How Writers Can Create an Email Giveaway Before They Finish a Book
The best time to build your reader’s list is yesterday
One of the top questions I get from new writers is, “how am I supposed to build an email list if I don’t have anything to give away?”
Well, this is a problem, sure. But it doesn’t have to be a problem by the end of the week. Whether you write fiction or non, I’ll show you how to create an Easy Invite (opt-in gift) that will grow your list faster than you can say “spam folder.”
You spend all this time working on your book, or next project.
You have no time to writing something more. How could you? Every moment of your writing attention goes straight into your debut book. There’s nothing left. This stone won’t bleed, dammit!
Before we work on your Easy Invite, let’s put your (potential) situation into perspective.
You’re working on a debut book. This is your baby. You’ve told your family. You lock yourself in your little writing space every night (or every morning). You eat, sleep, and breathe your new book.
You want the book done. There’s no time for another project. The finished book marks your stamp among authors. Until the book is done, you’ve yet to become a real author. I see the wheels turning. I know. You’re antsy.
This scenario will end in two basic ways:
- You’ll finish the book, then look for readers — This is called launching your book to an empty room. Yes, the book will be finished, but you’ve neglected the marketing portion of your indie duties. The book has yet to exist if a reader can’t find it, right? Just like the tree falling in the empty forest. You publish your book and sell two copies. Ever.
- You’ll pause your book momentarily to build your list — This is called launching your book to a full house. You now have a tribe of hungry readers, ready and willing to buy your book once you’ve polished it. The first week you publish it, Amazon takes notice and helps promote your book to the others. You publish your book and sell a steady stream of copies every month.
I prefer the second scenario, but it’s personal preference.
You can build your list before you finish that first book (and you should). It won’t take long to develop an enticing Easy Invite to encourage new readers to join your list.
There’s an easy way (and multiple hard ways) to build an Easy Invite. I’ll show you the easy way…
The easy way to build an Easy Invite
This method works best for non-fiction writers, but fickies can adopt it too. There are multiple reasons this easy method is the best method, but I’ll save those for another day. What you need to know is this method will train your readers not only to open your emails, but to interact with them.
We need both.
Here you go…
Use the escape-arrival framework (I learned this from Frank Kern). Start with the place your reader wants to escape from and end with the transformation you will provide, once she finishes your course.
Course?
Yep, course.
You’re going to write seven emails. You’ll divide your transformation in seven steps, create worksheets and to-do lists along the way, and you’ll package the entire seven-email series as a free course.
No one wants to join your email newsletter.
They want stuff that benefits them.
Your newsletter benefits you.
If you write fiction, write a full novella (yep, a couple free chapters won’t cut it anymore. We want to know if your writing is really worth buying), create a nice digital cover for your landing page, and drip the novella over seven emails (or more). You don’t have to format it for Kindle or anything (although your readers will appreciate it if you do).
Why do we go this route instead of the way everyone else does it, with one big free thing the moment we sign up?
If we want the same results as everyone, we act like everyone, right?
But we want to do better.
Not only is it important to get your readers reading your emails, but we don’t want the click-dumpers (the people who collect free stuff and never use it) to join our list.
If you deliver a course, one email per day for seven days, guess who gets used to opening your emails? Yep, your readers.
I get requests for missing emails all the time. My readers actually email me and say they deleted one of my emails, so could I please re-send it. They keep this things for reference!
This is the kind of engagement we want with our readers.
Whose email do you think they’ll open next time I send something? Mine, the one who just gave them an incredible amount of value, free (my email course took 2 months to build), or the writer who just sent an update about her word count and what she ate for breakfast?
Yep, mine.
The best part about creating these email courses is they’re infinitely tweak-able. It’s text-only. No images. No formatting to deal with. You write them and load them into your email queue. As you get better you tweak your Easy Invite.
The first version of my course was crude and messy. It got better over time. It still needs a lot of work, but it converts like crazy.
I know writers who spend a couple years writing a free novel for their email list, only to build a list of people who don’t respond or buy.
Buying’s a story for another day, but if you set up your expectations from the beginning, you’ll have no problem selling to your reader’s list. You’ll never launch a book to an empty room again.
All the magic starts with your email list
I know it feels unproductive and like a total act of blasphemy, but it’s time to put that book on hold for a week.
You need an email list, now more than ever.
Your list is the only piece of internet real estate you truly own. This is your platform. Your tribe. No matter what happens on social, or anywhere else, you still have your email list.
Your list is an insurance policy.
While it may feel backwards to stop your book and write something else, you need an Easy Invite to bring new readers into your tribe. No one will join your list for fun.
We don’t want to be put on lists.
We join because we get something valuable. People keep their email addresses longer than they keep phone numbers. Think about that. Social will come and go, but email is (almost) forever.
It’s time to start yours.
As an indie author, I’ve developed a introductory course on list-building. It’s called the Tribe 1K. I’ll show you how to get your first 1,000 subscribers (or your next 1,000) so you can launch your next book, product, or course using the strategy I described above.
Tap the link below and you’ll get the first lesson today — enrollment is free.
We’re waiting for you.
Enroll in my Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers
August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. As a self-appointed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indies how to make work that sells and how to sell more of that work once it’s created. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing, August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.