. But it does not directly state in any way how it gets you to sign up subscribers.
It is almost a basic assumption that you have already signed up Timothy as one of your subscribers because he can be identified as a reader. It is however a cart before the horse conundrum. How do you identify a particular reader amongst your readers if you have no readers/subscribers?
I will later do a deep dive analysis of the usefulness, assumptions and problems with the Timothy thesis. For now let’s stick to the same conclusion, you need to have good old networking skills functioning, or an existing reader base, to be able to identify and utilize Timothy.
3. Combine a Reader Magnet with Paid Ads
Did I mention that I have very little money to throw at the problem?
I will not be giving feedback here on Thomas’ answer on how to market with no money. That requires a whole analysis of its own. So for the moment let’s just go with it.
Because of my limited capabilities of directly accessing readers to get them to sign up I am left with this two-pronged solution.
I started a week or so ago writing a reader magnet and that process is going well. Well enough. I am slow because of a lot of year end stuff, including exhaustion, hampering progress. But by all indications I will have a good reader magnet done by the end of the year.
I have found two possible resources to then get that reader magnet in front of possible subscribers: Bookfunnel and StoryOrigin. I will not be doing a comparison between the two services because for my purposes, getting subscribers to an email list, they both do basically the same. The biggest difference however is the cost to get that free reader magnet integration to email service done.
- Bookfunnel = $ 150/year (you have to read the small print)
- StoryOrigin = $ 100/year
I am very price conscious. Which means that for me the choice in service is obvious. I will be signing up for StoryOrigin to get my reader magnet out there, once it is done.
What’s Next?
For myself I have to finish writing my reader magnet. Nothing is gong to happen until that gets done so it is on top of my to do list every day. Then I have to sign up to StoryOrigin and do the whole set up for the landing page, download and email integration.
I will follow up with a post either when I get to that point, or when I have a couple of figures to discuss. Hopefully the figures will not include something that says: Subscribers = 0 (still!)
- Header Image by Joe from Pixabay
- Where’s Wally Record photo by William Murray