Podcasts about instafreebie

There are so many ways to market your book from paid advertising to join promos and newsletter swaps. But does joining a free group promo really help you with sales or new readers? Join Autumn and Jesper as they discuss the pros, cons, and possibilities out there with group promos in Episode 39 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. Check out some of the links mentioned in today's show at: https://storyoriginapp.com/ https://bookfunnel.com/ Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (3s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt Jesper (31s): and hello there. I'm Jesper Autumn (34s): and I'm autumn. This is episode number 39 amwritingfantasy podcast. Hey, we're going to talk about group promos and if they are worth it., but you know before we get there it's been a, even though we're batch recording things, we always have things going on. It's been always, Jesper (55s): yeah, certainly. Certainly a lot of things. I mean this here in Denmark we just been hit by a complete like late Shama heat. It's a normally here by the end of August it's, well it's not cool but you know it's the summer sort of starting to come to an end, but now it's just like last couple of days. It's been 30 degrees here and a Celsius of course. Autumn (1m 22s): Possibly 30 gosh, she's a sure there are no, Oh you mean, Jesper (1m 29s): yeah, exactly. I mean it's really warm and it's am. It's incredible. I dunno what happened, but it's very wrong all of a sudden. Autumn (1m 37s): That's funny cause that we've been in am, Adam and I, my husband and I don't like heat and that's half the reason we travel as we get to go up to the North, we like to be like for us to be 70 Fahrenheit. So you know that's pretty moderate. It's like a jacket might be necessary in the morning and usually when we're down in Pennsylvania and usually when we get here it's less stirring hot. But for end of August is actually perfect. Like 70s am. Beautiful, beautiful. It feels like fall, which I can't say it's really felt like fallen August in Pennsylvania since I was a little girl, so I'm not complaining. Jesper (2m 14s): No. Wow, that's nice. I mean I actually don't mind it being hot outside, but I must admit right now in, you know, sitting inside in my little office here and recording this podcast, I'm like, it's feels like I'm sitting in a sauna or something. It's really, really well. Autumn (2m 33s): I know the other on the other side of the Atlantic, I've got the window is open and I'm actually a little cool and capris. Jesper (2m 40s): Yeah. Then that's the thing, right? Because if for me it's, it's late evening time now. So my problem is that if I opened the window or the insects comes in here, eh, if it was daytime it would be no problem. Right. But uh, during nighttime and you have the, you know, the lights turned on inside, then all the insects likes to come and I don't want that. So I have to sit in the sauna here and record. Oh, I will, I will. We're going to hold a few weeks. If you disappear, we know you possibly passed out. Oh shit. Yeah. I mean, I was out the other day with my youngest son. He was playing in a, in a soccer tournament the other day and he was just as hard as this. It was 30 degrees and luckily none of the kids passed out, but it was, it was really, really, really warm. And they were playing this tournament so they will playing like eight matches or something. And it was, yeah, steaming from above and, but it was really cool. It was, uh, just as kids tournament, you know, and um, and uh, they didn't play very well for the first couple of matches. They, they sort of draw off you and, and lost a few and maybe one one. So when once the group play was sort of done, then I was thinking, okay, we'll probably go home then because that was it. But then for some re reckless reason, they actually went to the semifinals as the last team that just made it above the cut. So, so then, okay, fine. Then there was one moment. So he played one more match and then they won the semifinal and all of a sudden they have to play the final playing really shitty for all the first like five matches was really shitty. And then all of a sudden they were in the final. And, uh, it was actually really, really exciting because, you know, this, this tournament that they create, created here was, um, they, it, it's in the local club, so, so it's only the local club players who are there, but they're, they're from all kinds of different age groups. So what they do in this tournament is they mix and match the age groups. So did you have some of the young ones and some of the older ones and so they, they make like teams of five kids, but different ages in each team. So, so they played together the young and the older ones, which is quite cool. And am my kid was one of the youngest there altogether. So they were playing this, a final match, the final against another team who had actually won every single match. So I thought, okay, they're going to get, you know, beaten really bad now. But they didn't, they really fought for it. And, uh, uh, the, the, the end of the game came and there was still no winners, so they had to play golden gold, you know? So that means that the first one who scores will win the game and then went into that over time and they were playing and am and it was really, it was crazy. I mean at one point my, my young son here, so again, he's the youngest one on the pitch. So he came with the ball dribbling down, uh, towards the opponent's goal. And there was this defendant in front of him is like four years, four years older. And I was like, I was thinking like, Oh, pass the ball, pass the ball, pass the ball. You know, you're not going to get past that. But he didn't, he actually dribbled past the guy. He was four years older than him and then all of a sudden he was alone in of the goalkeeper and the goalkeeper was like three years older than him as well. And he shot at the goal and it actually went past the goalkeeper, but it hit the post. It's just like, Whoa. And there was this like a, because it was the final, it was probably like a hundred people watching. So they went this like, Whoa, through the entire crowd, you know, this little boy pass pass through pass two kids who were just mud three and four years older than him. And uh, but unfortunately they didn't win there. So they kept playing for a bit. And then a bit later on in the match, uh, my, my youngest Sunday, he got the ball again and this time he didn't pass it. But actually the guy he passed it to was the one who then, because of that past shut the winning goal and they actually want the final Autumn (6m 42s): underdogs in the winters. Jesper (6m 44s): Yeah. It was so amazing. And uh, I was really proud of him. He played so amazingly well and uh, he was almost in tears himself and am when they then, uh, handed over the trophies afterwards though there was only, there was only like one trophy for, for the team. So the team had to pick themselves and all the, all the young, all the boys than said, uh, where you played so amazingly, so what? We're going to give you the trophy. And uh, that was really, really awesome. And then there was the, they had to announce the best player of the tournament. So the, in the, in the loudspeakers there, they called him up and said that he had played so well. So they, they made him the best, uh, play up the tournament. And I must admit, I tee it up a bit. That was really so proud. It was amazing. Autumn (7m 29s): I teared up a little bit. I, I live, my kids are, um, this was my vicarious moment cause I don't have any children other than a small dog. So with that is just so, yeah, Jesper (7m 39s): so awesome man. It was so well the surf and I think there was at least 20 people after afterwards who came over just to tell him how awesome he played and stuff. I mean, people, he doesn't normally talk to people who is not normally on his own team. So it was just amazing. And many parents also came over and said, Whoa, that was amazing. And you know, and he was, he's just a young kid, you know, he's really small compared to the other guys on the pitch. So, and it just, yeah, it was amazing. So that was my little story this week. Autumn (8m 9s): What is a fantastic story? I don't think I have anything else to top that one. Jesper (8m 16s): No, it was cool. I liked it. Oh, we on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast. So actually, um, I, I'm PO, I noticed something that made me laugh a bit in our Facebook group. Yeah. Because, uh, Dwayne poop out of the poll in the Facebook group and he asked for what a cliche or from a mine, and I don't know if it was just for fun that he made that poll or if he needed her for something but but I couldn't help laughing when my load and add an option called something mere models were never meant to witness that. So it made me smile, but then it made it even better when I saw that the, you know, of course the top spot or the one with the most world are gold, but just below them there is this something Mia moderns were never meant to witness as a, as a cliche thing. I just thought that was so funny. Oh, I, that would be a cliche to mind, but it's just so cool. Autumn (9m 19s): That is great. I didn't notice that. I've got to get back into the Facebook group. I was been offline a little bit too long, so I have to go check that one out. Jesper (9m 30s): Yeah, it was, it was quite funny. And am and of course I should also say, by the way, that any of you listening, if you want to join the Facebook group, do you know just search for amwritingfantasy among the groups on Facebook and just apply to getting and we will approve you or, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll also moderate a loop will actually, because often look, he is must faster than both you and me are in approving people, but uh, but we'll let you infrastructure. So, uh, yeah, if that's something you would like to join them, just do that. Autumn (9m 59s): Yeah. I've got to go in after we're done recording and maybe relieve loop a little bit. We had a whole slurry of people joining today, which is awesome. But, uh, we've been recording podcasts and I've been getting all these notifications of people who want to join. I'm thinking, Oh, poor Luke, we've left him hanging there because we're recording. Should probably go help out after this. Jesper (10m 19s): Yeah, maybe we should, but, uh, he's doing a good job though. Autumn (10m 24s): You're doing an awesome job. So yeah, shout out to Luke. Thank you. Are awesome. Amwritingfantasy Facebook group. Moderator, so I thought it was funny cause I saw a comment that Irish had left on our recent YouTube video slash podcast where she could, on the one we were talking about whether or not you should take a break from your writing. And she said she could see both sides. And I totally agree. I was thinking about this because one thing we didn't mention to that episode is I think you, yes. For when you go on your family vacation, you try not to. Right. So that's like a week or two off as well. So need to take writing breaks that during the year. Jesper (11m 1s): Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, and that's, I think I also, I hopefully I made it clear in the last episode as well. Um, you know, that I haven't written anything for probably a month now or something because I'm so busy and in recording costs us, uh, for for amwritingfantasy so, so yeah, I mean, absolutely I do. I do take breaks and as you said, especially when I go on the case, but you know, you always catch me anyway. Autumn because I tried to make those, like I make these announcements before I go on vacation that I'm not going to work, I'm not going to do anything. I will check the email and just reply if autumn sends me something, but otherwise I'm not gonna do anything. And then of course I'm going to send you something and then I always, you, you, you call me out on it and then you say, well, I thought you was supposed to be on vacations, but I don't write anything. No, but I, I am really and not doing anything, you know, I always end up doing something. Autumn (11m 57s): Your brain definitely does not turn off because we're a certain vacation. You came back and I think you had like three or four pages a world-building. Um, I just had to do it. So it's true though. Sometimes when you take a break, you didn't go and you're like, I'm not going to be writing. That's when everything, Oh, you wouldn't like I always joke the minute I stepped into the shower and there's no possibility of writing paper or the minute I start cooking a really involved dinner, those are when the idea finally goes click and you're like, Oh shoot. Jesper (12m 34s): Yeah. But that's exactly it, right? I mean as soon as you wind down from your day to day, being busy and running are about and whatever else we're doing on a day to day basis. So one, once you start with Lexington, all those creative things pops up in your mind and then I accidentally end up writing it down and sending emails to you. Autumn so yeah. Autumn (12m 57s): Well I respond and we get work done even when we're both supposed to be taking a break, but that's okay. Jesper (13m 3s): Okay. That's a good point that I was made though. You know that it is important especially, and I think she was also pointing out about, uh, the, you know, the print outs situation and, and there especially, it is really important to sort of give yourself a break. So I fully agree with that. Autumn (13m 19s): I've certainly enjoyed mine, but I've got to get back to it. Jesper (13m 23s): Right. So group promos, could you hear the sigh? I don't even know where to start with this because knowing almost no experience with, I mean, the funny thing I guess is that in the future we're going to release fiction together, but at least up until this point we've done so separately. So it means that you have some experience with group promos where I have very little, so I'll have to give you the reins on this one. Autumn Autumn (13m 51s): that's fair enough. But yes, I think I've probably joined with mailing lists. Uh, they'd call him newsletter swaps even though you're not actually swapping your a mailing list with another author, you're just promoting another author in your newsletter. And I think I've been doing that since maybe my first year as an author or they started up pretty quick and there's been, I've seen the rise and fall of so many different platforms where you can organize them, share them. I've seen everything from, and I've actually hosted some group promos on amwritingfantasy or not amwritingfantasy but on autumn writing my personal website and Yesper I know you joined that one and you could probably mention what you thought of it, but that was back in the days when you had to build it yourself. Now book funnel and story origin and some of the other ones, it's a freebie. They allow you to basically they create a website for you and you just send people there and so they have your own website. So there's a lot of ways of using them and the are often that you have to send that out to your newsletter and so that's sort of why you don't do that. Is that correct? Jesper (15m 0s): Yes, that is correct. I mean am my problem, I have done it at some point some years back. But my problem with it is that I treat and, OK, let, let me back up a bit because otherwise this is gonna sound like I'm saying that in everybody else's, not treating their subscribers with respect. Uh, and that's really not what I'm, what I'm trying to say. So I don't, I don't want to put my foot in the middle of the heinousness to you, but what I'm, what I'm getting at is that I find it really important to always treat subscribers with respect. Maybe I should put it like that because, and, and by that I'm not saying that running, you know, newsletter swaps are not treating them with respect. But what I mean on the other hand is that I feel personally and miles may vary here, so make up your own mind as what, what do you listen to think and, and maybe you see this differently as well of them. So I'm looking forward to hear your, your sort of thoughts on it. But at least in my own personal view, I think that if I'm going to push, you know, push a book or, or recommend a book or whatever you wanna call it to my email list, I should have read it because otherwise I don't, I don't want to do like, okay, uh, can you put my book on your email list and then I'll put your book in my email list if I've never read it. Because I feel, at least to me it doesn't feel fair to my subscribers and that's why I stopped doing it a long while ago because I just feel like I have no idea if this book is good or not. And uh, yeah, I don't know that that's just my sort of philosophy. Autumn (16m 34s): I can understand that because I think when it comes to doing individual swaps with authors, which is more what you're talking about, it is so hard to tell the quality. I mean, it helps to look at the cover and see if it looks professional. Maybe read the first couple of sample paragraphs pages that are on Amazon to double check. Because I definitely learned that one very early on is that, you know, it's don't just accept something out of the blue without looking at it first. Because yeah, you don't want to send something that you're kinda cringing and you're hoping your readers will never read it or they'll not think crazy for recommending it. Then it comes to the group promos, which are a little different because then you're just selling a reader, Hey, here's a whole suite of books that are either they're usually on sale or the freebies or to sign up to get the freebie. So you know, they know they're subscribing to a whole lot of other authors, which again, do you want your readers to be overwhelmed by signing up for another 50 books? But at the same time, there are also great opportunities for spreading the word. I know with my first book, my debut novel, Boardman of water, you know, that's been Permafree now for a few years and I've, I'm actually still toy with the idea is some point. Does that Permafree status and does it need to end thinking about that? Because I think that'll be a question maybe for a another podcast coming up is, you know, should Permafree be permanent, but we'll come back to that later. But I know when I was my only book or you know, the first book, I only had one trilogy and I felt like I was pushing that out to way too many promos and I wasn't seeing much gain because it was like every promo I could join I was putting that in and I thought, okay, you know, you have to start limiting who where you're putting in. And I think that's my advice even today. It doesn't hurt to try a sale's promo. I've done, I'm doing both now. Sales promos and group promos where you're doing a free book that people are signing up for. And sometimes I do a free promo where literally the book is free, just go get to soccer. It's fine. I'm giving it away. And I think, uh, by doing those, you do get to run into other authors. Everyone joins in to send it to their newsletter and you usually get a pretty slick graphic. And so you're just sending them saying, Hey, you know, it's not like necessarily this is the book you should go look at but go see if there's anything here that suits your fancy. But again, it's easy. This summer I have never seen so many group promos and I don't know if it's because people are just getting their act together. They're realizing that these, for authors where they're usually free to join, there's a few that have maybe, you know, chip in to get an Amazon gift card. Do you know something that'll make more people come and look at that page? So there are a few that costs, but in general, these things are free. Uh, what you're doing is actually supporting other authors. So that's awesome because seriously, that's one thing I love about authors is where we're so good. We're not competitive, we don't look at each other as competitors. We looked at each other as, Hey, I can only feed a reader, you know, one or two books a year that leaves, what, 364 days or you know, 300 something other days that they need to read books. And I can send them yours. That's not a problem. I want to make sure that they stay a reader and don't give up on books cause I can't find anything to read. So these group promos, you know, they give readers a chance to go look at them, check them out. But again, I know this summer I have seen so many, I usually use book funnel and story origin. I used to use instaFreebie, but I've been off that for a little while now. And it's just, I literally, I, this morning I got a notice of for new promos I think every day. It's a weird day that goes by when I don't get a notice that I have at least one new group promo that is open to be joined. That's a lot of promos. And I know when I first saw it I was like, Oh this is great. And I happen to have like for first in series books. I have four series out now. So Hey, I've got lots of books. I didn't, you know, go push out. I got two new releases that I can put a new release promos. And you get really excited until you go and sit down to do your newsletter and you realize that you know, you signed up for like six promos and you're supposed to be telling your readers about six different promos. You need to start, you need to come down and definitely take a look at, you know, what are you getting out at the start? You know, tracking the link, seeing if people are using them. I know when I do a book funnel one, I don't just send them a generic one. I use a specifically create a special link for each promo so I can go back in and see how many people downloaded the book. I can get those, that feedback. So I know if it was really worth my while. A book funnel is really cool because it also tells you how many people look at the page versus downloaded. So if you're seeing age discrepancy there, you can be like, ah, I got to work on something because people are looking at it, the cover is off asleep good enough for people to go look at it. But for some reason they get to and something on there is not, you know, they're not clicking through. So there's some great nuances, things you can kind of tweak, tease out by doing these promos. But only if you take the time to do the stats. And one of the important things is you have to join the right promo. Uh, there's a lot of multi-genre like new release promos, so that could be a multi-genre one. There are some 99 cent books, which is again a multi-genre one. You know, am I going to do good, do well there or should I just stick to the ones that are Epic fantasy or dark fantasy or the ones that are specific like magic worlds. Uh, there's one that was recently heroines, that was great. And then there was another one I went to join that they made it sound like female magic users. And when the promo came out, the graphics, it was all about witches. I was like, okay, no, I'm pulling my phone out when I'm not writing. Which craft? I love witchcraft. I would love to write a book on it, but these are not in, this is about elemental magic on a fantasy world that's not going to fit anything else in is probably a waste of my time and maybe my readers won't like it, but I have no proof of that. So I'm probably gonna to waste their time by sending it to them. Jesper (22m 48s): Yeah. Yeah. And uh, of course, I'm glad that you pointed out the difference between the newsletter swap and a group promo. Uh, I was also the one you ran, I can't remember a long while back. Uh, actually maybe it was, Autumn (23m 3s): yeah, there's probably, I think at least it wasn't this year, so it might've been 2018 Jesper (23m 8s): probably then. Yeah. Uh, but I was part of that and, and uh, I think I got like, I don't know, three, 400 subscribers or something from that one, uh, onto the email list, which is, which was pretty good. Um, so I mean there is of course, well, okay, again, let me back up a bit here because there's so many nuances in this conversation because one thing you're saying, okay, a group promo, you get 400 suffers from it. And that's wonderful. Yeah. Okay, that's good. But you can also look at it from the angle of saying, but okay, so these 400 subscribers just loaded Kindle with 50 different books and they're not gonna read any of them anyways. So what's the point? Right. And then on, and then of course I could then switch it back the other way around and then start arguing, well, okay. But then if you have them on your email list, it's stand up to you as the author to, to write even beta emails than the other ones so that they get invested in intrigued in U S North or, right. And of course that's, that's within your power to, to try to do something there. But but there is some sort of argument hidden somewhere in here around the quality of the subscribers, you know, uh, I've heard many, many times for like Freebooksy and stuff like that. You know, that you can get a ton of subscribers but they are worthless. So, and since we are paying for subscribers on the email list, at some point we also have to start asking ourselves, you know, what kind of readers do we want on that list? Right, exactly. Yes. So it's just, it's, it's, it's a bit complicated. Autumn (24m 47s): That's where, I mean, cause I was going, you took the words out of my mouth. You get subscriber as it is up to you to make them believe that your book is worth reading. And of course you only get like maybe one or two emails to get them excited and maybe off of you, it's in your power, but you're not going to get every single one of them sticking with you. And of course, hopefully that's why there's the unsubscribe button. And hopefully if you're doing list cleaning, um, that might be when you start cleaning out some people who've never seem to be opening your emails or responding to you. And there are, I think the group promos where people have to go down individually and pick a book that they think looks interesting, are far better than the group promos where they are basically signing up to win a prize. Like there's a few out there where everyone who goes into, it's going to get a free ebook to the winner or free paperback. Okay. Jesper (25m 38s): Or the way you, even the worst, the ones where they give away like a am Amazon gift card or something. I think that's some of the worst thing that you can ever offer because those people are there because they want the gift card, not the books. Autumn (25m 50s): Yes, exactly. And often a gift card, you're not even sure they're gonna use it for books. It'd be at least that's they're giving away a Kindle or something. You have an idea that they like books, but again, they can turn around and sell it. So. Exactly. So those are, those are the ones, I mean I joined those when I was first started and you can get, originally, I think the most I've ever gotten from one of those was almost 5,000 subscribers. That was early on, very early on. So it was one shot. You suddenly get 5,000 subscribers, you know, but again, as soon as you get that, you're probably sending out an email and those 5,000 people are getting emails from what, 25 30 different authors. So later group promos have gotten more organized where the like, okay, I've seen one where it's like if your last name starts between a and D, you can send on this day just that readers don't get overwhelmed. But again, that's what those inboxes are gonna look like for that entire week. It's going to be from all these authors and all these introductions. And I know I'd be like, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. Jesper (26m 57s): Yeah. Or people just use like a fake a on another fake. But you know that you just use the Hotmail account that they just created for this stuff. And then as soon as they get the books onto the Kindle that, you know, they never log into that Hotmail account. They never read the emails, they just grabbed the book and then that's it. Right. So what's the again, what's the value there then? Autumn (27m 16s): And exactly. And plus I know those group promos just like everything. I think this is even true with book sales, just everything it's, or even advertising, it's harder to get those numbers. I mean, my first promo that I ever did, I think I got 10,000 downloads now I don't even get 10,000 downloads. If I do a book funnel, it's just there are so many more books. So now you know, you're talking about a couple hundred a baby, a thousand subscribers are fantastic. But honestly that one month long promo that I organized, I was thrilled with the outcome because you know, most people are, we're seeing between two to 500 subscribers. That is fantastic. In a month. Some of the ones I joined now, you know, I think I just had a group promo where I think I had 322 downloads and I'm like, Hey, that was pretty good actually. It is. I was actually really surprised. So there are still some ones, but again, it's coming. It's drilling down and telling yourself one, you can't join every single one there is because then you are going to get your book out there to maybe too many people. And again, if they're choosing it, that's great. But again, you're sending it to your readers too and you should do your part. And so you don't want to drive your readers crazy with like four or five, six promos of every single email. It's kind of, you know, that's really taking advantage of them. Or are you doing a newsletter where you're just sending out emails about other books or are you doing a newsletter that's about your writing and you've got to make that choice and find that balance. Jesper (28m 44s): Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I would say, you know, if it's sort of like a group promo for example, like the one you hosted the last year where there was a ton of free books and then you know each, each person within that promo code then email their own list and say, okay, here's a link from where you could download a ton of books and needs of the authors in there gave a book away for free. And I think something like that is fine because you're doing a service to your reader by, you know, here's a lot of fantasy books that you can get for free. So most readers will like that. But that said, you have to be really mindful because if you do that all the time, if I was on my favorite authors email list and he was, he or she was emailing me, eh, let's say every second week with another 50 books that I could die, I would go and seem pretty quickly. It's like, what the, I mean, I cannot not read all these books anyway. And I mean once in a while doing it like once every six or something like that. To me, and again, this is personal preference, so take that with a grain of salt. But in my personal preference, that would be okay. Uh, the, the newsletter swaps I hate, but I don't know. I mean, I, I do know that, uh, this might be a bit of a different sort of topic, but it's been something that I've really been turning over and over in my mind because I've been thinking that for like, I think it was two podcast episodes back, I was mentioning how I was thinking about creating like a free course for four authors, uh, to give away to, to our new led newsletter subscribers on, on amwritingfantasy. And one of the things, our sessions or whatever you wanna call it for for that free costs has been around. I want to talk something about this Permafree stuff, which is linked into the newsletters or sorry, LinkedIn to promotions. And, um, and, and this topic that we're talking about here today, because obviously the value in group promos is because you're giving away a free book. But I still haven't really made up my mind and that's what I want. I want to make up my mind so that I can give sort of a here's my, here's my why as to why I'm thinking the way I am. Because right now I'm not sure because on one hand, I mean I have my own and you also have your own, your one for free Permafree and I do see every day probably like, I dunno, maybe 10 downloads on Amazon without me doing anything. It's just because it's free. And that's certainly 10 downloads. I wouldn't have been there otherwise. And then of course, if, if some people liked the book, then they will go and buy book number two in the book number three and so forth. So there's a logic there at play. But this is then the flip side. And this is where I haven't really made up my mind which camp I'm in and I need to figure that out. But I also understand the argument of saying yes, but since Rita's I able to just download so many free books as as it is possible today, there's a ton of free books out there. Basically the, the, that that was, I don't know who coined this term, but somebody, somebody called it Kindle stuffing, you know, that you're just filling your Kindle up with a ton of books just because there's also this collector's item, eh, sort of need that kicks in. Like, Oh, it's awesome. Like I have 2000 books or whatever, you know, at the end, they're not gonna read any of it anyway. And they're not, if they are downloading this many books and signing up for this many promos, they're not going to read the emails either. So, so what I, when I was saying early on that it's the new job as an author to make sure that you write emails that that hooked them. But if they don't read any of them, it doesn't really matter. And you know, you're just playing into a game of, yeah, let's feel everybody's people, you know, every, every one's Kindles up with free books. And then I don't know what the point is anymore because the goal is gone in this terminology he or, or this point of view, but, but as again, as I said, I don't know which camp I sort of believe in, if I believe that it is a good viable option to do the Permafree because years back it was a very viable strategy and it worked really well. But nowadays with so many free books and so many people downloading them, uh, I'm not sure if we've sort of moved past the point in the market where the free book is not that good anymore to have. But yeah, I, I really don't know and I, I need to do more thinking because I cannot make up my mind. So I know that's not very helpful. That's my thinking. Autumn (33m 18s): But I, I don't disagree and I do think that, um, I know even like I said, we both have PERMA freeze. But my two, my newest series, the one I've got two in the works that I'm, that I'm going to finish one first and then finish the other one. But I have put out two novellas and I did not make them free. And people, I'm sorry, leaders who are listening to this, I have no plans of making them free right now. If you happen to hunt around, you may find them in a free promo somewhere, but it will be exclusive. It's usually only for a couple of weeks. It's only by my choice. Otherwise they're on Amazon and they are 99 cents and I'm not planning on making them Permafree I'm planning on doing that and maybe every once in awhile opening them up briefly on my website or through these group promos and that'll be the only way to get them for free. And it is a, it's a different technique and more people are using that where you know, your book is for sale online, a for sale on Amazon. But occasionally you can get it as something exclusive and that adds that little extra shine that hopefully people will read it. And I also think that novellas are becoming more of the, the way of giving away a free book. You and I both have full length Epic fantasy novels. I know mine is 105,000 words and I do have people downloading it every day without even being advertising it. Uh, they do go on and read the incomplete six books series, which is fantastic. And I loved that. But so I don't know, maybe born of water will stay free because I don't have a novella at the beginning. But you know, if I ever came up with one, I may switch it over and create a novella and put that at the beginning and offer that as free. I'm not sure. And that's the tough thing. Readers, if you're listening to this, writers are not trying to milk you for money. We're trying to make a living. I am a full time author and graphic artists. This is literally how I put food on my plate. So I don't think there's anything wrong with making a living where you can afford to eat and be creative and get paid to be a creative individual. I think it's fantastic. I hope. But it is important and it's not always, it's not easy every day cause trumps me. But book sales fluctuate. Yeah. Yeah it does. But you start getting smart with this as a business and you have to start asking questions. I'm happily, I'm a prolific writer enough. I except for my two week recent break when I've got to get myself back in gear and get this book done. Uh, you know, I'm usually a prolific enough where I can release a couple books a year. I can hoping to do an entire series plus what we're writing next year. 2020 is going to be big and that is fantastic. And that's a good way of doing it. And because I have 16 books out, I can play with different techniques and that's amazing. That's so much fun. Jesper (36m 13s): Once you have, the easier it becomes, obviously Autumn (36m 15s): it does, it's try different tactics with different books and not sweat it because when you only have one series to play with, it's a big change. Does decide to put something in Kindle unlimited to do, you know, make something free versus not free. Those are big changes and they have a very big impact when it's your only series. Jesper (36m 34s): Yeah, indeed. And if I, if I can just share one more of, uh, my, uh, look it from this side and then look it from that side arguments here because you triggered something else in me and what you just said because yeah, I mean when you were talking about am that we also have to make a living from selling books and, and you know, that we shouldn't feel, I guess you didn't say this, but I guess it's, it's sort of embedded in there somewhere. We shouldn't feel ashamed about charting for our work. And I'm sort of of the opinion here. So, so he, okay, so he comes to a side and afterwards I'll give you the B side, but, but the AA side is saying, I mean Kindle books or eBooks, it doesn't matter if it's Kindle or on COBOL, wherever you're selling books. But a book for five, six, seven, eight, I'll even say nine 99 it's damn cheap. I mean, come on, you're, you're getting like 100,000 word novel that is probably taking sometimes years, but at at least quite a while. And uh, if it's a very experienced writer than it'll be fast obviously. But then you're also getting quality, but you're getting a quality novel for let's say, just go with a high price you and say 10 bucks, 10 bucks is not a lot for a book. And I feel like we have sort of put ourselves in a situation a bit as authors of where now there is an expectation that you can get it for, you know, almost nothing. And, and that's sort of the, the B side of this whole argument is, but what are, what are we, what is our goal here? I mean, what are we trying to do? Because if, if on one hand you were saying, okay, a side here I'm charging nine 99 side is saying I'm going to go Permafree obviously the besides argument here is that well if I'm going after and Rita who has never heard me before and I'm going to say to him, okay, Hey read my book and you just have to give me $10 and then I'm saying, and by the way, that's not expensive at all. And then the reader, if I put the reading glasses on and he looks at the beside and the byside, well well you don't know me so you have never read any of my work. So I think it's free ad and I'm going to give you this book for free. And then you can make up your mind yourself. And if you like it, you can read more and then of course you have to pay for it. But at least there was no barrier of entrance here that you need to pass it. You know, it's the barriers soloed at that. You can just give it a try. It's like a free sample thing, which is, which is sort of like they do in the supermarket as well. When they want you to buy some new chips or something, right? They give you a few future taste and then they want you to buy but so a and B side here, I mean they don't, but they both have valid points in my view. And again, this is where I cannot make up my mind because if we have really taught the readers of in today's day and age that you should just expect authors to write books for free. I mean then we just shot ourselves in the foot and, and what is the point then? Right? But on the other hand, since everybody else in the market or not everybody else, no, I'm exaggerating now but right but but since there is a lot of people in the market who are giving their books away for free and the barrier of entrance is so low, as I said before, how are you going to compete at that? Against that if you're saying, but I'm going to chow chow to nine nine to nine, right. I mean, if you're having a huge email list and you and the people love what you're doing, then well that's not a problem. You can just sell it for nine 99 and people will buy it. But I'm coming at this from the angle of what is the advice for a new author? She should you, should you make your poop Permafree and then say, and then I'm going to run some group promos and whatnot to, to get my name out there. Or are you just Kindle stuffing? You know, are you just playing into the, to the Kindle stuff in game and actually it's not gonna make any difference for your author career at all. And I don't know. So again, I need to make up my mind so I can make it cost module on this stuff because I really, I don't know right now. Autumn (40m 40s): Well, I think that that's gonna be a question that's, Hey, that's when we can ask our listeners as well. Jesper (40m 45s): Oh yeah, that would be good. Yeah. I would love some perspectives on this. Autumn (40m 49s): Yeah. Let us know if you think you know, free books are Kindle stuffing or if you think that's a really valid way, especially as a new author, if it's something that we should be looking at and doing so that you know, you get to be known as you were, you know, learning and growing as an author. And you know, once you get your email list to like something reasonable and 5,000 you can start charging like at least 99 cents for your new novella. And you know, let us know what you think because next week we talk about character arcs. Narrator (41m 30s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week we’re talking about ARCs or Advance Review Copies! What are they?  Why do we print them?  Who gets them?  Why do they smell better than your average book??  Rekka and Kaelyn discuss all of those things, tell a few funny stories, and spend more than a little time getting side tracked talking about ARCs they’ve received.  We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any particularly good pie recipes you may have – apple is especially appreciated! We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Rekka:00:00   Welcome back to another episode of the we make books podcast. I'm record Jay and I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore Kaelyn:           00:07   And I'm Kaelyn Considine and I am the acquisition editor for Parvus Press. This is one of my favorite things that happened in the process of publishing a book. And we are of course talking about advanced review copies or ARCs. Rekka:00:19   Because you get to see it and it's a thing and it's real and they haven't been lying to you this whole time and they're really going to publish it. Kaelyn:           00:24   I don't know what it is. I love getting the ARCs it's - Rekka:00:27   Do they smell different? Kaelyn:           00:28   They yes, they smell, this is a trade secret: they smell different than a regular book. Rekka:00:33   They do smell different, Kaelyn:           00:34   Yeah. Rekka:00:35   I'm going to dive in here. Kaelyn:           00:36   No Rekka's right in to the spine. Rekka:00:39   [laughter] Kaelyn:           00:39   Um, so yeah, we're just talking today a little bit about what ARCs are - Rekka:00:43   What it is because as you even mentioned, and I think one of our very intro episodes - Kaelyn:           00:46   It was the intro episode Rekka:00:48   You didn't even know what ARC meant so - Kaelyn:           00:49   That was the example I gave about don't be afraid to ask stupid questions because I knew what an advanced review copy was and I had just never heard it abbreviated to ARC and then I was like, oh, it's that thing I love. Rekka:01:00   Yeah. It's my favorite thing. I know what it is, I just didn't know you called it that. Kaelyn:           01:03   Yeah. You know, we talked a little bit today about what an ARC is, what its function is - Rekka:01:06   Who gets them. Kaelyn:           01:07   Who gets them. Rekka:01:08   And where they go. Kaelyn:           01:09   Where they go. Rekka:01:09   And what their purposes. Kaelyn:           01:11   Exactly. Yeah. So, um, you know, a little interesting bit about the history of them, sort of where they come from and why they are what they are. Rekka:01:20   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           01:20   Um, so I think it was a great episode. Rekka:01:22   Yeah Kaelyn:           01:22   I enjoyed doing it. Rekka:01:23   Yes. Well, I always like paying attention to ARCs and, and we get to squeal a little bit about ARCs that are out there in the world. Right this moment as we recorded. Kaelyn:           01:30   Yeah we definitely devolved into - Rekka:01:33   A little bit of squealing. Kaelyn:           01:33   A little bit of squealing. So apologies for that. Rekka:01:36   No apologies. Kaelyn:           01:37   Okay. Nevermind. We're not sorry. Rekka:01:38   Love us as we are - Kaelyn:           01:40   Or not at all. Thanks everyone for listening again and uh, we hope you enjoy the episode. Rekka:01:47   Yeah. Music:02:02   [inaudible] Kaelyn:           02:03   So today what we're talking about our advanced reader copies or ARCs Rekka:02:09   Or advanced review copies, what is the proper nomenclature? Kaelyn:           02:12   Well, that depends who you're sending it to. Okay. Um, I always call them advanced reader copies because that means readers and reviewers. Rekka:02:19   Okay. Kaelyn:           02:19   So, um, but yes, we're talking about advanced copies of your book, which are copies that your publisher will send out to people going like, Hey, we have this book coming out and it's awesome. You should read it. Give us a review or a blurb. And they're awesome. They're, actually ARC's a lot of times are collectors items. Rekka:02:38   Oh dear. Kaelyn:           02:38   Did you know that? Rekka:02:40   I don't want to see them on Ebay though. Kaelyn:           02:42   Not well, I mean, but that's actually, that's a thing. There are a lot of people that collect um, ARCs and uh, because frequently they're uh, you know, labeled as, you know, uncorrected advanced proof. Rekka:02:53   Advanced, mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           02:54   Um, Rekka:02:54   Not for resale. Kaelyn:           02:56   Not for resale. That does not always stop them from popping up. Rekka:02:59   Right. Kaelyn:           02:59   But like, you know, especially if the book really takes off and you have one of the early copies of it, that's a pretty cool thing to have, I think. Rekka:03:07   Yeah. Kaelyn:           03:07   I want to kind of go through some definitions real quick. Mostly between a galley and an ARC. I think galley has really fallen out of use as of late, but you might still hear people throw this term around. Rekka:03:21   Actually I heard it at the Nebulas quite a lot of different contexts. Kaelyn:           03:25   Yes and that was also a group of writing professionals and people who have been doing this for a while and I'm not going like, oh, they're old. Rekka:03:32   [laughs] Eh. Kaelyn:           03:32   But like people that are from, we're writing in an time that galleys were definitely still a thing so. A Galley actually comes from, uh, the middle well, the renaissance era when, uh, typesetting became a thing and you had to put all of the - Rekka:03:50   Letters, Kaelyn:           03:51   Everything in there, print it, and then the pages went into a galley, which was the metal tray that all they all got stacked up in before being bound. Rekka:04:00   Yes. Kaelyn:           04:00   So a galley for a long time was actually just the printed manuscript for corrections. So then you had an uncorrected proof that's, you know, when someone goes through and marks everything up and when oh, my God, we used to have to do this by hand, everyone. Rekka:04:17   Yes. Kaelyn:           04:17   Um, then you have a final proof, which is okay, we're good. The book is in the shape, it's in the, uh, grammar and the punctuation is, uh, mostly correct and in our day and age now that becomes an advanced reader copy. And the main difference between a galleon advanced reader copy now is a galley, is basically a bound manuscript. Um, it probably does not have cover art. It's probably just in a book with big letters on it saying what it is and who it was by. An ARC. On the other hand is going to have cover art. Um, it's going to have cover copy on it. It will say uncorrected advanced proof. Um, or some version of that. It's probably, it might just have a big red band across the top. It might have like a big sticker in the middle of it, Rekka:05:06   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           05:06   But it is going to be very clear that this is an ARC. This is not the actual book. Rekka:05:11   Right. Kaelyn:           05:11   So - Rekka:05:12   What is the reason that you would send out a thing that is not the actual book? Kaelyn:           05:16   [lauhgs] That is an excellent question, Rekka. This is actually gets to the heart of a bigger thing, which is why does it take so long to publish a book? Rekka:05:25   What the hell anyway? Kaelyn:           05:26   Well, because your ARCs are going out about six months before the book is released because what your publisher is going to be trying to do is get buzz around it. Get people to say like, Oh yeah, I'll write a review on it. Get a blurb that they can stick on the back cover for when the final release is well released. Rekka:05:43   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           05:43   Um, you want people to read this book and the people reading it know, this isn't the final. Rekka:05:50   Okay. Kaelyn:           05:50   They're not getting this and going, oh my God, this ugh - didn't put the commas in the right place. Rekka:05:55   Commas aren't voice. What the hell? Kaelyn:           05:57   Yeah, no, that should be taken care of by the. [laughs] The publishers are sending it to them in hopes of them getting it and going, wow, this is really great, I'm going to write a review on it. There is this book and it's awesome and I loved it and here's all the great stuff I loved about it and you should go buy it. Rekka:06:12   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           06:12   We're all trying to generate sales here. We're all trying to make money. Rekka:06:16   So this is a marketing tool, you would say? Kaelyn:           06:18   Yes, I would definitely call it a marketing tool. It is to generate interest in the book. Your ARC is a very precious, very special thing that I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of, you know, we came back from the Nebulas a bit ago and Rekka actually got the unique chance to hand out some of her own ARCs. Rekka:06:40   Yes. And so I got very nervous because, um, Kaelyn said to me as she opened the box, don't just give these to anybody. Kaelyn:           06:51   Yes. Rekka:06:52   So apparently there's an audience for ARC that is more worthy than another. Kaelyn:           06:57   It's not that there is an audience that is more worthy. It's that there is an audience that is going to do more for you and - Rekka:07:05   Right. Kaelyn:           07:05   I know, you know, I'm going to come in and be the coldhearted publisher here, but, and something I keep saying, at the end of the day, we're all here to sell the book. So if you, you know, in this case only have a limited number of these that were shipped to the conference. Rekka:07:19   Right. Kaelyn:           07:21   You have shipped - Rekka:07:22   Hand delivered. Kaelyn:           07:22   Hand delivered, hand delivered to the conference. You have to, you can't just hand them out to your friends at that point. Your ARCs are to get people to pay attention to your book. So you want to get them into the hands of people that are going to take the time, spend the time with these, and hopefully say something nice about them. They're going to put some thought into it. They're not just going to, you know, put it in a pile and go like, oh, I guess I'll read that eventually. Rekka:07:48   Right. And let's just be straightforward. This is a short run of your book. So they are also expensive. Kaelyn:           07:53   They are expensive. Yeah. They're, this is not, you know, obviously if you're at one of the bigger publishing houses, this is, you know, whatever, you just make however many, how many will be printed, depends on the book. I don't have an answer to that. It can be a hundred to 500. It could be, you know, any number of them. But also ARCs are sent out digitally now - Rekka:08:14   Yes. Kaelyn:           08:14   -as well. Rekka:08:15   Some people prefer them digitally Kaelyn:           08:16   Some people prefer them digitally. Rekka:08:17   Which is a shame because if they have the final cover art on them, that sort of loses a little bit of the glamour. Kaelyn:           08:23   Yeah. Rekka:08:23   Because there are people who take a photo of the books that arrive in the mail that day. Kaelyn:           08:28   I always get so excited whenever I see one of our books and like someone's stack and I'm like, Rekka:08:32   It's always a stack. So make sure your spine is pretty too. Kaelyn:           08:34   Yeah. Um, and that's actually the thing. People get a lot of these. Rekka:08:38   Yeah. Kaelyn:           08:38   Yeah and it's a lot of work to read and review those kinds of things. So like most people especially, you know, if you're just like, you have a blog that gets attention or you just, you know, run a website where you do this kind of stuff, sending someone an ARC is not a guarantee that they're going to review it. Rekka:08:52   Right. Kaelyn:           08:52   There's actually a very good chance that they won't - Rekka:08:54   Just because of the quantity of ARCs they receive. Kaelyn:           08:57   I mean, you do it anyway because it's an industry norm. Like, I mean, I think they're fun. I really like them. One of my favorite things is sending out all the Parvus Arcs. I love um, you know, like you get the giant box of them and like it's really cool because I'm usually the first person to see the physical copy of this book. Rekka:09:14   Yeah, mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           09:14   And it's like, it's so pretty, it's everything I imagined it would be. Um, so that's, that's a treat with me because at Parvus, I'm the one who send out the ARCs just cause I like doing it. Rekka:09:28   Yup, yup. and you have a big table that you have access to. Kaelyn:           09:30   I have a big table that I spread out on and you know, put everything in. And um, one of the things I do, because this is the thing is everyone gets bombarded with these is I always try to do something a little special to the books. I tried to wrap them in a way that's thematic to the book. So, um, cause I really, I don't know what it is. I don't know why I just really like dealing with and sending out the ARCs cause they're special. Rekka:09:54   Yeah. They're like, these are the, the new baby announcements. These are the - Kaelyn:           09:59   Yeah it is, it is just the new little baby that has come into the, come into the world. It's like, wow, this really exists now. Rekka:10:05   It's really happening. Kaelyn:           10:06   Yeah. Rekka:10:07   Yeah. So that's as an as an author. Kaelyn:           10:09   Yeah. Rekka:10:10   That's the exciting part for me. It's like, oh my gosh, look, it really exists. As you're really going through with this, like, yeah, we're doing this, we're doing this. And my Gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, and here's my cover and here's what it looks like printed. And there's just something so lovely about seeing the cover, not as a .jpeg. Kaelyn:           10:26   And holding it, and just being like, oh my God, like it's a book Rekka:10:29   It's a real thing. Kaelyn:           10:30   Like for real now, Rekka:10:31   Like I said, all the words in order and everything - Kaelyn:           10:32   And I wrote those words! Rekka:10:34   Yes and oh my gosh, now I have to decide who gets to read those words and oh my gosh, who's was just going to help me because I'm scared. Kaelyn:           10:41   So you know what actually we brought up a good thing is that, did you notice who gets the ARCs here? Rekka:10:47   Sure. Kaelyn:           10:47   It's not sure the author, right? It's the publisher. Rekka:10:50   I happened to be in the building where they arrived. Kaelyn:           10:53   Rekka just happened to be there because we were at this conference. Rekka:10:55   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           10:57   Um, but we get the ARCs. Rekka:11:00   Right. Kaelyn:           11:00   Not the author because we're the ones who decide who they go to. Rekka:11:06   Yeah. Kaelyn:           11:07   Now, I mean authors definitely, you know, like if you have someone that's like, Hey, talk to this person, and they said they'd be happy to send a review, absolutely we're going to send them a - Rekka:11:14   Right. Kaelyn:           11:15   - a copy of that. Um, but authors, you guys don't get to decide who the ARCs get sent to because the publishers are the ones with the relationships - Rekka:11:25   The familiarity with the process. Kaelyn:           11:26   Exactly. Yeah. And also, you know, the like I sent handwritten notes with a lot of our ARCs where it's like, hey, you know, you really liked this other thing we sent to you. Maybe you've enjoyed this. Rekka:11:36   Right. Kaelyn:           11:38   Again, authors, you guys don't have as much control over this process as you think you do. Rekka:11:43   Okay, but now having said that, what if somebody is self publishing and decides they want to send physical or even digital arts, how would they decide who should receive them? Kaelyn:           11:53   Well, there's a few ways to do that. And um, it is one of those kind of like trade things of how I get my list of physical addresses to Rekka:12:02   Right. Kaelyn:           12:02   send this to. And that is one of the biggest parts of this, you know, but there are people that do review blogs and different stuff that will just say like, Hey, if you want to send me a review copy, this is where you send it to. Rekka:12:14   Yup. Kaelyn:           12:14   Um, so finding that on your own is just a matter of digging. There's really no good way to do it. I'm sure there's like websites and resources and stuff, but you know, take everything with a grain of salt, Rekka:12:25   Right. Be careful about submitting your advanced copy to a site that you're not that familiar with as a self publisher. You might find yourself on a pirated site as a result of going through these. Instafreebie was a thing for a while that people were using for advanced review copies. And I think that backfired. It might've even, I think they've changed the way instareview works these days. Kaelyn:           12:47   I think so. I will say Netgalley is an excellent resource. Rekka:12:51   Netgalley is pricey, but it's supposedly going to get you the higher quality reviews that you're going to be hoping for. Um, Reedsy now has a book discovery, um, process for the same sort of thing, but you only get one review through that. Um, but it's supposedly a higher quality review and if it's a good review then they feature it. So in theory you're getting exposed to more. Um, but you know, look at the audiences of the people that you're sending it to. Look at the, the quality of their reviews, look at the types of things they tend to say. If you are looking to collect, um, quotes that you can put on your cover, you need them not to be reviews that don't get around to the point until the end of the paragraph and don't really put it in a short pithy phrase that you can lift. Kaelyn:           13:36   Yeah. Anything you pull for like a blurb is going to be a sentence. Rekka:13:40   A tweet length. Kaelyn:           13:41   Yeah, a tweet like as a good is a good marker for them. Aside from sending out the actual physical books. Um, we use Netgalley and a couple other sites. Um, and what that allows us to do is give access to the book to people that maybe aren't on our list - Rekka:13:57   But they're seeking. Kaelyn:           13:57   But they're seeking. Rekka:13:59   Yeah. Kaelyn:           14:00   And they're interested in reading this kind of stuff. So that's, that's a great tool too. But we do still send out the physical books. It's just something that's never going to go away. So that's, you know, that's who is getting, get the ARCs now. What are they going to do with them? Well, there's a very good chance they're going to sit in a stack of books that they will get to eventually. Rekka:14:18   Eventually. Maybe after release date. Kaelyn:           14:20   People that are doing these get, I mean dozens every month and even if you did nothing else but sit there and read them, I don't think you'd finish - Rekka:14:30   Right. Kaelyn:           14:31   - all of these. A lot of times having a personal relationship will help with that. Um, you know, publishers will kind of, you know, talk to someone beforehand or maybe someone through the author that they know to say like, oh, hey, would you be willing to, to give this a read and give us a review? We'd like to use you for a blurb. So I don't want to paint the picture of spamming people - Rekka:14:52   Right. Kaelyn:           14:52   With this in the hopes that one of them pick it up. But you do do some of that because you know, sometimes a book just catches someone's eye, but review copies are also sent up digitally and that one definitely can be more of a like, hey, everyone read this. Rekka:15:06   Yeah. Kaelyn:           15:06   So what are they going to do with that? Let's say they picked it up, they're going to read it. And depending on if they, you know, had talked to the publisher beforehand about like, Hey, would you do this, you know, this specific kind of review or you know, interview about it. Some people will just pick it up and write a review on it and say like, you know, I really liked this. This part was lacking. Those are going to be the honest reviews you get. Rekka:15:30   Yeah. Kaelyn:           15:30   And those are the ones that are a little scary. Rekka:15:31   Yes. Kaelyn:           15:32   Usually if it's going through the publisher and the person will have already kind of had an understanding of what the book is going to be and agree to do it so that they don't have to then be put in the awkward position of writing. I wasn't super into this. Rekka:15:45   Yeah. Sometimes you're going to get people that you don't have that specific agreement with ahead of time that you know, find it through Netgalley and they might - Kaelyn:           15:55   And that's a risk. Rekka:15:56   And that's a risk. Um, Netgalley does allow you to require to approve requests for the ARCs and you could take a look at their profile and say like, you only read erotica. I do not want you to read my space opera. Kaelyn:           16:08   Yeah. Rekka:16:08   You know, um, cause that's a risk that happened to me once with, um, a site that I was using to host my ebooks. I did not realize had added the ebooks to a public list and somebody who was very much into Christian books and Erotica. Kaelyn:           16:24   Oh, interesting. Rekka:16:25   Read the book and left me a review on Amazon that said, it's slow to start, but it gets there and I'm like, it doesn't get where you thought it was going, but all right. Kaelyn:           16:35   [laughs] Rekka:16:35   And it was a three star review and then I'm stuck with it. You know, that's just a funny anecdote aside, but it is, um, if you can, you know, vet the, the service that you're using to gather advanced reviewers, um, and then have one specifically that either makes you or your listing private so that you have, you are sending out the link and that's the only way to get it. Or you send it to specific email addresses and it has to be tied to those email addresses or um, something like Netgalley where you at least have to take a look at the person's profile and say, yeah, I don't really, you have no history of actually publishing reviews once you've read it, so I'm not interested in you. Kaelyn:           17:11   There are ways to control this and um, you know, there's ways you can make it so that people aren't just going to read a free book and there's was around it. And um, you know, there's, you have some degree of control over this. Um, now also though, exercising that degree of control can reduce the amount of reviews and exposure your book gets. Rekka:17:53   So it's a trade off. Kaelyn:           17:54   Yeah. Um, so that's kind of what's going to happen when the ARCs go out into the world. Rekka:18:03   So when you are collecting blurbs from industry professionals or industry readers or you are collecting reviews from other ARC readers, what's the goal? Like when you, when you launched the book, what are you hoping to have? Kaelyn:           18:17   By the end of it, what I'm hoping to have is a solid set of reviews, a solid set of blurbs. And people saying they liked the book. Rekka:18:26   Okay. Kaelyn:           18:26   There isn't a, you must have this many. It depends on the scale of the launch, you know, if it's like, you know, Chuck Wendigs "Wanderers" is coming out soon and like that's already got - Rekka:18:40   There's stuff everywhere for that. Kaelyn:           18:41   There's stuff everywhere for it, it's got dozens of reviews. And if you're working with like a more independent publisher like Parvus yes, we will absolutely target certain things and we will still come in good and strong, but it's not going to be, you know, the scale and scope that something from like Simon and Schuster - Rekka:18:57   Right. Kaelyn:           18:58   Is going to generate. Um, but even, you know, certain things from it depends on how much money they want to put into the marketing. Rekka:19:05   Right. Kaelyn:           19:05   And that's an uncomfortable thing to hear. And ARCs are part of the marketing, but they're not the whole of the market. Rekka:19:11   Right. Kaelyn:           19:12   They're actually a small fraction of it, in terms of marketing. Rekka:19:16   They're a level of social proof that, you know, this isn't an untested book. Someone has read it, enjoyed it. Don't be afraid to check it out. Kaelyn:           19:25   Yeah. So now you might be wondering, well, what's in my ARC? When do I know this book is quote unquote ready for ARCs? A lot of this has to do with publishing calendars. One working on a book takes a while. So right off the bat, that's probably bare minimum six to nine months, probably longer than that, depending on the editor's calendar. So then when the book's done, there's a lot of stuff to do with it afterwards. And all of that considered you need at least six months, maybe even eight or nine to start putting the book out there to generate interest in buzz and send out advanced copies. Right. Six months I think is pretty standard. So that's half a year right there. Right. And then you're figuring out everything in the lead up to that. So if you're going, well, if it's six months beforehand, what happens in those six months after. You finish the book? Rekka:20:24   Right [laughs] Kaelyn:           20:25   Yeah. Um, and I shouldn't say finish it as in finishing writing it, but this is when it's maybe some touches, some line that it's definitely copy, you know, a real true copy edit. You may get feedback from your reviewers that are like this thing, heres not working. Rekka:20:45   Yeah. I would blurb this except for this major thing. Kaelyn:           20:50   And then, hey, guess what? Rekka:20:52   You're going to take that thing out. Kaelyn:           20:53   You're going to go back and work on the book a little more. Rekka:20:54   Yeah. Kaelyn:           20:55   Um, because we're in a digital age, it's so much easier to fix these things and send them out again. You know? So like if a publisher is feeling a little iffy on a book, maybe they'll send it out a little earlier, get some early feedback. Rekka has firsthand experience in a pretty, not significant, but not small changes that were made after ARCs went out Rekka:21:18   They were not line edits, they, they were, uh, we got feedback on the ARCs which, um, caused us to go in and correct a couple of small points that were overcorrections based on earlier feedback. Kaelyn:           21:33   By the way, they were great, you know, great corrections. Your book absolutely is, well, I mean, it was already amazing, but Rekka:21:39   It's improved for having made these corrections - Kaelyn:           21:40   And getting that back is not, uh, this sucks. And sometimes it's like, hey, look, we got this feedback. Rekka:21:46   Yeah. And this feedback is something we want to act on because of the source of the feedback or the nature of the feedback or you know, this was not something we'd thought carefully about at the time when we were, you know, doing structural edits. But now that it's, you know, got a spotlight on it, we're realizing, yeah, taken, taken as it is in this moment. We don't want to publish it this way. Kaelyn:           22:09   Yeah, you know, I think a lot of people listening to this might think, Oh God, like so they can just go back and make me change all of these things after the book is done. Let me be very clear about something that is not a decision any publisher would make lightly. Rekka:22:20   No. Kaelyn:           22:21   Um, Rekka:22:21   But if in that moment you already know that that book should have been put out differently, you still have a chance to change it and in two years you're going to wish that you changed this. Kaelyn:           22:34   And don't think of it as a frustration. Think of it as an opportunity to get a little bit of a do over a little bit of you get to time travel a bit here. You get to go back and fix something. Rekka:22:46   Now, if that feedback came in on a review site, that review may be there forever. But um, that's, you know, eventually it will get buried more or something, you know. But um, it's, it's not like you can pretend it never happened, but it is a chance to show that like, yeah, I'm going to take that feedback and I'm going to do what I can to correct it versus, uh, nope, it's good, it's good, it's fine, you're wrong. And you know, shouting down the reviewer. Kaelyn:           23:16   You know, the other thing here is don't, don't think that your publisher is taking every review and going, oh my God, this thing they didn't like, we need to fix it. Rekka:23:25   I have, I have gone to Colin again, you know, this is my, I have a personal relationship with, with Parvus Press. I've gone to Colin and said, I saw that review that just posted. He's like, don't worry about it. Kaelyn:           23:34   Yeah. Rekka:23:34   That's wrong. Don't worry about it. It's an off the mark. Kaelyn:           23:36   It is and, I will say it can be very frustrating, especially like you know, especially for the writer but like as the editor and I know what people at home were probably screaming into their listening devices at this point is well Kaelyn. You always say if a lot of people are saying it, then it's something you need to take into account. Rekka:23:52   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           23:54   Here's the thing you need to understand about reviewers. I won't say they have an agenda because they don't, a lot of times they just enjoy doing these things, but there are definitely people that something maybe they wouldn't read review this book except something bothered them about it so they need to go online and set it right. Rekka:24:12   I mean this is the age of the Internet where we go online to complain about things. Kaelyn:           24:16   We also go online to galvanize things. Rekka:24:18   Yeah. Kaelyn:           24:18   We would go online to, you know like, and I really wish we'd have more of that in the world. Talk about things you love. Rekka:24:24   Oh my gosh right now that what you will hear people screaming about, it's still won't be out when we air this episode is Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir and Kaelyn is making a face because Kaelyn has not gotten to read this yet Kaelyn:           24:37   I have not gotten an advanced copy of that and I'm not happy. Rekka:24:40   As soon as mine comes back, I will, I will loan it to you. Um, you will have to let Ryan read it over your shoulder because I've also promised it to him. This book is amazing and it's just a - Kaelyn:           24:50   Ryan Kelley, by the way, is Rekka's editor- Rekka:24:53   I suppose we should introduce him. Kaelyn:           24:55   And she's not sure who you're more tied to here. Rekka:24:58   Well I see you more often. Kaelyn:           25:00   That's true. Rekka:25:00   I haven't met Ryan in person yet and Ryan and I talk when I've done something wrong. Um, Kaelyn:           25:07   [laughter] Rekka:25:07   But um, yeah, so like that's what I mean. Like the gal - , you will go on Twitter - Kaelyn:           25:11   Yes. Rekka:25:11   and you will just see people are screaming their heads off in love with this book for good reason. Kaelyn:           25:16   And I am, I love seeing that kind of stuff. I love when to use the example of Gidion the Ninth and generating buzz. For instance, the way I first heard about this book was our Rekka:25:27   Mutual friend. Kaelyn:           25:28   Mutual friend Alexandra Rowland. Rekka:25:29   Alex was showing our other mutual friend - Kaelyn:           25:33   Yes. Yes, that was it. Rekka:25:33   Jennifer Mace, Macy at the table. I already had read mine or it was halfway through mine or something at that point. And um, I was able to pick it up, show it to Kaelyn and say, you need to read this book at some point, open it up to a random page and find an amazing like line that was just like evidence of why this book was great. And the buzz at that table, there were four people sitting at that table at that point - Kaelyn:           25:58   All talking about this. Rekka:26:00   All talking about this one book two people who haven't read it yet, who now had to read it. And that's the power of, that's the magic review copy Kaelyn:           26:08   That's the magic of ARCs. You know, I don't think anyone actually does this. I'd be curious if people really go through and look for the differences. If you got the ARC and then you get the final copy, I'm sure for certain books that are super fans that will do that Rekka:26:22   Well, for Salvage, they're are going to be some obvious differences. Kaelyn:           26:25   Yes. Rekka:26:28   Um, Salvage - Kaelyn:           26:28   Let's talk about that. What the difference between, you know, how different can you expect an ARC to be from your final copy? Rekka:26:36   We mentioned earlier that an ARC may not be produced in the same print run style that the final would be, which might make it more expensive, but we'll also create differences in the paper and the, the trim and things like that. Kaelyn:           26:52   We'll put a picture of this up on Twitter and Instagram. But, um, we, we were going out to the Nebulas and we were like, you know what, we've got to get Salvage out because Rekka:27:02   I'll be there. Kaelyn:           27:04   Rekka, will be there. But also we're really excited about this and we're like, it would be a wasted opportunity to not just have a bag with, you know, a few of these that we can hand out. Right. Rekka:27:12   And when I say that I'll be there. I didn't mean because they need to give me an ARC to make me feel happy and pretty. Kaelyn:           27:18   No, it's - Rekka:27:18   It's because I will be there making personal connections with people and here's a great chance to hand them the ARC. Kaelyn:           27:25   Yeah. Rekka:27:26   If immediately following or whatever. Kaelyn:           27:28   Yeah. Rekka:27:28   That conversation. Kaelyn:           27:29   Yeah. And if the ARCs handed to you by the author, it's, and it's an extra little special, you know, so we were like, okay, we're going to do this. And we used a different printer than we normally do just because of where we could fit into the printer's schedule. But we did use a local printer so that they were just right there and they use very, very nice paper. Rekka:27:49   It's very nice. Kaelyn:           27:49   It's really nice paper. It made the book about half an inch thicker. Rekka:27:55   Over 576 pages as it turns out, 0.0006 inches of difference in paper thickness adds up to .4 inches. Kaelyn:           28:05   Yeah. Rekka:28:05   In spine width, so we'll put a picture up of the, the Nebula version of the ARCs next to Flotsam and next to the final version of the ARCs that were printed later. Kaelyn:           28:15   Yeah. So, and that is something you also see with ARCs is a lot of times the book looks at, the only way I can describe it is as awkward [laughter] and just you pick it up and you're kind of like, I know this isn't quite right. Yeah. Um, but yeah, this, this was - Rekka:28:32   There's some growing pains and - Kaelyn:           28:33   Yeah this is, uh quite a quite a size. So it's, um, it's cool to have hold to have those. Rekka:28:37   It's a massive chunky book. Kaelyn:           28:40   Yeah. So, but anyway, um, there's going to be differences in Salvage from what the ARC is to a final print run. Rekka:28:51   And some of that is just going to be simple, like the cover is going to look slightly different because the ARC binding has - Kaelyn:           28:59   Was so thick. Rekka:29:00   Well pull that. Well, yeah. Okay. So the spine is going to be very different. Therefore the weight of the book is going to be different. But also there's a red band across the outside of the cover that says on it, um, uncorrected advanced review, um, and the dates that it will be published there. Um, therefore all the, the titling stuff has moved down and adjusted. Um, the back cover copy is not the final back cover copy. This is more like, you know, why you should open this ARC versus the ARC that came the same day to your PO Box. Um, and the artwork on the inside I have supplied because I draw the chapter art for my own books. Um, this is not expected of all authors by the way. Kaelyn:           29:40   That's not even usually tolerated and everything. Rekka:29:43   Right. So I, I do have a professional background in design. Kaelyn:           29:46   So anyway .... Rekka:29:48   So anyway, so Salvage, uh, currently the ARCs have the same chapter art from Flotsam because the chapters themselves have different POV characters. And just on the timeline, I don't think there was a chance to really sit down with the, um, with the layout person who was not me in this case and say like, okay, it's chapters one, seven, 11, 12 and 13. This art, this art, this art. Kaelyn:           30:14   Yeah. Rekka:30:14   So that was just a layer of complexity that wasn't going to happen on the timeline that we had. Um, so there will be different artwork on the inside. I didn't look whether Colin did his typical copyright page malarkey. Kaelyn:           30:30   Do you want to go grab the book and find out? Rekka:30:32   Yeah, I'll find out. Kaelyn:           30:33   I'll tell the story, our publisher, Colin Coyle, who I promise we will have on the show at some point, um, has a fun little thing he likes to do that there is an Easter egg in every Parvus book. Um, they're not always on the, uh, Rekka:30:49   I've seen this in something else. So this is not uh specific to Salvage. He must've lifted it from something else. Kaelyn:           30:54   Oh okay, yeah. Um, we have a little running joke at Parvus that there's an Easter egg in every book. Rekka:31:01   On the copyright page. Kaelyn:           31:02   Not always on the copyright page. Rekka:31:04   Oh dear. Kaelyn:           31:05   A lot of times, not always, Rekka:31:07   Alright, alright. Kaelyn:           31:07   But usually you can find at least one on the copyright page. So, you know, the whole point is that at the end when the final version of Salvage comes out, it's going to be different. It's not going to be majorly different. Rekka:31:19   But if you were selling this on Ebay, please don't, um, you would be able to point to like, yes, this is the version you're looking for because, um, evidenced by these various differences. Kaelyn:           31:31   Yup. So, um, that's, you know, how do you know when your book's ready for an ARC? We were kind of talking about this a little bit with the calendar. Really it kind of falls into your book is scheduled to be released this date. That means we have to start sending out ARCs by this time. Rekka:31:48   And there are also, um, publications that you might send it to in the hopes of like a starred review. Kaelyn:           31:53   Yeah. Rekka:31:53   And they have a very, they're very tight grace period of when they need to receive it by. So I say very long grace period. That's the opposite of what I mean, they have a very short window of opportunity. If you don't have it in by this date, it's not going to even be looked at. Kaelyn:           32:10   They're not going to look at it. So, um, when is your ARC done? Hopefully at least six months beforehand. Even if it's not done. But that's the thing. Your ARC is not your finished book. Rekka:32:22   Right. Kaelyn:           32:22   So when is your book done? That's completely separate issue from when your ARCs are ready to go out. Rekka:32:27   That can be 6:00 PM on the day that it needs to be uploaded to Amazon. Kaelyn:           32:30   If you're self publishing. Rekka:32:31   Self publishing, yeah. Kaelyn:           32:33   But if you're, you know, being, if you're going through a traditional publishing house and if you're distributed they don't need as much run time. Rekka:32:39   But like - Kaelyn:           32:40   They need some cause they have to order a print the books. Rekka:32:42   Yes. Kaelyn:           32:43   Um, and you know, we are living in a day and age where that happens much faster now. Rekka:32:48   But it still physically takes time. Like there's, there's a certain amount of time that it takes for the ink to dry on the page before they can bind it. There's a certain amount of time that it takes for the trimmer to cut through the, the massive, you know, oversized book and cut it down to its final trim size. Like these things just, you know - Kaelyn:           33:06   They just take time. Rekka:33:07   It takes Kaelyn a certain number of seconds to open an email and that limits how many submissions she can go through it. Kaelyn:           33:14   I can go through, yup. Rekka:33:14   Like it is just a physical limitation of the, you know, construct of time. Kaelyn:           33:20   Yup. The construct of time. It is a construct. Rekka:33:23   It's totally a construct because where does it go? Kaelyn:           33:25   Erm, eh yes. Rekka:33:27   So speaking of where does time go? We are out of time for this episode, but I - Kaelyn:           33:31   Already? Rekka:33:32   Yeah. Kaelyn:           33:32   I even got to get back to my roots and give a little history lesson in the beginning. Rekka:33:35   Yeah. Are you happy? Do you feel fulfilled? Kaelyn:           33:37   Um, I don't have any undergraduates, uh, looking at me, very bored. So - Rekka:33:42   So you feel like you did it wrong? Both:   33:45   [laughter] Kaelyn:           33:45   I feel a little better than I normally did. As always. I hope this was, uh, entertaining and educational. Rekka:33:52   Yeah. And if you have any questions that we didn't answer about ARCs, uh, you can shoot us a question at WMBcast on Instagram or Twitter. You can follow us and, or support us at patreon.com/wmbcast or email us at feedback@wmbcast.com. But, um, yeah, so ARCs are extremely cool. I hope everyone gets to look at an ARC someday - Kaelyn:           34:13   Yeah, and check out Netgalley. It's free to sign up for and you get to read and find a lot of really cool stuff on there. Rekka:34:18   Yes. Kaelyn:           34:19   Um, so you know, if you're looking, if you're interested in being involved in that kind of thing, Netgalley is a great place to start. And then you know, you can go on Goodreads, you can go on Amazon and say like, I got an advanced copy of this - Rekka:34:30   And maybe in a future episode we'll talk about like how to structure a review that is going to be useful for a lot. Kaelyn:           34:36   I've got thoughts. Rekka:34:37   Yeah, we've got thoughts I've got, there are definitely thoughts. So maybe that's a future episode or we're thrown on Patrion or something like that if it doesn't end up a full length episode. But I feel like we could rant about that 45 minutes. Kaelyn:           34:46   I'm not sure anyone's going to want to listen to it. Rekka:34:48   Yeah, you know, you know, emoting and commiseration are things that - Kaelyn:           34:52   We'll do a dial in, call us and tell us your, you know, so, um, yes. Rekka:34:57   So the other thing is if you are self publishing and you don't know how you're going to get an ARCs, you can get ARCs through kindle direct publishing. You can also upload your file to lulu.com or other, um, small - Kaelyn:           35:10   Print on demand. Rekka:35:11   Print on demand services and you can see it in person first. And honestly, I really feel like you should before you release it into the world because there's things that you just might not consider when you've only looked at it in a digital space. So that's another good reason to look at an ARC even though that's not really the traditional function of them. They're not the proofs, um, the cover proofs or anything like that. We're talking about, um, use in promoting your book, but order one before you order 20 is all I'm saying, if you haven't seen it in print before. Kaelyn:           35:40   Yeah. So, you know, thanks so much for listening. Everyone and - Rekka:35:42   Send us your questions. If you could rate and review us on iTunes, that would be great. And if you have a friend who is interested in writing or publishing, send them this episode, share it. You can help guide the conversation and sort of be part of it. So, uh, we'll look forward to hearing your comments and your ratings and reviews, and we'll start reading reviews in a future episode. We do have a couple, we just haven't fit that into the episode yet. Kaelyn:           36:03   Yes. Alright. Thanks so much for listening everyone, and we'll see you next time. Rekka:36:07   Take care everyone.  

A few weeks back we discussed how to set up an email list. Once that is sorted, you obviously need email subscribers. But, how do you get your first 1,000 email subscribers? What tips and tricks can you employ to get quality subscribers rather than a bunch of random people. We're here discussing email list growth strategies by sharing from our own experiences with email lists. New episodes EVERY single Monday. To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC  PATREON! Many bonus perks for those who become a patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy  LET'S CONNECT! Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/  Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/  Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper  Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer  Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Jesper (13s): All right. We are going to talk about email list building today. Two weeks ago we sort of talked about setting up email lists and also what social providers were livable for you when it comes to building a list. But, uh, we also promise to circle back to the topic of how we are going to build a list and a I think the best place to start is to talk about, well, the pump. Some people call them lead magnets, other people can't call them reader magnets the same, the same thing. Jesper (45s): But uh, but I think that's a good place to start. But what is a lead magnet magnet? Our reader magnet, maybe we should start there. Autumn Autumn (54s): good. Are there really, like you said, the same idea of what it really involves is finding something to give away for free, but it's not really freedom your I think it'll lay in exchange for someone's email address, which they're trusting with you. So treat it well, but that is the really the prime idea. And that could be anything from even giving away a book, a free book that then offers another free book in exchange for an email. Or it could be a book that you're selling, but what you're doing is you are giving away something from either the next book did the series works really well, but sometimes it's a pro, you know, previous book or a totally different book, but it is giving them away something like even hidden scenes. Autumn (1m 38s): I don't know what you've seen yes for that works really well, but there's a lot of different things that people can give away to attract readers that are interested in their own book to sign up for something free as well as give away their email address to you. Jesper (1m 53s): Yeah, you can be, you're going to get really baited with I did. I mean some people don't like it to give away a full book. I mean obviously obviously right. What to write a book and uh, well your spend money on editing and covers and whatnot. So some people don't like that. And if, if that's you, then no, you can get creative and you can give away like, um, an alternative ending to the movie. Autumn (2m 16s): Oh. Jesper (2m 16s): Or you can, mm. Uh, maybe you have some scenes that you've cut out of the book, uh, sort of you, you can share those or it could be some background information on it. When a character, like a character sheet with some information that is not shared in, in the novel itself. Um, it could short stories, short stories. Yeah. You must be spin off a short stories off. I thought the novel, no, you can do it ton of things and it doesn't have to be elaborate either. You know, you a which a dossier or it could be like a two page PDF for that matter. Jesper (2m 49s): I mean it doesn't have to be more than a. Autumn (2m 52s): I think Jesper (2m 53s): the main point is that it needs to be the exclusive, meaning that it should not be something that you can get from somewhere else as well. Well meaning and maybe logic say that. Well, um, people like to get it for free. A for example, let's say, let's say you have a, a short story for example, for sale for 99 cents and then you make it exclusive by the fact that, okay, but instead of buying it for 99 cents, you can also sign up here and then you'll get it for free. Jesper (3m 28s): That that, that would be the line of thinking but but I think actually that it works counter productive in the way that if you, you can get it somewhere people actually what and even sign up to get it for free. They will buy it instead, but a many and since, because they don't, there were certain rules stuff, so it has to be something that, okay, this is exclusive and can only get it here. A I think that works a lot better than if you're trying to say that it's inclusive, an exclusive either have you again or something for free. Jesper (4m 2s): Then you can also buy an Amazon for example. I don't think it works that well Autumn (4m 7s): though. There is a whole train of thought where you give away a the second book in a series that is for sale, but of course you'd be spending, you know it should be a lot more than two 99 I do give away the second book of my series if you sign up for it, but the book is priced at three 99 so it is an exclusive and there are a lot of people doing that. But I mean I definitely totally very tempted to try to do something completely exclusive that you can't buy it and anywhere else. I think that'd be a fun thing to do for my next areas. So it's worth trying out. But there, I don't think people should live with themselves, but again, I'm giving away an entire book and I do get people signing up to get that every single day. Autumn (4m 44s): So it definitely is an interest. But there is a drawback to doing that as well, is that I get a lot of emails saying, Hey, you gave me, can you give away? But to I would like the third one now for free and that's all. It's a fun conversation of it to you guys. Box. I was two years of my life. Your third one for free. Sorry. Yeah, Jesper (5m 4s): but I, but I think, I think that is the one difference to to this to what you just said there is the fact that when people have your title, okay and you get to the the back of the book and here is a link to the second book for free, which of course you could go to Amazon and buy that book. But at that point in time the people are fully invested in the story and and in what you're doing well already. So when you get to that stage it makes sense to offer them at that point in time a free book but my point was more if you're doing it upfront, you know before they even know you, they have not read anything about you. Jesper (5m 39s): And if you're then offering, here is a free book. If you give me your email address or you can go to Amazon and buy for 99 cents or two 99 for that matter, most people were buying instead of giving you the email address. But of course I, if the read the entire book and then your make the offer, then it's a different app because then no, Autumn (5m 58s): no have you, and they know that they liked the book and they would want to keep waiting and then it becomes a matter of, of course I'll get it for freedom because uh, you know, I have now a familiar your with you. Well, so I, I don't mind as much giving away my email address and it's very true and I think that is one reason I'd definitely works. A is having that already being invested in, you know, if you've done your book well that it leads into the next one. Can they want, let's see. Once that happened. The character. Okay. It's an easy sell to get an email address and we'll have them sign up for your email list in exchange for the book. Autumn (6m 32s): Yeah, indeed at the end. Then of course there the add on boldness of having of cross that a by then you know that you're getting the right people onto your email list because if people will like your, your your writing and they like your work so, so that's a very good bonus. You're know when you're giving me thank you S away for free up front. Some of the people who end up your on your list. I'll be the one right people so to speak. So some of them will end up on subscribing again on all that we talked about that two weeks ago and that happens. Autumn (7m 3s): That's okay. Hey don't worry about it. But it is a possibility. Well quality subscriber that you're getting, if they're signing up from the back of book then someone who doesn't know you. Absolutely. It's definitely makes a huge difference cause that's, that is one of the keys. And one of the things we'll talk about well who are going to once what you're giving them and who will become not just readers but fans of what you're doing. And that's sort of the key of why you're getting this email because you want them to buy from you in the future. Autumn (7m 33s): So you want to make sure you're getting a quality audience. But sure you're giving away something that makes sense for your book. You're getting this email address from them, you know, make sure it was related to who you are and what you're writing in your characters and your what, your sister you're telling and what you plan on selling in the future. If you've done a one shot genre, it might not be worth hello addresses if an ad is so atypical of what you ever plan on writing so keep that in mind as well. Make sure this is something about your brand and who you are as an office. Autumn (8m 6s): They're so that they're not confused whether they signed up for you when you're only releasing no paranormal romance, but they bought your detective story and that's what they really like. It won't work as well. S step number one is that you need to have solar blog Oh really? No magnet. Whatever you call it doesn't matter, but you did. You need to have something that you're giving away from you. So, so yeah, you need to figure out what, what that needs to be. But my advice would be make it exclusive a unless you are only trying to sign up in the back of the book. Autumn (8m 40s): But yeah, the drawback of that, let's say the positive as we said before, it was getting quality. You sign up. But the truth, all of it is that you need to send a lot of books then. And if you're not okay, you don't have it, the email list, it might be difficult or are these more difficult to sell more books? Jesper (8m 57s): So it's sort of Henan deck trouble. You're in here. So, and, and for that purpose a it does make sense to have some stuff. Oh, a a lead magnet that am you're giving away up front, you know? Um, but if you're going to get something in a way, then you also have to have a mechanism by where they can get the download that you're giving them an obviously it should be a digital product. I, I sort of just assumed that everybody knew your dad, but just to pitch, you have to mention that of course it should be because then you can just give it to them and a and they can download it. Jesper (9m 30s): Then you don't have to worry about any shipping stuff and whatnot. I don't want to do so, but you need to have a mechanisms by which they can then get the download a and that's where a signup forms comes into the picture. Autumn (9m 46s): Definitely. I mean, so we talked about a last week with a SaaS providers, you can always host something on your own website. If you know coding that you know they sign up. A woo commerce has a few plugins where you can do this as well so you could have it totally self hosted where they come, they give you the email. By doing that it takes them to another page where they can just go ahead and download what it did it ever is drinking, giving them. But definitely one of the easiest things is to go ahead and sign up for our email service provider that provides you a landing page that collects emails, that, that has them in a place where you're just going to go ahead and create an email, um, a newsletter that you will actually be sending to them later. Autumn (10m 28s): Or like we talked about last week with automations where they immediately get that first email as soon as they sign up because you don't want you to sign up and wait a day, two, three days. So like yet, whatever or does they signed up for, they're going to be really annoyed if you cannot deliver whatever it is you offer them for free. And you know, the first hour I've seen people, you know, wait five minutes and if they don't have the free download and like it's a scam, I just gave away my email and it's going to be totally spammed and I'm so, Jesper (10m 60s): yeah, before you added the scam part, I wish above to say that. That's, you know, well, I, I don't think that it's a scam. Weifarer but, um, but if I do not get the email on a download within five minutes, I, I'm wa I'm thinking something is wrong. There must be an error or something, some place. Yep. Oh, bye. You know, we don't have patients that do they, no, it should go fast and certainly I should have a weekend, an hour, so a then, then I would definitely do think something is wrong, but uh, but yeah, I mean the nice thing, hip hop, the electronics setup is that am the email service provider will send out the email instantly. Jesper (11m 35s): I asked that they sign up. And of course, this is, while it might be a bit difficult to sort of explain, but as soon as you get into it a you're going into mail Chimp, as I said last time, then it might be, but if you are, you said, good, good kid. At least as soon as you get into it and you're setting it up, it's fairly, eh, you know, it's a. yeah. You create the sort of the signup form where you have to have a picker. You writing is the text of what it should say. So for example, a just give me your email address and tell me where to send the blank, whatever it is that you're giving away. Jesper (12m 10s): A so you're right that text in and then you get into the next session of the setup process where it will tell you or ask you to write the email, the following, which is going to deliver it. So you basically just upload your PDF, for example, if it's a PDF, you just uploaded their right to text him to eat email and that will automatically be sent and delivered to the am to the subscriber right after they have a confirmed their subscription a and that's basically it is, it's pretty easy. And then within that process you will also be asked, uh, if you would like to have it hosted on, in this case, for example, convert kit. Jesper (12m 44s): And if you say yes, it'll generate Atlantic beach for you and you're gonna give you a link. And that link is basically the link to the webpage that your signup form sits on. So you can just take that link and put it where we need to put it. But but the good thing about all of this is that you don't even have to have your own webpage or website to get started with all of this year. You can get started by only having the email, um, provider here and, and you stay, which is very nice. Jesper (13m 14s): So, so if, if for example you just said cutting out, uh, and again concerned, concerned with, with the economy and money and stuff like that, you can get started without even creating your own website. And that's pretty neat. Autumn (13m 28s): That is really neat. And I will give a super sneaky pro tip that I didn't listen to when I was a new author and I regretted it and I S I fixed it this year. But if you're really, if you do have your own website and you're good with coding, um, I highly suggest the link you put in your book is it to a patient when you're on a website that you can then redirect to whatever mail service provider, whatever landing page you end up using. Because guess what, you might changing male per service providers. I've been doing this for more than five years. Autumn (13m 59s): I've gone through three. Um, and every time, you know, I have to keep the old ones going because there was a book this as readers still exists. Click the road on like in a day and, and that's just, you don't want that to happen. But now I have everything going to my website and that what page will redirect them to the proper mail service provider that I've got going at the moment. Um, definitely a pro tip that doesn't take much full code notes in there comments. So if you have questions on how to do that and I'll help you out. Jesper (14m 31s): Yeah. And uh, yeah, I've, I've crossed that, yeah. After five years that that might end up being a troll. But but again, a I mean, if you're just starting out, this is your first book. You just need to start generating an email list. Don't worry about it too much. You know, you can, yeah. You can use to mail providers, uh, uh, have them hosting your landing page and your signup form and give away the PDF. And you know, don't worry too too much about it, but obviously as you, as you evolve down your author career pattered and you want to start thinking about having your website, they're sorted, you can control this stuff. Jesper (15m 5s): But Autumn (15m 6s): yeah, that is definitely one of the brilliant things about this is that you don't need to have a website and you can just start with, you know, just the balance a service provider using that and it doesn't, I mean, you don't have to wait. You don't even have to have your book out as long as you have a thing to provide a link to give away. You know, just have short stories out. How are we doing? Do this. Once what Pat, even as you're writing things and meters are looking at it, you could have it in your profile. Say, Hey, you like this, sign up for more exclusive content and email spell address all without a website, which is fantastic way to start building your list as you're writing and growing as an author. Jesper (15m 44s): Yeah, indeed. Uh, and of course Autumn (15m 46s): laughs Jesper (15m 46s): to we go, we talked a lot about why it is important to build the list and all that. So we're not going to get into that here again, but um, but just to reiterate a that you should pay typically, sir, the, the list as soon as possible and even before your book's out. But but of course the same is true as we talked about last time when setting up the whole system with your autoresponders and all that. As we said last time, it requires what the same as jewel here, um, in the, in the sense that, but am you're not just going to let's say acquire subscribers just once and this by magic, you know, if why that effort and it requires, um, usually, probably some many as well, I would say. Jesper (16m 35s): Um, because essentially you need in traffic and you need to drive traffic to that landing piece because just because the Atlantic piece exists doesn't mean that people will ever, ever, ever find it. Uh, and even if you put, even if you have your own website and you put the Yemeni people once on your website, sorry to say, but people were still not check it out. So Autumn (16m 56s): yeah, Jesper (16m 56s): we need to push traffic there and am if someone S comes to you and say it a day a day can get to a thousand subscribers in 30 minutes, I would say they run for the Hills because don't ever engage with people like that. Autumn (17m 10s): Yeah, I agree. You do not want to get a shouty list, but definitely traffic. I mean, the best eyes on who are going to be the most interested on you if you have completed book. But obviously it needs to be selling or you need to be doing, take it away. There's got to be, be a way of getting eyes onto it so that they see that you have this link and you're giving away this exclusive content. Um, and one of the best ways that I saw as a new author and getting started is by joining some group giveaways. And those are hosted, sometimes they're hosted on someone's website where basically to pick up, it could be your first book, whatever that exclusive offer is, um, in exchange for an email address. Autumn (17m 48s): And there are some doing that. True other providers, pardon? Ouch. Or Bellis providers. So they would be things like instaFreebie book funnel and the catch is, uh, is usually to get those email addresses. You actually do have the pay, you know, it can be 10, 20, $30 a month. Um, book funnel. I can't just to be able to, to collect email addresses, but I know the it's over $50 a year. But that's not expensive. And you joined those giveaways. There's a lot of different authors advertising the giveaway readers are going to it and they know that they're signing up for your book or for whatever your exclusive offer is in exchange for email. Autumn (18m 28s): You want to get into this is my big tip though, is you want to get into one where the reader is subscribing specifically. They know it's for your book. There are some group giveaways where people are signing up for a prize like a Kindle or a suite of like 50 books. Um, but that doesn't mean those readers are going to necessarily be interested in your book or your style. There might be some good emails in there, but you're also going to have a much higher unsubscribe rate if you do it that way. Autumn (18m 58s): So definitely keep that in mind that you want to make sure it's generous, specific at the very least. And at the also that you are, you know, you're getting people who know that they're, they are signing up. There's no like hidden catch 22 that you're signing up to get a special deal and you're, you know, you're, you're signing up to win a Kindle of, wait, how'd you get subscribed as someone's email list that wasn't part of the deal. Make sure you're upfront about that because I can get you into a lot of trouble and people are supporting you for spam or system camera. Autumn (19m 28s): You don't want that. Jesper (19m 31s): Basically when we're talking about driving traffic there, um, you obviously have a lot of a plus a petition. No, there, there is this Pinterest and YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and the Republicans because we said before w then of course needs, then you need to sell the books. A lot of books, which means the new need to do advertising to sell books instead. But I think it's pretty hard with our, between here in am in 2019, it's pretty difficult to, uh, to get email lists, signups on less. Jesper (20m 5s): You are putting a bit of money behind it. I mean, obviously you don't have to spend a ton of money but even if you're running like $5 a week. Once the Facebook app is still better than nothing. A am and you can just the ball rolling a bit. Um, but what I would say is that try to find, find the traffic sources or platforms. So if that's Facebook or YouTube or Twitter or whatever it is, try to and what what's that? Blog well, sort of suit the way it's a platform. Jesper (20m 36s): Did you like us? What I'm trying to say, but also that it suits your budget. Um, Facebook is notorious of taking all the money you put into it. It can be pretty expensive. It can also be effective if, if you know how to do the world but okay. Bye. To maybe one or two of the sources that you would like to work with and um, yeah, enjoy it is within your budget and then just be really good at those and figure out how to be really good at those rather than trying to be on eight different media outlets and trying to pin twist it. Jesper (21m 12s): YouTube yeah, and Facebook and YouTube and we'll, I mean your don't kill yourself and you're going to get completely overwhelmed, so, so don't try to do it at that figure. Figure out which one or two of you like and then go, go with dose. A that's one thing. And then I think the other thing is, Oh, did you, it should be mindfulness about how it is that you are, let's say setting it up mean for example. Um, I have seen examples of people who you made me think, okay, I'll start a podcast and then June a cast, I will mention that they can get X for free by going to that in that page. Jesper (21m 49s): Or I will record YouTube videos like we do here to talk about a. Uh, I'll give advice to other authors and then of course we could be saying, Oh, and by the way, you can get them Monday can we put one a by going to that and death link? But but the thing is that you need to be mindful about what you're doing. If it's the right audience that you're talking to. I mean, running a youth channel sample this one. Oh, eh, giving advice to other authors does more or less. Absolutely. Ciro for our book sales. Jesper (22m 21s): Perfect. So am we love giving. Yeah, we love running the channel here and we love giving the advice and all that. But in terms of it matters. Does she work? Uh, and the same thing will be true for a, if, if you've accepted, you create a podcast about am something that isn't really relevant for the reader of the book, then it also will drive no traffic. So, so be mindful about that. Um, but that said, if you can find a way to angle it so that it's relevant for, for the reader, that could be a way around spending money. Jesper (22m 57s): You know, that time instead of many, you know, producing videos and producing podcasts episodes, so you're investing time and money. Um, but as I said before, it, it requires work. So either you can pay you for it or you can put in the time. But no ma'am and like to build the list is not going to build itself. Autumn (23m 16s): No, definitely not. I mean, it would be better if you wanted to just have a lot of videos of you reading. So if you're your blood book or chapters or talking about your story, if you're doing videos of that, that was, it'd be a better way of saying, Oh, and by the way, I have also some free content. If you want to sign up for it then to be talking about editing or writing, you know, talking to other authors, authors, yeah, they might be readers, but that's not your target audience and that's really your you're generating a lot of work for something. Autumn (23m 47s): He was not your primary content that you want to give it a two. I will say I learned a really great tip that, Oh, giving away something. You make sure you mentioned it in your bio almost every platform, Facebook somewhere. Let's, you've mentioned like little bit of who you are. You can also, so always make sure you've mentioned, Hey I, I'm an author and I have a free blah blah. If you sign up here, it doesn't hurt because every time you go and post as someone or is interested, then let's see that. Yeah, but again, that's like love it. Oh absolutely. Autumn (24m 17s): I'm definitely not going to get you a thousand subscribers in a couple of days, but it does help to have it there so you don't make sure you put the time that if you're giving away something, let people know about it. But make sure you're also letting the people who might be interested in what you're doing know about it. Talk about yours, Monroe. Talk about, look at readers. Don't be looking at, um, you know, your mom's best friends that are probably not your target. What they might be your target audience, but they're not my target audience. Old McGrumpy (24m 49s): It would take too long to gain a thousand subscribers just by A-list instead. Autumn (24m 55s): No, no, no, no. That's don't listen to our cohost AI who we can't get rid of them. We really wish we could. Good. This is really bad advice because okay, you buy it for this one. These are people who probably didn't sign up to have their email sold to you who don't even know a few. Take your time. No. And do you think this is like, this is, you know, you went to Boston the street and hold a sign saying, Hey, I'm an author giving away books. Autumn (25m 26s): You'll probably get more people interested than you would for all the cold list that you bought. In fact, you really might get a lot of people reporting you that you're spamming them and they don't know how you've got on your list and have you got one person out of say a thousand people, that would be amazing. You want to try something a little bit better, like take time and generate someone who's interested in your readings. Just go and I said email, it's hosting free videos of you reading your content. Even if it's going on what pad and posting your chapters and putting at the end at the end of every single one, Hey, you can find out more by going to my website. Autumn (26m 2s): You can do that legally and they're going to be way more interested than someone who am you perfect, which is still all their name off of a list and they might've been signing up for cosmetics and start going to help you at all. Old McGrumpy (26m 16s): Just come to me and I will sell you 10,000 subscribers and I will even give you a discount. Autumn (26m 24s): Yeah, you definitely do not want to listen. Oh, a to him. But he, okay. Maybe has one point affected and that is that it takes long to build the list of a thousand subscribers cool. Okay. Okay. Jesper (26m 43s): How long does that take? To be honest? And you're not gonna like this, but the answer is I have no idea because essentially what it is is that, um, there is a lot of factors that play into how fast you can build a list of, for example, of a thousand people. Uh, it, it of course both depends on strategy. Do? Are you implying you mean the link in the back of the book like we talked about before or are you're trying to drive people upfront into something that you're giving away that matters. Jesper (27m 19s): It also matters how attractive potential readers find your giveaway. Is it something that actually interests them or to do things? Well, I don't really care. That makes a big difference. Meaning how many, who, who actually gets to the landing page actively convert into subscribers. That makes a difference whether 50% that are converting or half a percent that that, that's a big difference of course. Uh, and then there is just a matter of, it also depends on how much money you're putting. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you're putting a to get traffic. Jesper (27m 51s): You know, if you, if you have a lot of money to spend on it and you can drive a lot of traffic, then obviously the list is going to be built rather quickly compared to if you can only spend, bye. I know $6 a week or $6 a month or whatever. But I would still say, and little is better than I think. So even if you do only spend $6 a month, then do that at least, uh, Tim subscribers is better than zero and it's a starting point. Autumn (28m 19s): It is. And that's, it's also like quality is a subscriber. I mean, yeah, you could join a group, give away and maybe you can get a hundred, 200 a thousand quickly. But what if your open rate, what are their interest is only 10% where you ended up with 2025 subscribers maybe over the exact same period of time, but they're like 80% many Oh my God. Oh, nice. Yep. 25 way more than you want. 10% of a thousand. You, you really want to go for the quality. Autumn (28m 49s): Don't think about the quantity. And you know, you can, could have two people who love you and are rooting for you and they will do so much more for you than having 2000 people on a list that you never heard from. That's totally cool. Yes. So keep that in mind too. You really, it was the connection you build. It's why doing it honestly. And so yeah, it might take you a little bit of more time to do it organically. Um, put in some, put in whatever you can many time to be creative, get the right people and tell them, let them share the story of your journey as a writer. Autumn (29m 22s): Let that become fans of who you are right now. An author brand is very much our own jury as writers and authors. Uh, the fans want to know that. Your readers want to kind of know a little bit more about you, not just about the story. I mean, it's like people know George RR Martin, they, they new the more about his life then am a they're probably, people knew in the 1970s and eighties about most of the authors that they were fans of. I mean, I, nothing about Ursula, Kayla Gwyn and so probably 10 years, one, I started okay. Autumn (29m 54s): More because now we want to know more about these people and how they live. And that's changed a lot. So sell yourself, connect with your readers. What's your email list with people who really care about what you're doing and are excited about what you're doing? Don't just take the shortcut and get a whole bunch of numbers behind your email list and think that that's an answer because it's not going to help you in the long run. Jesper (30m 18s): Wow. So I think that was a perfect conclusion to end on. Um, I don't have it. Anything else to add? Autumn (30m 27s): Well, great. That's it for this show. At least we gave some the to it's on email lists and hopefully it'll help a few authors out. Jesper (30m 35s): All right. Thanks a lot. See you next Monday.

In this video we discuss why an email list is important for your authors business. Why also talk about which email service providers are available for you, the pros and cons of each, and how you should get started. The different email service providers covered are: MailChimp: https://mailchimp.com/  ConvertKit: https://convertkit.com/  MailerLite: https://www.mailerlite.com/  Active Campaign: https://www.activecampaign.com/  Infusionsoft have changed their name to Keap: https://keap.com/  StoryOrigin: https://storyoriginapp.com/ New episodes EVERY single Monday. To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC  PATREON! Many bonus perks for those who become a patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy  LET'S CONNECT! Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/  Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/  Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper  Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer  Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Jesper (12s): All right. So, uh, we are doing a double recording today, so to speak. Uh, because now that we changed the channel and am we are both, uh, Autumn and I are running it. We also have the possibility to actually have some videos in between. We'd probably do this like once a month. Oh, we're both of us are actually on, on the video and we will do some, uh, am covering some topics that they will discuss to for the year. Am make it very beneficial for you. And today we decided, decided to talk about email is uh, email lists, uh, very important. Jesper (44s): And um, and we want to cover the basics of it today. Uh, in two weeks from now we will do another session where we'll talk about how to grow your email list, but today we want to focus a bit more on, okay, why is it important? And also if you want to S if you're starting out and they're going to set up an email list, what sort of service providers exist and who should you use blog good and bad about each one of them and so forth. So that's sort of what we want to cover today, isn't that right? Autumn okay. Autumn (1m 15s): Yes, that's definitely where we want to start with is just the basics of even like what an email list is and that what's out there, why you even should be worrying about this. Jesper (1m 25s): Yeah, indeed. Indeed. And before we get going, I have to remember also to, uh, to just mention at the, we've got a Mark Jones, uh, I need to do a shout out to me because he's one of our supporters on Patreon, which we are very happy about. And uh, of course have you gotten S so would like to check out Patrick on the links in the description field below. But I just want to show you some of the other awesome stuff we have available. You can get, Oh look at this T shirt. This is pretty cool. I fill up the paper for you. Autumn (1m 55s): Look at that. Jesper (1m 57s): Cool. So, uh, yeah, that's just some of the stuff that you can get your hands on if you, if you go to pattern. So, well we just, I went to mention so that in case you want to check that app but okay. Email lists. Um, so maybe the just started completely basic here. So what is an email list? Just do you wanna take that? Autumn (2m 20s): Yeah, that's so it's like when you just Jesper (2m 22s): yep. Autumn (2m 23s): Yeah. Well your friends right? Uh, we need to aim higher than that. So email. Yes. And you managed to get a list of emails asleep of people who are interested in your writing and your books and there are so many different ways of keeping those. I mean the most basic is literally having a list of people that you can copy writing to your email or even friends on Facebook. Technically you know you can go if you have a whole bunch of readers who follow you on Facebook you can estimate such though. Autumn (2m 56s): So those are technically an email list but its basic level. It is a whole bunch of people ill who are interested in your writing and so they're the people you want to tell when you have a new book released or things like that. Things like you want to spread the world worried about but what you're up to. Jesper (3m 13s): Yeah. Um, I dunno, maybe I'm actually getting into a bit of wide email list this important as well here, but, but the thing is when you have readers who, uh, who have read your books already and then you are releasing a new book, obviously you, what would like those why I should know about it. And then the main mill is of course, one of the mechanisms whereby you can make sure that they are a way of it. Uh, obviously I guess one could argue, well, doesn't Amazon send out a notice of people? Jesper (3m 45s): Well, when I release a new book and yeah, they do sometimes. Uh, but it's none of your control. And that's the difference here. You cannot control what Amazon center don't send me. It could also be that am Amazon chances, their policy all of a sudden say, well, no, we're not going to, I sent those emails unless something, I don't know. Oh bless you. Sold a certain volume or whatever. Who knows? Uh, you don't know what Amazon is going to do tomorrow. So having the email list in your control means that you control when you communicate and what you communicate. Jesper (4m 17s): And that's really the power of it. Autumn (4m 21s): I agree. And there's the, especially if you're wider than Amazon, then why how do your readers and Barnes and noble know that you're publishing something or BookBub does have a way of notifying if you're releasing a new book. But again, it's autumn awesome the author to go and make sure that we tell them. And so it's all these steps and when you're in the chaos of releasing a book sometimes, and it's hard to remember, Oh, did I go to BookBub? Did I let these people know? Did I people here? Okay, what's your email? Countless. It's one place, easy to let go. You know, you, you can say what you want to do. Autumn (4m 53s): You say to the people, you could formulate how you want to say things. You can, if you decide to offer a coupon or exclusive deal, Hey, there's going to be a 12 up or blog sale, you can let your email list. No. And it's information that you can't send out through Amazon or you know, tomorrow with Facebook crashes and burns. You know, it's not something that you have to worry about it because you have those lists, you know, these people are waiting to hear from you. That is it. I'm incredibly powerful reason of why you would like to have an email list that's in your control instead of, I guess respect said it. Autumn (5m 28s): Sort of waiting for Amazon to do it for you. It helping do it at the right time and when you, okay, say what you want them to say for all, you know, it helps just to be how that emails saying, Hey, you are a fan of this other series or comparing it to something else, way to set it up so that the audience goes, Oh right, I did love your book. Now I remember, yes, I want the new one instead of getting an email from Amazon that they might not even open and they're just going to believe. Jesper (5m 55s): Yeah. And indeed, and, and I, I think, let's say adding onto that, uh, one of the things that, yeah, having an email list allows you to do is that you can, I actually built a relationship with these people. So, um, of course we got to come back to how to grow the email list and all that. A in in two weeks time. But, but the fact that you can communicate with people S you know, and you should really be you writing emails. Who to are these people on the list, SFU or writing to a friend. It should not be like a formal Amazon announcement kind of email, you know, eh, but, right, right. Jesper (6m 30s): As if you're communicating with your friends and, and what happens is that you actually start building relationship. I get emails all the time from, from people on the list who are telling me all kinds of stuff from them, no private life. And I love it. It's amazing. You know, that sort of stuff you will never get. Um, and even then, even, and if you could get ahold of information on who was actually buying your books on Amazon woods, of course Amazon will never ever information with you. But even if you could, um, you don't have that possibility to build relationships with a cluster. Jesper (7m 1s): So more of an online platform like you can when they're active be on your email list. So I think that's incredibly important. Autumn (7m 10s): But rivers are overwhelmed with email agenda. I don't think that Ellie Mae all of these stage that important. That's true. Old grumpy, our little, I'm glad you've decided to drop in and voice your concerns are a little resident AI co-host that you are. Yeah, there are a lot of emails out there and I guess that is a challenge, but that's why you build this relationship with the readers. They're interested in your books. They're looking forward to the next book and it's why do you want to start talking to them about how work is going? Autumn (7m 42s): Yeah, no problem. Well, we'll talk more about like what you put in those emails eventually, but these are people who are signing up to hear from you. You know, and therefore they're going to want to stay in touch. It's just like having a pen pal. You kind of look forward to them every single month. Jesper (7m 57s): The other part of it is also that, you know, when people buy something w we all as human beings, we buy from people that we like and trust that. I mean obviously if you, if, if you just heard about a new, uh, what do I know Brandon Sanderson book coming out, people will flock to it and they will buy it for sure because, uh, he has his name. Uh, he settled into life. Yeah. And people will buy his books, but uh, unless you're some superstar like that or Stephen King or whatever, then am people won't just buy your books just because you released them. Jesper (8m 34s): Like those superstar stars have that benefit that the rest of, so the stone, uh, so instead of people will do is that they liked somebody. If they trust somebody, then they will buy that product of that person. And in our case, as authors, that's again where the am email list will help in selling. Because plus as you built this relationship with people, we just talked how you should email them as if they were your friends and, and autumn just mentioned to her, okay, a pen pal, uh, there, you know, if that's sort of the method methodology, you're using them over time people will start to so like, and trust you and then there will also buy from you. Jesper (9m 12s): Obviously not everybody will, uh, of course, but they will unsubscribe. So we don't care about them anyway. Uh, but those who stay will, we'll stay because they want to hear from. Yeah. And then it will also over time start buying stock buying books. But I think probably autumn I think it's probably fair if we also make it clear that it's not like, because you started an email list today then in four or five, six months when you release a book, do you have on a, an, uh, thousands and thousands of dollars? Do you know that that's not how it works? I laid, it takes time. Jesper (9m 42s): You know, it's just like building relationships in real life. It just doesn't happen out of the blue. It takes time. One read out of time, one guy on or a woman on the list at a time and then they'll stop getting your emails. And, um, I dunno, should we maybe mention the big mistake of not putting up up an auto responder series here? Would that make sense? Yes. Yeah. Because basically once they get on, on your list, um, and then because that eases us into talking about what sort of, so providers, it's available for you, but these different service providers that we can come, uh, onto in a second. Jesper (10m 20s): Um, they allow you to set up autoresponders and basically in principle what an autoresponder is, is that, um, you can say it awesome all saying, okay, so if you sign up for my list today and to borrow this particular email will be sent to that person. Absolutely. And of course, you then predesign these emails in yours, series of autoresponders and maybe why, maybe we can make that a topic for another day, uh, on, on, on an aisle or respond to a series. But autumn and I do a lot of them on different lists. Jesper (10m 49s): Um, um, and you can build it as complex or as simple as you want, but, but the fact that, uh, an automatic email goes out helps in the way that people are actually hearing from you. So it's not on you to, eh, you know, if you were either to send an email every time somebody signs up, you're going to kill yourself and write emails every day. Um, and bought it. Or the alternative is, and I think this is the mistake that I wanted to mention, the alternative is that many people cause don't so, so they'll just don't, setting getting up is still okay. Jesper (11m 20s): So they have this list and then over time people start getting afraid that, Oh, but what if I sent them an email now, now a special alarm and then there probably will unsubscribe when again, and my email because they don't, they don't even know who I am anymore. And they, so you see that that's, that's it's just circling. You don't want to get there. So make sure you set up autoresponders. Um, so that they go, uh, and then, uh, with a frequent basis, with a certain interval. And when you do, so you're also only maybe have to sit down once a month and figure out to right. Jesper (11m 52s): Emails would of course keep them evergreen Autumn (11m 55s): because they will go out over time as time goes by as well. So it doesn't really, they make more sense if you write a auto responder email above book do you do because that will be out of date pretty fast. But uh, but you have courses like a newsletter email once a month manually and there you can tell them about something that is tiny and, and that is happening right now. But the stuff you add into the autoresponders, you need to make sure that those things are evergreen. If that make sense. Did I miss something there? Autumn (12m 26s): Autumn no, I think that's good. I just actually went the backup really quickly cause we are talking about um, the power of them. And so yes, I agree that it does take time to build up that email list that's going to, you know, go and buy your book that you'll see, see that significant bump. But the thing is they will get there. I miss you too. Do you see the, these authors who really have a new release and then the number one new release category or they're getting bestseller categories. They are doing that through the power of their newsletters as well as doing newsletter swaps, which is something else we'll talk about later. Autumn (13m 0s): But that's no, I'm actually selling your email list. Never sell your list of subscribers. You don't want to be labeled as a spammer, but once you actually get that motivated group of readers who are connecting with you that are with you, you know, you're sending out an email saying, Hey, you know I worked in this book. Yeah, it's going to be coming out. They're getting really excited, they're excited with you. And then when you release, they go in I bet during that week and you shoot up the Amazon rankings, this is how people are doing it. This is how those authors are getting those little bright orange tags of best-sellers and number one new releases and does the policy pretty email. Autumn (13m 37s): But again, it doesn't happen overnight. It still take time and yes is completely right. Um, I'm sure the Gavi, we'll want to chime in about that one, but they, it doesn't have to be a ton of work. That's where the power, not ours fonder. And using a platform, like I said, you could start a list by emailing them from your own email account. There's a lot of reasons to do that. A lot of it is you, your own email could be labeled as spam, um, which would really kind of impact the rest of your life if you couldn't send emails through your email count. Autumn (14m 9s): And that's why we recommend using one of the providers we're gonna talk to Anne about in a minute. But also because all of them provide the power of using an autoresponder so that when someone signs up, they can start information blog so many that you can then stop when it's time to like get into launch mode and start talking about your latest release. A lot of them tricks but T tips that we can go over with that. But I think the important thing is we need to definitely delve into who are these providers, why would you choose one? Autumn (14m 42s): What are the the look for when you're choosing somebody? Yeah, it's probably good to get into all that now, uh, in terms of what, what your options are. Jesper (14m 53s): Uh, but before S you say, I just want to wait, make like one thing completely clear. If you have not started your email list, go get, get it done now. I mean you cannot build an author business without a email list. That's the end of the story. So go get it. Get done now. And now I wanted to tell you how you can do it. You know, what sort of providers exist out there. Uh, we have not used all, I have some on my list here that I wanted to cover today. Uh, we have not used all of them, uh, that I have, I have on my list at least either so. Jesper (15m 27s): Well, um, but we have used several of them. So we will give you like a, our view, um, pros and cons of each one, um, that we have used themselves. And then the other ones, uh, and give a general reflection on some of the other ones that we have not used. But obviously if you are interested in, in one of those, you might want to do some research, so whatever yourself, but uh, at least we will give you everything we can in terms of what we know and uh, yeah, maybe you want to stop autumn with the one that I hate the most, then you probably know which one I'm talking about. Autumn (16m 4s): MailChimp MailChimp is one of the number of why. If you're Googling, you'll find it as one of the number ones listed building per service providers that people use. And there's a lot of the reasons for that. One is that it is incredibly powerful if you're going to be using, I always look at it as if you're gonna use, um, an online store. Like you're going to sell a whole bunch of products. There are some amazing analytics that you can delve into. Well, what are the key reasons that I signed up a lot of people signs up is that it is free for up to 2000 emails, males and you can send to those 2000 as as many month. Autumn (16m 43s): So 2000 for emails is pretty good. It's tight. I know some authors who have actually, who are really broke and they've signed up for MailChimp under different email addresses, which I totally don't remember that way they can it hit 2000 and then go hit another 2000 and, okay. Yeah, it's quite nice that way. It's a great way to get started. However, once you get going, because it is so powerful, it tends to get expensive very quickly and it does have auto-responders. Autumn (17m 15s): When I first signed up, the automations not available for free accounts and it also has landing pages now, which uh, so when people go and want to sign up for something, uh, originally it didn't have a landing page, but now you can actually build that within MailChimp as well. So there's some things that have opened up since I originally joined that I do make things make it a little more useful. So I love the fact that automations are now free, used to have to move to a paid account. So there's a lot there. It's some you can, how about why you don't like it, but I can say it's, it's so powerful that it's cumbersome and that is my biggest drawback is that there's all of these analytics and tools that I'm not using at all. Autumn (17m 60s): And you're paying for them. And so you could question it. Is there a cheaper routes? But you should definitely say what, um, because we now have a shared MailChimp account to you. You've been inside of it and you can say what you find in a way about them. Jesper (18m 17s): Yeah, sure. I could have for sure. Sure. Um, but maybe just before going down, I also want to say just because I don't like MailChimp, I would probably still say that if you're just starting out and am well maybe I'll bid on a bucket. I probably would still say go ahead with am startup with MailChimp because as autumn just said, it gives you 2000 subscribers for free. Very good. And, um, and that's a good starting point. So I would S S probably still buy shoes, stop there. Jesper (18m 49s): Um, but the thing, well first of all this, the thing is that, um, when you have the same subscriber on two different lists inside MailChimp okay. And you get to the paid level. I mean, once you're above 2000 users, they will charge you twice, have the same subscribers to different lists, which I think it's a bit of their scam almost. I would say. I just thought that it's okay to be honest. It's not okay, but that's what they do. Um, it's on the higher tiers at all. Jesper (19m 18s): Also also starts getting fairly expensive and I guess that's cause they need YouTube catch up with some of the many days lost on the first 2000. Uh, so they, they charge more or people well who have the, let's say, higher volume of am of subscribers, but maybe the ones one that pains me the most. The thing that always to me the most is that it's, it's not as S easy to Manchester, different sort of automation rules and all that sort of stuff. It requires a bit of a getting used to and it's not intuitive on how you set up the different automations since between different lists and all that. Jesper (19m 56s): You know autumn and I are running quite a number of lists so we have quite some automation between different, I mean if you could, again, if you're just starting out in it's completely basic, then it's fine, but S as you start building more it, uh, it's, it's, it's a bit complicated and maybe that's why I want to push over into the other vendor. Uh, probably the competitor, main competitor or one of them and MailChimp which is ConvertKit, which we also use am but ConvertKit is a million fantasy yeah. Jesper (20m 26s): When it comes, I'm S to am a nation. It's very, very easy. Did you use to have, did it drop and drag functionality? So it's so easy to set it up. Uh, they do not charge you for the same subscriber no matter how many, how many times that people do is on different lists, uh, inside ConvertKit so they didn't do that either. Am the downside course is that a ConvertKit is more expensive and you have to pay for for four years. Am subscriber number one, your pay from day one. Um, that's the downside. Jesper (20m 57s): Uh, but it is, it is quite powerful. Uh, they also have the ability to create that any patient just for you, which you can host on the ConvertKit platform so you don't even have to have your own website for it. Uh, which I think we'll come back to it when we were talking about list building in, in two weeks time why you need landing pages in better sort of thing. Um, there are active also allow you to AP why testing on the youth themselves. Yes. So you're sending out, then when you're starting to an email, you can write into headlines and then ConvertKit will send out the email to 50% of your list. Jesper (21m 32s): Oh, sorry, 50% of so list and then they will track which ones are getting the most opens. And then when they know out of those 15% who, what's a headline on the email and the subject line opens the most, then they will send for the last, uh, 85% will then receive the, the winner of the tube. So that's very smart and uh, that happens a plea deal medically, you just write in the two subject lines when you were still, uh, and then present and then convert six takes care of the rest. So it's, I really like it and that's why also I have a labored and lobbied, uh, autumn to to get us to, to move on MailChimp stuff up or into ConvertKit. Jesper (22m 12s): So that's something and we'll do it. Autumn (22m 15s): Yeah, I'm looking forward to it because it does sound powerful. I know MailChimp does have, um, AB split testing as well. They have no, I looked into to. It is my watch and I'm not sure how those features work compared to ConvertKit. And part of that again is because MailChimp is so cumbersome and I've read the help sheets for, you know, timing I'm again and trying to understand different nuances and it's confusing. It's really confusing. So I just never got there. In fact, MailChimp was expensive enough and confusing enough that I actually moved my personal reading. Autumn (22m 48s): Here's mine emails for my books over to a different plant platform and that is MailerLite and that's definitely what I want to talk a little bit about because we're mostly authors. I think MailerLite has exactly what you need it ConvertKit where it is a meeting hurtful, but it starts as a little expensive. MailerLite is about half the price of MailChimp. So we're a MailChimp. I was paying, I think I have over 10,000 subscribers now and I was paying 60 80 a hundred bucks a month for that middle describers in MailerLite I'm paying $35 a month. Autumn (23m 25s): I mean that's cheap and it is free for the first 1000 subscribers. So it's less than MailChimp. But then you're only paying $10 a month. I mean, it starts off very cheaply and like ConvertKit, it has a drag and drop editor. It is so easy to build the automation. Um, you only pay for email once on your list though. I did find a down, I did that. If someone comes back and signs up for a new book or a giveaway, I'm running and I add them into my list. Um, you know, a new giveaway lists, it'll tell me I can send to them if they've already unsubscribed, subscribed. Autumn (24m 1s): So like, well, that's not very fair. Just because the unsubscribe and one other list doesn't mean I still can't email them if they're a winner of this giveaway. So I, I might have to send them a question about how that works, but I will say it, they had asked am covid errors and some things that drove me crazy when I first started with them. I was ready to go back to MailChimp. But the year I've been with them, they've been working really hard to create a better drag and drop editor. They've opened up to surveys and polls are now right buried into the emails. Autumn (24m 34s): So if you want to say, Hey, reader is, do you like this title better? Do you want me to release this month or that month or anything like that. You can all have ms pole falls directly in your emails and again, you're paying for half the points, half the cost. I mean MailChimp and I'm not even sure MailChimp. I think they do surveys again, really the covid MailerLite it's like choose boom, boom, boom, add your settings and you're done. It's really easy. So I think as a, as far as my author platform goes, I've been really happy with it. Autumn (25m 6s): The recent one S developments and more light and would actually recommend them for the cost and the power of their landing pages are very powerful. They actually have one that's set up for selling eBooks. So it's a drag and drop template, put in there books you put in your information, um, and you're done. So you also don't need your own author website or you can just link to it if you need to or embed it if you're really good at coding. Jesper (25m 31s): Yeah. Yeah. Why does one concern I wanted to mention why which of course depending on when you're watching this video why it might not be applicable anymore, but uh, but I did see like what is it over the last three, four months or something, MailerLite had an shoulder issue at some, uh, something recently, Lee, where back to activity there, they own Sova was spec listed as a spam sober, which is extremely bad. You are in the business of email marketing and your survey is marked as spam. Jesper (26m 1s): You'll have a huge problem and you, you have done something very, very wrong if that happens. So at least to me that that's a red flag. And I'm a bit concerned about that. On the positive. I would say that they were open about it. They communicated openly about that, that they had made some mistakes. I think that's the positive that they were open about it, but a racist, some red flags for me, to be honest, Autumn (26m 23s): it did. I don't, I do think that, um, a lot of it was they were a little too lenient and some people were abusing the system. It doesn't take two many the ms targeted emails, um, and readers getting them complaining. I think that their spam for, uh, for something like that to happen. They did. People know, okay, but something going on. Um, but they will also said it was about a month window that they said your emails might not be reaching people if you are doing something right now, if you're sending an email, might not be reading, reaching the readers. Autumn (26m 55s): So if that's an important thing to know. Jesper (26m 57s): To I have two more on my list. I don't know. There was some more to say about MailerLite before I just jump ahead here. Autumn (27m 3s): No, I think that would be, that's pretty much the important aspects. Like I said, I still get giving them my time because I think they've bounced back from that. They've changed some of their policies. But um, there definitely are some quirks compared to when you see something that's very okay. Oh right. And then very expensive. Well, I can cut and MailChimp MailerLite definitely is the soft and fluffy, um, rules occasionally. And that can lead to being abused. Yeah. Jesper (27m 32s): Oh, I had on my list, that's a active campaign and Infusionsoft but it's, we have like, I have not used any of these and I don't think all of them has either. But, um, at least the way I see the DCE are very, very powerful. This like enterprise level powerhouses mean we have marketing. Uh, and at least from, um, from an author business. I, I, I don't really see why you need is so complex systems to be honest. Jesper (28m 3s): The ones that we mentioned here MailChimp, ConvertKit MailerLite, they all do what you need to do when they do do it cheaper and it's probably easier to navigate. Uh, obviously if you end up having a fairly complex, a am author business, uh, I don't know, may, maybe it would be useful for you one day, but that's where, as I said in the beginning of the video, I swear I probably, he sent you the direction of doing some Google research on your own because I don't think it's fair for us to sit here and speculate on, on good and bads about the stuff that we haven't even used ourselves. Jesper (28m 34s): But then but at least know that it exists. Autumn (28m 37s): Absolutely. And there is one more that I actually am a member of it lately and that is storyorigin. So we're actually gonna talk to the designer of that. Evan in Oh two months. I believe it's going to be loyal. But it is an interesting one. Well that this is designed and targeted to autumn and it's, it's a lot like MailerLite from what I've seen that is am very user friendly. It has a lot of drag and drop software. It has a list building, landing pages. Autumn (29m 10s): And what's interesting is it is targeting authors. So some of the specifics like I cannot remember if it's to started, no, but I don't know how many emails you get with that. But it's also interesting is because you can network with other authors directly on the platform so that if you will wants to do something called a newsletter swap, which is where you say, Hey, I will put your in my news, you'll put my book in New York or newsletter and am you both agree to handle that. You know, you can do that right on the platform where you get some later. Autumn (29m 40s): So there's, you know, the author, other author is holding up their, their end of the bargain and also some book group giveaways. So if you're a part of am instaFreebie or book funnel or you know, the ones where you can do book book giveaways with other others, it's also another platform. So you can question, we need another book giveaway platform and other new swap platform cause there's a lot of those. But it is interesting that Evan has sign up all with am within one platform. And so I think I have to admit, if I was starting out as a new author looking around, I would be very tempted to storyorigin because it is kind of nice that it's all in one spot. Autumn (30m 19s): So it's just one place to go and you can manage everything and talk to other authors about it. So yeah, death, birth giving, um, giving some thought to and looking into, if you're just starting out with your newsletter news, the only list. But, uh, we'll deftly, I talked to Evan and a few months to see, you know, why he developed it and what his goals were for it. And just talk, come with Stephanie as well. Why you have an alias the going for the next few months. Jesper (30m 46s): Yeah. Cause I, and then just to clarify, when autumn says that we're going to talk to him, it means that he actually coming on here. Yeah. The challenge. Yes. So, so you can you, he will talk to both of us here. So we'll be three. I'm on the call and uh, it's gonna take, I think you're right about two months before we have the slough book with him. Our production schedule is pretty tight as you can here, but uh, but he will come on here and the am so you can hear him and explain it about that as well, so that's good. Okay. Autumn (31m 16s): It is too much work to maintain a list. So why bother? Yeah. Jesper (31m 21s): There is something to be said. Actually. You don't have the appointment grumpy because, uh, maintaining lists do require some work. Am Hmm. We talked about the autoresponders before, uh, that you need to set up a unit to write those emails. You need to put them in. If you have some automation, you need to actually do automation. Yeah, it does. It does require work. Um, but, uh, bet the thing and that we actually have not touched upon, which is I think it's relevant to talk about here as well. Um, it's sometimes I think that, I dunno, maybe it's a bit touchy, I don't know. Jesper (31m 54s): But, uh, there's definitely different viewpoints on it, so I'll give you mine and I actually, I'm not 100%, surely if a autumn has to seem, so maybe we'll continue. They do meet, but we'll see. Um, but the topic is around, so when you have people on your own, just, uh, you will also have some people who never opens the emails. L.E.T. What do you do about dose? There are those who, well, it's way there that you should delete them and that's fine. Um, and then there are people like me who will say, if they don't open my emails and I'm paying for them, it'd be sitting on my list, then I will delete them. Jesper (32m 32s): If they don't open my emails, I don't just delete them straight outright like that. I, I always, every three months I will again, ConvertKit has to functionality built in so it will automatically tell you who the people are, who's not opening the email that you're sending out. So what I do is that every three months I sent those people an email and say, just something simple. We'll like, OK, I, I've noticed that you're not opening my emails and if, if you're not interested anymore, that's cool. No worries. Uh, I will delete you off my list next week. Jesper (33m 4s): Uh, but if you do read my emails, because by the way, it does happen. And it's because when, when the email, Oh, service provider sends out the email, they load in a one pixel transparent image into the email and they attract, if that image actually gets loaded on the other end on the receiving end. But when people, for example, have like, um, the settings in their Hotmail or Gmail or whatever set up so that they don't do not automatically load pictures, then dish email tracking system will not register that they open the door. Jesper (33m 36s): Well, even though they active he did. So that's why I send out this email. And then I, I add add to the, to what I said before, and I say it, but if you are, uh, if you would like to stay on the list, just click this link, uh, and then I add an in link where they can click to remove that tack on against their name that they should be deleted. Uh, and then we laid it a week goes by and then at that point in time I do go in and then I just delete everybody who did not click that link. Um, and, and they are the list. They of course, they can always sign up again if they want. Jesper (34m 8s): Um, but personally, I just don't see the point in having people there who doesn't open. Uh, and of course what happens, well, when you do this is that your open rates scopes up because you remove all the people who, who apparently WD email. Um, but I have to say as well that there are those who swear that you should not do this. That's what I do. But I actually, I don't know if you do the same autumn Autumn (34m 32s): I do. I don't think that, I don't do it every three months. I'm trying to do it at least once a year, sometimes twice a year. So maybe every six months. But sort of the same thing. It's, it's um, some people use the number on their email list as a kind of a boost. You know, you'll see people validating, like touting, you know, they have 16,000 or 20,000 or 50,000. I joined a box at once that had a minimum number of people on your email list requirement ask about, Jesper (35m 1s): okay. Autumn (35m 1s): Right. You know, if you have 5,000 people that have this huge, like 80% open, right. That's better than having 10,000 people with like a 5% open rate. You need to pay attention to these people are, you know, are you connect with them? Are they opening your email? But they see you. That's much more important than the number on your list, especially when you're paying per email address or in MailChimp pay for everything. Your personally, well not even on that list. No matter how many times they sign up. So it's important that they're active and doing something. Autumn (35m 34s): Otherwise, you know, if you do care about statistics, like, like what your open rate is and yeah, you see you 20,000 subscribers and an open rate of 0.2% why YouTube okay. Oh that one we're for 0.2% you know, cut the dead weight. Uh, I agree it's best when you send them in email it says, Hey, are you really getting this? Because invariably there are these people who it looks like they're not opening on, but they could be your number one fans and look forward to your email every single month. Autumn (36m 4s): You just don't know unless you ask them and get them to either respond or click on a link that says that they want to stay on board. And that's the important thing. Before you cut them as at least, you know, ask them, that's the meeting emailed it. Do you suddenly am this core group who loves what you're doing. You can ask them questions, but we'll get into more about, you know, some of the things you can put in emails sales. But I think it's so much fun to be able to respond, okay, title or I'm thinking about this character and actually get people who care about your writing responding back to see, Hey, I need a beta reader who wants to do sign up. Autumn (36m 42s): And you get people to sign up and it's just fun and very empowering and it makes you feel actually right. I think so. Because there actually some somewhat out there waiting for you to finish up what you're working on. Jesper (36m 55s): Yeah. And do you, uh, and I, I read this somewhere and it's been awhile, so I'm going off memory, so, Oh, take it, take it as it is. But the am if you, I was just, I would just want it to, to add in that am if you are, let's say interested in, so what is it, we're talking about open rates here and one, so, Oh, what is good, what isn't a good open rate? What's a bad one, right? And so forth. If you're curious about it, I read some wild back and again, I'm going off memory here. I'd um, I read that the average industry average when it comes to author email, this is 25% open rates. Jesper (37m 33s): So if you were sitting sitting at 25% open rate, you are on the average. Um, but I will also say if you do some of the stuff that we're talking about here, if you actually pruning the list of people who shouldn't be there, a person, my list of say 60% open rate and that's perfectly doable. I've also heard of people at 80%. Uh, so it's certainly possible. Um, and to me that, do you want it? Uh, I mean 25%. That's good. No problem. You don't have any headaches if you were there. Jesper (38m 2s): Uh, if you're billowed and you probably have too much death way down on your, on your list. Um, but, uh, yeah, I just wanted to, to add that in there in case people want to, I know as soon as people talks about as soon as we start talking about rates or something, uh, percentages, mm. You know, a lot of people's first thoughts are what, so what is good and what is bad? So at least that gives you a bit indication there if you're wondering about that. Um, but, um, otherwise I, I think, uh, we will add the different that links to the two plastic when talked about here today. Jesper (38m 36s): We'll add them into the description field below so that you can click straight from there. Uh, and then you don't have to remember what it was that we said. That's always helpful. Um, but, uh, but I think in, in conclusion, if I summarize all up correctly here, autumn then I think what we probably are recommending is that if you're just starting out and if you want go with either MailChimp or MailerLite, uh, if you want something a bit more, uh, uh, with a bit more, let's say automation and, and you're, you're, you're getting a bit further and you're like me grow tired of MailChimp or something, then I would say switch to ConvertKit. Jesper (39m 17s): Um, do you another the nice thing about maybe just as a, as an add on as well, the nice thing is also that if you come to ConvertKit with 5,000 subscribers from another list, they will actually do it well the switch for you. So they will take you on a list for somebody. Awesome. I just popped them into ConvertKit and they will set up all the automation just that you already have existing for you in ConvertKit so you don't even have to do anything more or less. So that's a service that they provide, but you have to have 5,000 subscribers before they do so. Um, but, um, yeah, I don't know. Jesper (39m 48s): Is that it? Autumn Autumn (39m 50s): I think so. Like I said, would please check out storyorigin to if I was just starting out just because it is author centric and there's nothing wrong with getting into a platform that is going to help you build your author platform and have good advice. But definitely MailerLite has been surprisingly. Yeah. Um, working with authors as well and MailChimp is much broader, but it does have that $2,000 or 2000 email free, uh, which is I think the highest that is out there to be able to get 2000 emails and not have to pay a dime for us email else. Autumn (40m 26s): Uh, that's fantastic. And I'll definitely some of what you said before, if you don't have an email list, go get one. It doesn't matter. Or if you have 10 bucks out, one book out, zero books out, you want a mail list. Do you want to be in charge of this email list? So go ahead and get started today. It's important and it'll help you sell more books. Jesper (40m 48s): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the email is, his email list is where the money is. That's it. Simple as that. Um, so, uh, yeah, I think we, we, we sort of ran a bit longer than we intended to do here and maybe that's what's going to happen in the future. Every time credential of us gets on his butt. Okay. Hopefully you, uh, hopefully you found it a useful to, uh, to hear us just chat about a topic. A Vista. It was, it was fun. So hopefully you thought, uh, thought so too. And am well, we'll see you next Monday.

BookFunnel & Instafreebie giveaways, in support of going wide & meeting Digit the dog! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

During this 38th episode of Author Platform Rocket, marketing veteran Jonny Andrews discussions how you can intensify the success of you book business by incorporating mentors into your journey. For this special installment, Jonny has a guest known as Golden Angel who is a fairly prolific indie romance author with 37 novels. Golden Angel expresses how transformative having a mentor has been to her own indie author career. Download PDF Podcast Transcription 3 Key Points: Golden Angel’s newsletter was expanded thanks to newsletter swaps and Instafreebie. “Imposter syndrome” can be remedies with the help of mentors and engagement in an author community. Golden Angel’s books are available at: iBooks, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Smash Words, and Amazon. Tweetable Quotes: -    “I started writing for a free website called Literotica.com, which is erotica and romance.” – Golden Angel. -    “There are a lot of us (authors) that are huge readers, and we all kind of fan girl over each other and there is a lot of mutual love going around.” – Golden Angel. -    “My newsletter has exploded. I had like 200 people in December (2017) on my newsletter. It’s now getting close to 9,000.” – Golden Angel. Resources Mentioned: Author Platform Rocket – Book marketing service Author Platform Rocket Podcast – Website for Author Platform Rocket Podcast Facebook – Author Platform Rocket’s Facebook Page Golden Angel Facebook – Facebook page for Golden Angel @GoldenAngel – Twitter page for Golden Angel Twitter Amazon – Golden Angel’s Amazon Page  

We discuss what Instafreebie is and how to use it to get more reviews, subscribers, and generate interest in your book. www.joseph-bendoski.com/start-writing

Barbara Snow joins KaliSara and RevKess for a discussion of her books and works. In her own words: Who I’ve been doesn’t matter except to give you a feel for who I am now. I lived many years in Houston, San Francisco, the mountains above Denver, and Cuenca, Ecuador. I lived with husbands, children, grandchildren, and happily alone with furry friends. I’ve resided in a house in the ‘burbs, on a tiny house boat, in a 23-foot travel trailer, in old Victorians, on a gorgeous ranch and in a modern apartment. I’ve sat in circle with shamans and teachers – learned, healed, taught and led. Doing the work, I discover the path to my next becoming. Books have always been my best friends and mentors. When I was about ten years old, I decided to write one. I pulled out Mama’s old manual, portable typewriter, managed to load a sheet of fresh white paper, and sat there staring at it, totally at a loss. I had no idea how to start. I live on different land now, on a different continent, in an historic city in the Andes. Cuenca has four rivers that run through it and I live right alongside one of them, the Yanuncay, where the tumbling waters, draping willows and eucalyptus groves feed my soul. The cobblestone streets and Spanish architecture of the old city nourish me, too, call me to feel how history and nature inform my human experience. The spiritual energies have called many of us here, and as the spiritual energies flow, so do the creative energies. The spiritual and artistic communities in Cuenca are rich and supportive. It’s a glorious opportunity to lean into the stories, poems and perceptions asking to come through me. Get a sampling of Energy Unveiled on InstaFreebie or sign up for Barbara's newsletter!  

Society of Authors event, InstaFreebie giveaways and 20BooksTo50k

Society of Authors event, InstaFreebie giveaways and 20BooksTo50k --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

Part 3 of our Book Marketing Series (3 of3) focuses on BookBub and book funnel services such as BookFunnel and InstaFreebie. FirstDraughtWriting.com Hosts: Mary Chris Escobar, Julia Kelly, and Alexis Anne

Ep#75: Welcome to Ask ALLi, the Self-Publishing Advice Podcast from the Alliance of Independent Authors. This week it’s our monthly Member Q&A where ALLi Members’ have their most pressing self-publishing questions analyzed and answered. Join your regular hosts for the Member Q&A: indie author's David Penny & Debbie Young. Summary of our Ask ALLi Self-Publishing Member Q&A Topics: Q: How do we handle royalties for a co-writing project? Q: What’s the best way to produce cover artwork for print? Q: How do I register by books with the Nielsen Database Q: How Can I access Waterstones’ Distribution Channel Q: Can I offer free audio book downloads to gain reviews? Q: What are the benefits of InstaFreebie and BookFunnel for Book Giveaways? Our weekly Self-Publishing Advice broadcast is brought to you by ALLi, the Alliance of Independent Authors. This Member Self-Publishing Q&A is one of four regular shows, which include a more advanced salon, a beginners' salon and a special guest highlight presentation from the Indie Author Fringe, ALLi’s free online author conference. Find more author advice, tips and tools at our self-publishing advice center, www.selfpublishingadvice.org. And, if you haven’t already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. You can do that at www.allianceindependentauthors.org. Now, go write and publish. About your hosts ALLi’s Technical Manager David Penny is the author of the best selling Thomas Berrington Historical Mystery series set in the final years of Moorish Spain, and before returning to writing full time he worked in education, printing and publishing, and for 25 years ran his own software company. Connect with David on Twitter @DavidPenny_ ALLi’s Publications Manger Debbie Young enjoys sharing best practice with our members around the world, as well as running two local authors’ groups and the Hawkesbury Upton Lit Fest on her home turf. Small wonder, then, that her cosy mystery series, the Sophie Syers Village Mysteries, is set in a small English village populated with authors and booksellers. Connect with Debbie on Twitter @DebbieYoungBN

On today’s interview Kathryn will go through some of the services provided by InstaFreebie and all the steps required to join with Ashley Durrer. Ashley is passionate about art forms of all kinds, and was able to indulge this passion when she worked for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. As a remaining volunteer with the Accessibility Department, she continues to enrich the experiences of visitors. Now an entrepreneur, her focus has been on accelerating great stories and big ideas. She believes there is a fan for every story and every idea. Ashley has been honored to work with such great authors, and considers many of them friends as they continue to work together in innovative ways. Below you can see an outline of the interview with all the steps you need to take to join InstaFreebie:    Visit instafreebie.com/plans and select your plan to create your account. Then upload your book either in epub format and/or pdf format. At that point you can also upload content upgrades/extra content (for fiction you can upload alternate endings and for non-fiction you can upload trivias and other information valuable to the readers as well as parts or the entire book for the giveaway); Instafreebie will create a campaign for you and you will be given a link to share your giveaway with your audience; As an author you will get the chance of being featured on one of the instafreebies newsletters that are sent out every day of the week, every week; Instafreebie values authors that are actually engaging with their readers, this shows us that the 10th person on your email list is as important as the 1000th as both have the same chance of becoming a super fan; Besides having your solo campaign you can create or be part of a group giveaway (instafreebie.com/groupgiveaways) that are a collective of authors promoting a single web page of books which is a genious idea. They also offer alternative groups organized by third party organizers known as verified organizers such as Ebook Discovery, Freebooksy and Bargain Booksy; The best of all of that is that the entire process takes minutes and not hours. RESOURCES www.instafreebie.com @AshArtGallery @Instafreebie https://www.facebook.com/instafreebie/

Hey everyone, Tim here. This week on Of Mooks and Monsters, Rob and I discuss one of my favorite parts of game mastering: writing new rules. As usual, we wander. Anecdotes abound. Thanks for listening. I still have some free books on Instafreebie in case you have yet to check them out. You can also get my latest book, The Mangrove Suite on Amazon.com. Or, if you’re more into action and fantasy, check out my other recent release, Soul Art.  

On today’s show, we were joined by Ashley and Maura from Instafreebie. If you haven’t heard about the service yet, it’s a spot where you can upload free ebooks (previews, short stories, and novellas are fine), and it makes it easy for potential readers to download them and load them on their e-readers. You also have the option of requiring

James P. Sumner writes a series of action thrillers about a former soldier-turned-hitman named Adrian Hell. He's worked in every type of office environment you can think of – insurance, banking, mobile phones, telesales … you name it, he's done it. In July 2013, he began work on his first novel and eventually self-published his debut thriller, True Conviction, on Amazon, where it has now been downloaded over 300,000 times. He is a member of the Crime Writers Association, and saw his fifth novel, A Necessary Kill, selected as a winner in the 2015 Kindle Scout Program, winning him a publishing contract with one of Amazon's imprints. Find Out More: Website: http://www.jamespsumner.com/ Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/James-P.-Sumner/e/B00ICL7TIK Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamespsumner/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thefirsthellion Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7833853.James_P_Sumner Instafreebie: https://www.instafreebie.com/discover/author/801/james_p_sumner Interview with James: http://thisiswriting.com/author-interviews-james-p-sumner-and-a-necessary-kill/ Interview Talking Points: 1) Calibre e-book software: https://calibre-ebook.com/ 2) Scivener writing software: https://paulteague.com/scrivener [My affiliate link] 3) Nick Stephenson's website: http://www.blog.yourfirst10kreaders.com/ 4) Joanna Penn's website: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/ 5) Bookfunnel: https://bookfunnel.com/  [Makes it really easy to deliver free e-books to readers] 6) Instafreebie: 7) Jimmy Gibbs on Fiverr.com: https://www.fiverr.com/jimmygibbs [Jimmy designs James' covers] 8) Find out more about Mark Dawson: https://selfpublishingformula.com/ 9) The Crime Writer's Association: https://thecwa.co.uk/ 10) Kindle Scout: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/

James P. Sumner writes a series of action thrillers about a former soldier-turned-hitman named Adrian Hell. He's worked in every type of office environment you can think of – insurance, banking, mobile phones, telesales … you name it, he's done it. In July 2013, he began work on his first novel and eventually self-published his debut thriller, True Conviction, on Amazon, where it has now been downloaded over 300,000 times. He is a member of the Crime Writers Association, and saw his fifth novel, A Necessary Kill, selected as a winner in the 2015 Kindle Scout Program, winning him a publishing contract with one of Amazon's imprints. Find Out More: Website: http://www.jamespsumner.com/ Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/James-P.-Sumner/e/B00ICL7TIK Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamespsumner/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thefirsthellion Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7833853.James_P_Sumner Instafreebie: https://www.instafreebie.com/discover/author/801/james_p_sumner Interview with James: http://thisiswriting.com/author-interviews-james-p-sumner-and-a-necessary-kill/ Interview Talking Points: 1) Calibre e-book software: https://calibre-ebook.com/ 2) Scivener writing software: https://paulteague.com/scrivener [My affiliate link] 3) Nick Stephenson's website: http://www.blog.yourfirst10kreaders.com/ 4) Joanna Penn's website: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/ 5) Bookfunnel: https://bookfunnel.com/  [Makes it really easy to deliver free e-books to readers] 6) Instafreebie: 7) Jimmy Gibbs on Fiverr.com: https://www.fiverr.com/jimmygibbs [Jimmy designs James' covers] 8) Find out more about Mark Dawson: https://selfpublishingformula.com/ 9) The Crime Writer's Association: https://thecwa.co.uk/ 10) Kindle Scout: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

This time on Alive After Reading, Tim interviews Skyler White, co-author of The Incrementalists, and Skil of Our Hands. It’s an illuminating conversation about writing and books and, as usual, Tim gets a little personal… Enjoy! Check out Tim’s samples and Rem’s Dream on Instafreebie.com. Buy Tim’s new book, “Soul Art” today. Thanks for listening.

Steven A. McKay's first book, "Wolf's Head", came out in 2013 and was an Amazon UK top 20 bestseller. It has an incredible 389+ reviews on Amazon.co.uk ... if you've ever tried to get reviews, that's an astonishing number. "Blood of the Wolf" is the fourth and final book in the Forest Lord series which has over 95,000 sales so far. As a historical fiction author, Steven is currently working on a brand new tale - tentatively titled "The Druid" set in post-Roman Britain. Find Out More: 1) Steven's website: https://stevenamckay.com/ 2) Follow Steven on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SA_McKay 3) Follow Steven on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steven.mckay.355 4) Steven's Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7161617.Steven_A_McKay 5) Steven's Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Steven-A.-McKay/e/B00DS0TRH6/ Interview Talking Points: 1) How I sold 90,000* ebooks - blog post: https://stevenamckay.com/2016/07/11/how-i-sold-90000-ebooks-some-tips/ 2) Amazon Academy event write-up: https://stevenamckay.com/2017/05/26/amazon-academy-kdp-event-eicc/ 3) Gordon Doherty: http://www.gordondoherty.co.uk/ 4) Simon Turney: http://www.sjaturney.co.uk/ 5) Ben Kane: http://www.benkane.net/ 6) FreeBooksy: https://www.freebooksy.com/ 7) BookLemur: https://www.booklemur.com/ 8) InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] 9) BookBub: https://partners.bookbub.com/ 10) BookTracker: https://book-tracker.com/ 11) Book Report: https://www.getbookreport.com/ 12) Amazon ACX: http://www.acx.com/ 13) AudioBookBoom: https://audiobookboom.com/

Steven A. McKay's first book, "Wolf's Head", came out in 2013 and was an Amazon UK top 20 bestseller. It has an incredible 389+ reviews on Amazon.co.uk ... if you've ever tried to get reviews, that's an astonishing number. "Blood of the Wolf" is the fourth and final book in the Forest Lord series which has over 95,000 sales so far. As a historical fiction author, Steven is currently working on a brand new tale - tentatively titled "The Druid" set in post-Roman Britain. Find Out More: 1) Steven's website: https://stevenamckay.com/ 2) Follow Steven on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SA_McKay 3) Follow Steven on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steven.mckay.355 4) Steven's Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7161617.Steven_A_McKay 5) Steven's Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Steven-A.-McKay/e/B00DS0TRH6/ Interview Talking Points: 1) How I sold 90,000* ebooks - blog post: https://stevenamckay.com/2016/07/11/how-i-sold-90000-ebooks-some-tips/ 2) Amazon Academy event write-up: https://stevenamckay.com/2017/05/26/amazon-academy-kdp-event-eicc/ 3) Gordon Doherty: http://www.gordondoherty.co.uk/ 4) Simon Turney: http://www.sjaturney.co.uk/ 5) Ben Kane: http://www.benkane.net/ 6) FreeBooksy: https://www.freebooksy.com/ 7) BookLemur: https://www.booklemur.com/ 8) InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] 9) BookBub: https://partners.bookbub.com/ 10) BookTracker: https://book-tracker.com/ 11) Book Report: https://www.getbookreport.com/ 12) Amazon ACX: http://www.acx.com/ 13) AudioBookBoom: https://audiobookboom.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

1) This week's writing progress: 2) 20BooksTo50k in London: http://20bookslondon.com/ I originally booked through Booking.com so I could cancel my rooms if I needed to (which I did!) [My referral link btw] Eventually I booked my room at the Travelodge in Egham which is just a short walk up the High Street to the venue and considerably cheaper: https://www.travelodge.co.uk/hotels/588/Egham-hotel 3) MailerLite - my current, preferred email marketing service: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/ML [My affiliate link] 4) Thrive Themes - great plugins for use with Wordpress websites: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/Thrive [My affiliate link] 5) Authors XP promotion website - well worth a try: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/Promos  [My affiliate link] 6) InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link]

1) This week's writing progress: 2) 20BooksTo50k in London: http://20bookslondon.com/ I originally booked through Booking.com so I could cancel my rooms if I needed to (which I did!) [My referral link btw] Eventually I booked my room at the Travelodge in Egham which is just a short walk up the High Street to the venue and considerably cheaper: https://www.travelodge.co.uk/hotels/588/Egham-hotel 3) MailerLite - my current, preferred email marketing service: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/ML [My affiliate link] 4) Thrive Themes - great plugins for use with Wordpress websites: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/Thrive [My affiliate link] 5) Authors XP promotion website - well worth a try: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/Promos  [My affiliate link] 6) InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

John Hindmarsh writes thrillers and science fiction – sometimes with a crossover between the two. He is originally from Australia, he's spent time in England and now lives in California where he writes full time. Raised as a farmer, John studied for and qualified as a Certified Public Accountant, then transitioned into an IT consultant. He has self-published several novels, writes short stories and is a serious photographer. Find out more John's website: http://johnhindmarsh.com/ John's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JohnHindmarshAuthor/ John's Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Hindmarsh/e/B005309ASK John's Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7337086.John_Hindmarsh Talking Points John's Broken Glass cover art: http://mjb-graphics.co.uk/broken-glass/ Thrilling Reads interview with John Hindmarsh: http://get.thrillingreads.com/mtta-42-john-hindmarsh/ Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/partners InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] Vellum formatting software: https://vellum.pub/ [Recommended!]   --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

John Hindmarsh writes thrillers and science fiction – sometimes with a crossover between the two. He is originally from Australia, he's spent time in England and now lives in California where he writes full time. Raised as a farmer, John studied for and qualified as a Certified Public Accountant, then transitioned into an IT consultant. He has self-published several novels, writes short stories and is a serious photographer. Find out more John's website: http://johnhindmarsh.com/ John's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JohnHindmarshAuthor/ John's Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Hindmarsh/e/B005309ASK John's Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7337086.John_Hindmarsh Talking Points John's Broken Glass cover art: http://mjb-graphics.co.uk/broken-glass/ Thrilling Reads interview with John Hindmarsh: http://get.thrillingreads.com/mtta-42-john-hindmarsh/ Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/partners InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] Vellum formatting software: https://vellum.pub/ [Recommended!]  

1) My Q3 (July-Sept) goals (personal financial goals hidden as are family visits): https://self-publishing-journeys.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/q3-goals-819x1024.jpg 2) Sell More Books Show: http://sellmorebooksshow.com/ 3) MailerLite is my current recommended writing tool: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/ML 4) My courses on Teachable: How To Use Vellum On A PC: http://self-publishing-academy.teachable.com/p/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ Self-Publishing Academy: http://self-publishing-academy.teachable.com/p/self-publishing-academy/ 5) 20BooksTo50k Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/781495321956934/ [Highly recoemmended!] 6) Burden of Gult on pre-release: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burden-Guilt-Paul-J-Teague-ebook/dp/B071XJKZMM/ 7) Caledonian Sleeper: https://www.sleeper.scot/ 8) WebinarJam: https://www.webinarjam.com/ 9) BookFunnel: https://bookfunnel.com/ 10) InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link]   

1) My Q3 (July-Sept) goals (personal financial goals hidden as are family visits): https://self-publishing-journeys.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/q3-goals-819x1024.jpg 2) Sell More Books Show: http://sellmorebooksshow.com/ 3) MailerLite is my current recommended writing tool: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/ML 4) My courses on Teachable: How To Use Vellum On A PC: http://self-publishing-academy.teachable.com/p/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ Self-Publishing Academy: http://self-publishing-academy.teachable.com/p/self-publishing-academy/ 5) 20BooksTo50k Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/781495321956934/ [Highly recoemmended!] 6) Burden of Gult on pre-release: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burden-Guilt-Paul-J-Teague-ebook/dp/B071XJKZMM/ 7) Caledonian Sleeper: https://www.sleeper.scot/ 8) WebinarJam: https://www.webinarjam.com/ 9) BookFunnel: https://bookfunnel.com/ 10) InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link]    --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

Jackson Dean Chase is a Pacific Northwest author and poet who specializes in “Bold Visions of Dark Places.” Jackson loves science fiction, fantasy, and horror, but it wasn’t until he combined them with pulp thrillers and noir that he felt that he'd really found his voice as an author. He aims to leave his fiction readers breathless but ALSO writes non-fiction 'how-to' books for authors giving useful advice on specific elements of writing technique. As an author with over 30 books to his name, Jackson has tried a lot of different strategies on the path to his indie author breakthrough. Episode 64, release date Monday 22nd May, 2017 1) Jackson's author website: http://www.jacksondeanchase.com/ 2) Jackson's Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13450002.Jackson_Dean_Chase 3) Jackson's Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Jackson-Dean-Chase/e/B00T4BOAGQ 5) Follow Jackson on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jacksondeanchaseauthor/ 6) Follow Jackson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackson_d_chase Talking Points 1) The YAAA Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YAauthoralliance/ 2) Jackson's Tumblr account: http://jacksondeanchase.tumblr.com/ 3) Jackson's Wattpad account: https://www.wattpad.com/story/17951564-forever-dark-book-1-of-the-forever-dark-series 4) Book Report for viewing your Amazon sales: https://www.getbookreport.com/ 5) InstaFreebie for growing your author mailing list: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] 6) Mailchimp, email marketing software: https://mailchimp.com/ 7) ConvertKit, email marketing software: https://convertkit.com/ 8) 20BooksTo50k Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/781495321956934/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

Jackson Dean Chase is a Pacific Northwest author and poet who specializes in “Bold Visions of Dark Places.” Jackson loves science fiction, fantasy, and horror, but it wasn't until he combined them with pulp thrillers and noir that he felt that he'd really found his voice as an author. He aims to leave his fiction readers breathless but ALSO writes non-fiction 'how-to' books for authors giving useful advice on specific elements of writing technique. As an author with over 30 books to his name, Jackson has tried a lot of different strategies on the path to his indie author breakthrough. Episode 64, release date Monday 22nd May, 2017 1) Jackson's author website: http://www.jacksondeanchase.com/ 2) Jackson's Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13450002.Jackson_Dean_Chase 3) Jackson's Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Jackson-Dean-Chase/e/B00T4BOAGQ 5) Follow Jackson on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jacksondeanchaseauthor/ 6) Follow Jackson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackson_d_chase Talking Points 1) The YAAA Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YAauthoralliance/ 2) Jackson's Tumblr account: http://jacksondeanchase.tumblr.com/ 3) Jackson's Wattpad account: https://www.wattpad.com/story/17951564-forever-dark-book-1-of-the-forever-dark-series 4) Book Report for viewing your Amazon sales: https://www.getbookreport.com/ 5) InstaFreebie for growing your author mailing list: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] 6) Mailchimp, email marketing software: https://mailchimp.com/ 7) ConvertKit, email marketing software: https://convertkit.com/ 8) 20BooksTo50k Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/781495321956934/

Before writing books, Sarah Painter worked as a freelance magazine journalist, blogger and editor. Sarah writes contemporary fiction with a touch of magic and her debut novel, The Language of Spells, became a Kindle bestseller. She presents the Worried Writer podcast, has just self-published her first non-fiction book – Stop Worrying; Start Writing – and recently signed a new book deal with Lake Union. In spite of all of those achievements, Sarah is a self-proclaimed worrier and procrastinator. Find out more: 1) Sarah's Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sarah-Painter/e/B00CWYQ25E/ 2) Sarah's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sarahpainterbooks/ 3) Sarah's blog site: http://www.sarah-painter.com/ 4) Sarah's podcast – HIGHLY recommended! http://www.worriedwriter.com/podcasts/ 5) My Journey to Publication by Sarah Pianter http://www.carinauk.com/my-journey-to-publication-by-sarah-painter 6) Sarah's Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7093560.Sarah_Painter Talking Points: 1) Sarah's InstaFreebie page: https://www.instafreebie.com/author/SarahPainter 2) Sarah referred to a TED talk by Brené Brown called The power of vulnerability. You can see the video at: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability Sarah also referred to Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Big Magic: https://www.elizabethgilbert.com/ 3) Digital book publisher Carina: http://www.carinauk.com/ 4) Sarah now published with Lake Union, an Amazon Imprint: https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1003018741 5) This is the link for the laptop stand that Sarah was describing – it's not the exact model, but this is very similar: https://uk.backpainhelp.com/posture-stand.html 6) Fancy a garden office? This is where Sarah writes: http://www.boothsgardenstudios.co.uk/ 7) Amazon ACX for audiobooks: http://www.acx.com/ 8) Rocking Self-Publishing podcast: 

1) This week's writing progress – 5161 words on Friday, another 5k to come on Saturday: 2) I forgot to mention that Don't Tell Meg had been longlisted for the Retreat West First Chapter Competition – more info at http://www.retreatwest.co.uk/ 3) The ALLi Author Fringe event running all day on June 3rd: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/indie-author-fringe-newcomers-read-this-first/ 4) My How To Use Vellum On A PC … My original blog post: https://paulteague.com/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ My Teachable course: http://self-publishing-academy.teachable.com/p/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ View the course as it's sold on Clickbank: https://use-vellum-on-a-pc.com/ [At the time of publishing, still needs work!] 5) My WordPress Unboxed book on Amazon: https://books2read.com/WP 6) I've just moved over to MailerLite for email marketing: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/ML 7) Here's my affiliate link for InstaFreebie – this is a great way to build a mailing list! https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF 8) My book numbers from the past month – firstly income from my new crime books: My overall sales and numbers: This Week’s Self-Publishing News The Alliance of Independent Authors news update: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-indie-breaktrough/

1) This week's writing progress – 5161 words on Friday, another 5k to come on Saturday: 2) I forgot to mention that Don't Tell Meg had been longlisted for the Retreat West First Chapter Competition – more info at http://www.retreatwest.co.uk/ 3) The ALLi Author Fringe event running all day on June 3rd: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/indie-author-fringe-newcomers-read-this-first/ 4) My How To Use Vellum On A PC … My original blog post: https://paulteague.com/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ My Teachable course: http://self-publishing-academy.teachable.com/p/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ View the course as it's sold on Clickbank: https://use-vellum-on-a-pc.com/ [At the time of publishing, still needs work!] 5) My WordPress Unboxed book on Amazon: https://books2read.com/WP 6) I've just moved over to MailerLite for email marketing: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/ML 7) Here's my affiliate link for InstaFreebie – this is a great way to build a mailing list! https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF 8) My book numbers from the past month – firstly income from my new crime books: My overall sales and numbers: This Week's Self-Publishing News The Alliance of Independent Authors news update: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-indie-breaktrough/

Robert Scott-Norton writes high-octane sci-fi thrillers and is the creator of The Tombs Legacy, a universe of fiction. A lifelong fan of Stephen King and Doctor Who, it was perhaps inevitable that his work would sit somewhere between horror and sci-fi. Robert's books all take place in this same story universe – The Tombs Legacy. His debut sci-fi novel, The Face Stealer, is the first book in a series and sets up this fictional universe. A second series, set in the future, looks at Southport one hundred years from now as repercussions from The Face Stealer start to be felt. Find out more: Robert's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Robert-Scott-Norton/e/B00GGH0GUU Follow Robert on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7210319.Robert_Scott_Norton Follow Robert on Twitter https://twitter.com/robscottnorton Robert's LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertscottnorton/ Robert's InstaFreebie author page https://www.instafreebie.com/discover/author/3813/robert_scottnorton Talking points: 1) Terrance Dicks, Dr Who writer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrance_Dicks 2) NaNoWriMo (highly recommended!) http://nanowrimo.org/ 3) Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing by Dean Wesley Smith http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/killing-the-sacred-cows-of-publishing/ 4) The Creative Penn podcast (highly recommended!) http://www.thecreativepenn.com/ 5) Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/ The Smashwords style guide https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52 6) Draft2Digital https://www.draft2digital.com/ Books2Read booking linking service https://books2read.com/ 7) Scrivener https://paulteague.com/scrivener [My affiliate link] 8) Chris Fox's 5000 Words Per Hour here [Affiliate link] 9) A Week in The Life of an Indie Author http://robertscottnorton.net/writing/a-week-in-the-life-of-an-indie-author/ 10) Time management techniques: David Allen's Getting Things Done http://gettingthingsdone.com/ Zen Habits https://zenhabits.net/ 11) Nick Stephenson's Reader Magnets http://

1) This week's writing progress - this was Saturday's effort: This was Friday's tally: 2) Having spent the previous weekend pulling out all the stops to get Don't Tell Meg to number 1 in the UK, Dead of Night just got there of its own accord with zero promos from me - I was just using up my remaining promo days :-)   3) I recorded my Instafreebie Leads Explosion video for the next ALLi Author Fringe event which is taking place on Saturday 3rd June: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/will-you-help-us-spread-the-word-about-indieauthorfringe/ 4) My Facebook non-fiction book, newly republished! https://books2read.com/FB 5) The membership criteria for the Society of Authors: http://www.societyofauthors.org/Join/Eligibility 6) Mark Dawson's interview in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/15/self-published-authors-hollywood-andy-weir-the-martian-el-james (Read the comments!) 7) This was the Instafreebie blog promo that they ran this week: http://blog.instafreebie.com/see-it-first-paul-teague-kellie-mcallen-nj-lindquist/ These were the leads that I'd added when I took my Friday afternoon screenshot: 9) Reminder! Amazon Academy event in Edinburgh on 23rd May http://selfpublishingadvice.org/amazon-academy/ 10) Reminder! ALLi Indie Author Fringe event on June 3rd http://selfpublishingadvice.org/6-weeks-until-bookexpo-indie-author-fringe-2017-are-you-ready-to-sell-more-books/

1) This week's writing progress - this was Saturday's effort: This was Friday's tally: 2) Having spent the previous weekend pulling out all the stops to get Don't Tell Meg to number 1 in the UK, Dead of Night just got there of its own accord with zero promos from me - I was just using up my remaining promo days :-)   3) I recorded my Instafreebie Leads Explosion video for the next ALLi Author Fringe event which is taking place on Saturday 3rd June: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/will-you-help-us-spread-the-word-about-indieauthorfringe/ 4) My Facebook non-fiction book, newly republished! https://books2read.com/FB 5) The membership criteria for the Society of Authors: http://www.societyofauthors.org/Join/Eligibility 6) Mark Dawson's interview in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/15/self-published-authors-hollywood-andy-weir-the-martian-el-james (Read the comments!) 7) This was the Instafreebie blog promo that they ran this week: http://blog.instafreebie.com/see-it-first-paul-teague-kellie-mcallen-nj-lindquist/ These were the leads that I'd added when I took my Friday afternoon screenshot: 9) Reminder! Amazon Academy event in Edinburgh on 23rd May http://selfpublishingadvice.org/amazon-academy/ 10) Reminder! ALLi Indie Author Fringe event on June 3rd http://selfpublishingadvice.org/6-weeks-until-bookexpo-indie-author-fringe-2017-are-you-ready-to-sell-more-books/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

Jason Blacker writes mystery fiction and literary fiction as well as poetry and daily haikus at his haiku blog. Jason's stories range from Adventure to Zombies, though he's best known for his Lady Marmalade cozy mysteries and his Anthony Carrick hardboiled mysteries. Jason received an incredible 300 rejections from traditional publishers before turning to self-publishing, here he deploys lots of online marketing techniques to promote his work. Find Out More: Jason's Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jason-Blacker/e/B0051QUDA0 Jason's website: http://jasonblacker.com/ Jason Blacker on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2156914.Jason_Blacker Follow Jason on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonblacker Jason Blacker on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jasonblacker Jason's Haiku website: http://haiqueue.com/ Talking Points: 1) More about the Pomodoro technique http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/the-pomodoro-technique-is-it-right-for-you.html 2) Scrivener https://self-publishing-academy.com/SC [My affiliate link] 3) Vellum software https://vellum.pub/ How to use Vellum on a PC https://paulteague.com/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ 4) ConvertKit website https://convertkit.com/ I use GetResponse https://paulteague.com/getresponse [My affiliate link] I'm currently moving over to MailerLite https://paulteague.com/ML [My affiliate link] 5) My sci-fi/dystopian Instafreebie Giveaway https://freebie-books.com/ My Crime/Thriller Giveaway https://freebie-books.com/crime-thrillers/ InstaFreebie https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

Jason Blacker writes mystery fiction and literary fiction as well as poetry and daily haikus at his haiku blog. Jason's stories range from Adventure to Zombies, though he's best known for his Lady Marmalade cozy mysteries and his Anthony Carrick hardboiled mysteries. Jason received an incredible 300 rejections from traditional publishers before turning to self-publishing, here he deploys lots of online marketing techniques to promote his work. Find Out More: Jason's Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jason-Blacker/e/B0051QUDA0 Jason's website: http://jasonblacker.com/ Jason Blacker on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2156914.Jason_Blacker Follow Jason on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonblacker Jason Blacker on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jasonblacker Jason's Haiku website: http://haiqueue.com/ Talking Points: 1) More about the Pomodoro technique http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/the-pomodoro-technique-is-it-right-for-you.html 2) Scrivener https://self-publishing-academy.com/SC [My affiliate link] 3) Vellum software https://vellum.pub/ How to use Vellum on a PC https://paulteague.com/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ 4) ConvertKit website https://convertkit.com/ I use GetResponse https://paulteague.com/getresponse [My affiliate link] I'm currently moving over to MailerLite https://paulteague.com/ML [My affiliate link] 5) My sci-fi/dystopian Instafreebie Giveaway https://freebie-books.com/ My Crime/Thriller Giveaway https://freebie-books.com/crime-thrillers/ InstaFreebie https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link]

Discover how to target the right readers with ebook giveaways. Listen as Ashley Durrer, Business Development Director at Instafreebie, explains how the company builds trusted and lasting connections to the right readers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this show I talk again to Paul Teague, this time about two of the hottest topics in Self-Publishing at the moment, InstaFreebie and Vellum. You can find show notes at: http://beginselfpublishing.com/instafreebie-vellum-paul-teague

1) This week's writing progress: 2) My paperback books, which were formatted by http://www.frostbitepublishing.com/   These books are being sold via Createspace at https://www.createspace.com/ 3) My thriller trilogy listed on Kobo at https://writinglife.kobobooks.com/ebooks The books are also loaded and ready to release on Draft2Digital at https://www.draft2digital.com   4) My forthcoming Crime Giveaway: https://freebie-books.com/crime-thrillers-may2017/ My two books will not be accessed via InstaFreebie, Don't Tell Meg will be free, Dead of Night will be 99p - this is an exercise in driving traffic! 5) Reminder! Amazon Academy event in Edinburgh on 23rd May http://selfpublishingadvice.org/amazon-academy/ 6) Reminder! The Newcastle Writing Conference on Saturday 20th May http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/newcastle-writing-conference/ [Waiting list only] 7) Reminder! ALLi Indie Author Fringe event on June 3rd http://selfpublishingadvice.org/6-weeks-until-bookexpo-indie-author-fringe-2017-are-you-ready-to-sell-more-books/ 8) Tim Lewis and The Begin Self-Publishing Podcast http://beginselfpublishing.com/ 9) Future podcast guest Robert Scott-Norton http://robertscottnorton.net/ This Week’s Self-Publishing News The Alliance of Independent Authors news update: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-amazon-in-australia/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

1) This week's writing progress: 2) My paperback books, which were formatted by http://www.frostbitepublishing.com/   These books are being sold via Createspace at https://www.createspace.com/ 3) My thriller trilogy listed on Kobo at https://writinglife.kobobooks.com/ebooks The books are also loaded and ready to release on Draft2Digital at https://www.draft2digital.com   4) My forthcoming Crime Giveaway: https://freebie-books.com/crime-thrillers-may2017/ My two books will not be accessed via InstaFreebie, Don't Tell Meg will be free, Dead of Night will be 99p - this is an exercise in driving traffic! 5) Reminder! Amazon Academy event in Edinburgh on 23rd May http://selfpublishingadvice.org/amazon-academy/ 6) Reminder! The Newcastle Writing Conference on Saturday 20th May http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/newcastle-writing-conference/ [Waiting list only] 7) Reminder! ALLi Indie Author Fringe event on June 3rd http://selfpublishingadvice.org/6-weeks-until-bookexpo-indie-author-fringe-2017-are-you-ready-to-sell-more-books/ 8) Tim Lewis and The Begin Self-Publishing Podcast http://beginselfpublishing.com/ 9) Future podcast guest Robert Scott-Norton http://robertscottnorton.net/ This Week's Self-Publishing News The Alliance of Independent Authors news update: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-amazon-in-australia/

1) My forthcoming Crime Giveaway: https://freebie-books.com/crime-thrillers-may2017/ My two books will not be accessed via InstaFreebie, Don't Tell Meg will be free, Dead of Night will be 99p - this is an exercise in driving traffic! 2) These are the promo sites that I have listed on: Book Gorilla http://www.bookgorilla.com/ Freebooksy https://www.freebooksy.com/ The Books Machine http://www.thebooksmachine.com/deals/dealspromote.html eBookSoda http://www.ebooksoda.com/ 3) Crime Book Junkie https://crimebookjunkie.co.uk/ 4) Amazon Academy event in Edinburgh http://selfpublishingadvice.org/amazon-academy/ 5) Reminder! The Newcastle Writing Conference on Saturday 20th May http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/newcastle-writing-conference/ This Week’s Self-Publishing News The Alliance of Independent Authors news update: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-where-are-the-young-british-indies/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

1) My forthcoming Crime Giveaway: https://freebie-books.com/crime-thrillers-may2017/ My two books will not be accessed via InstaFreebie, Don't Tell Meg will be free, Dead of Night will be 99p - this is an exercise in driving traffic! 2) These are the promo sites that I have listed on: Book Gorilla http://www.bookgorilla.com/ Freebooksy https://www.freebooksy.com/ The Books Machine http://www.thebooksmachine.com/deals/dealspromote.html eBookSoda http://www.ebooksoda.com/ 3) Crime Book Junkie https://crimebookjunkie.co.uk/ 4) Amazon Academy event in Edinburgh http://selfpublishingadvice.org/amazon-academy/ 5) Reminder! The Newcastle Writing Conference on Saturday 20th May http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/newcastle-writing-conference/ This Week's Self-Publishing News The Alliance of Independent Authors news update: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-where-are-the-young-british-indies/

) Thursday's writing progress was 5008 words: The book is now called Burden of Guilt ... but I may yet change it to So Many Lies :-) 1) Current working title and cover for my work-in-progress - Burden of Guilt: 2) Podhero: http://www.podhero.io 3) Interview recorded with Justin Sloane: http://www.justinsloanauthor.com/ 4) Reminder! The Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester on Saturday 22nd April https://selfpublishingconference.org.uk/ 5) Reminder! The Newcastle Writing Conference on Saturday 20th May http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/newcastle-writing-conference/ 6) ALLi Q&A with Orna Ross on Tuesday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il9598LmUxw&feature=youtu.be 7) 20BooksTo50k Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/781495321956934/ 8) The Kindling community - this is a paid product and this is my affiliate link: https://self-publishing-academy.com/Kindling 9) This week's InstaFreebie leads added via http://abam.info/instafreebie/    

) Thursday's writing progress was 5008 words: The book is now called Burden of Guilt ... but I may yet change it to So Many Lies :-) 1) Current working title and cover for my work-in-progress - Burden of Guilt: 2) Podhero: http://www.podhero.io 3) Interview recorded with Justin Sloane: http://www.justinsloanauthor.com/ 4) Reminder! The Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester on Saturday 22nd April https://selfpublishingconference.org.uk/ 5) Reminder! The Newcastle Writing Conference on Saturday 20th May http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/newcastle-writing-conference/ 6) ALLi Q&A with Orna Ross on Tuesday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il9598LmUxw&feature=youtu.be 7) 20BooksTo50k Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/781495321956934/ 8) The Kindling community - this is a paid product and this is my affiliate link: https://self-publishing-academy.com/Kindling 9) This week's InstaFreebie leads added via http://abam.info/instafreebie/     --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

Self-Publishing Journeys is 1 year old today! Iain Rob Wright is one of the UK's most successful horror and suspense writers. Iain worked for many years as a mobile telephone salesman. After publishing his debut novel, The Final Winter, in 2011 to great success, he quit his job and became a full time writer. His work is currently being adapted for graphic novels, audio books, and foreign audiences. He is an active member of the Horror Writer Association and runs his own online training website, azofselfpublishing.com. Episode 57, release date Monday 3rd April, 2017 Find Out More: Iain's website: https://www.iainrobwright.com/ Follow Iain on Twitter: https://twitter.com/iainrobwright Iain's Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Iain-Rob-Wright/e/B0052WR48C Iain's Goodreads author profile :https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4888646.Iain_Rob_Wright Iain's Facebook page :https://www.facebook.com/authoriainrobwright/ Iain's original blogger site: http://iainrobwright.blogspot.co.uk/ Iain's author training website: https://azofselfpublishing.com/ Talking points: 1) Iain's author income blog post: https://azofselfpublishing.com/self-publishing-earnings-2016/ 2) Iain's YouTube video, showing his author income since he began self-publishing: 3) Stuart Bache book covers: http://stuartbache.co.uk/ 4) Write It Now software: http://www.ravensheadservices.com/ 5) EasyAzon Wordpress plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/easyazon/ Also see Amazon Link plugin: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/amazon-link/ 6) Book Funnel: https://bookfunnel.com/ InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] 7) Merch by Amazon: https://merch.amazon.com/landing 8) Zippy courses: https://zippycourses.com/ 9) Drip --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

Self-Publishing Journeys is 1 year old today! Iain Rob Wright is one of the UK's most successful horror and suspense writers. Iain worked for many years as a mobile telephone salesman. After publishing his debut novel, The Final Winter, in 2011 to great success, he quit his job and became a full time writer. His work is currently being adapted for graphic novels, audio books, and foreign audiences. He is an active member of the Horror Writer Association and runs his own online training website, azofselfpublishing.com. Episode 57, release date Monday 3rd April, 2017 Find Out More: Iain's website: https://www.iainrobwright.com/ Follow Iain on Twitter: https://twitter.com/iainrobwright Iain's Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Iain-Rob-Wright/e/B0052WR48C Iain's Goodreads author profile :https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4888646.Iain_Rob_Wright Iain's Facebook page :https://www.facebook.com/authoriainrobwright/ Iain's original blogger site: http://iainrobwright.blogspot.co.uk/ Iain's author training website: https://azofselfpublishing.com/ Talking points: 1) Iain's author income blog post: https://azofselfpublishing.com/self-publishing-earnings-2016/ 2) Iain's YouTube video, showing his author income since he began self-publishing: 3) Stuart Bache book covers: http://stuartbache.co.uk/ 4) Write It Now software: http://www.ravensheadservices.com/ 5) EasyAzon Wordpress plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/easyazon/ Also see Amazon Link plugin: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/amazon-link/ 6) Book Funnel: https://bookfunnel.com/ InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] 7) Merch by Amazon: https://merch.amazon.com/landing 8) Zippy courses: https://zippycourses.com/ 9) Drip

1) The benefits of using YouTube - page views grow consistently over time and drive decent web traffic: 2) This is a preview for my InstaFreebie webinar on Wednesday 5th April - you can register via https://free-book-giveaways.com/webinar/ 3) My InstaFreebie Crime/Thriller Giveaway event has gone really well this week https://freebie-books.com/crime-thrillers/ This is what the leaderboard looks like: https://freebie-books.com/leaderboard-mar2017/ 4) Amazon Academy event took place in Manchester on Friday 31st March. Speakers were: Tracy Bloom https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tracy-Bloom/e/B00BSRA0TA/ Keith Houghton https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keith-Houghton/e/B005UMEUJA/ Joseph Alexander https://www.amazon.co.uk/Joseph-Alexander/e/B008VW6Q0M/ 5) Reminder! The Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester on Saturday 22nd April https://selfpublishingconference.org.uk/ 6) Reminder! The Newcastle Writing Conference on Saturday 20th May http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/newcastle-writing-conference/ 7) My Q1/Q2 planning boards:       --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

1) The benefits of using YouTube - page views grow consistently over time and drive decent web traffic: 2) This is a preview for my InstaFreebie webinar on Wednesday 5th April - you can register via https://free-book-giveaways.com/webinar/ 3) My InstaFreebie Crime/Thriller Giveaway event has gone really well this week https://freebie-books.com/crime-thrillers/ This is what the leaderboard looks like: https://freebie-books.com/leaderboard-mar2017/ 4) Amazon Academy event took place in Manchester on Friday 31st March. Speakers were: Tracy Bloom https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tracy-Bloom/e/B00BSRA0TA/ Keith Houghton https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keith-Houghton/e/B005UMEUJA/ Joseph Alexander https://www.amazon.co.uk/Joseph-Alexander/e/B008VW6Q0M/ 5) Reminder! The Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester on Saturday 22nd April https://selfpublishingconference.org.uk/ 6) Reminder! The Newcastle Writing Conference on Saturday 20th May http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/newcastle-writing-conference/ 7) My Q1/Q2 planning boards:      

1) I got my trilogy formatted at http://www.frostbitepublishing.com/ 2) This is a preview for my InstaFreebie webinar on 5th April – I'll share the registration link for this from Monday 27th March: 3) My next InstaFreebie Crime/Thriller Giveaway event which starts on 27th March https://freebie-books.com/crime-thrillers/ 4) Amazon Academy event in Manchester on Friday 31st March http://selfpublishingadvice.org/amazon-academy-manchester/ Visiting speakers: Tracy Bloom https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tracy-Bloom/e/B00BSRA0TA/ Keith Houghton https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keith-Houghton/e/B005UMEUJA/ Joseph Alexander https://www.amazon.co.uk/Joseph-Alexander/e/B008VW6Q0M/ Darren Wearmouth https://www.amazon.co.uk/Darren-Wearmouth/e/B00EBIGIZI/ 5) The Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester on Saturday 22nd April https://selfpublishingconference.org.uk/ 6) The Newcastle Writing Conference on Saturday 20th May http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/newcastle-writing-conference/ 7) Bookbub book promotions https://www.bookbub.com/home/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

1) I got my trilogy formatted at http://www.frostbitepublishing.com/ 2) This is a preview for my InstaFreebie webinar on 5th April – I'll share the registration link for this from Monday 27th March: 3) My next InstaFreebie Crime/Thriller Giveaway event which starts on 27th March https://freebie-books.com/crime-thrillers/ 4) Amazon Academy event in Manchester on Friday 31st March http://selfpublishingadvice.org/amazon-academy-manchester/ Visiting speakers: Tracy Bloom https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tracy-Bloom/e/B00BSRA0TA/ Keith Houghton https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keith-Houghton/e/B005UMEUJA/ Joseph Alexander https://www.amazon.co.uk/Joseph-Alexander/e/B008VW6Q0M/ Darren Wearmouth https://www.amazon.co.uk/Darren-Wearmouth/e/B00EBIGIZI/ 5) The Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester on Saturday 22nd April https://selfpublishingconference.org.uk/ 6) The Newcastle Writing Conference on Saturday 20th May http://newwritingnorth.com/projects/newcastle-writing-conference/ 7) Bookbub book promotions https://www.bookbub.com/home/

Merita King’s stories are inspired by watching Star Trek – with William Shatner – and Blakes 7, which was really popular in the UK in the 70s. Merita is the creator of The Lilean Chronicles, The Sinclair V-Logs series and several standalone stories. She is a self-published author and regular blogger who also provides some excellent and helpful ‘how to’ articles on her website. Merita began writing in 2011 and has a back list of twelve books to her name. Merita’s website: https://meritaking.com/ Merita on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MeritaKingNovelist/ Follow Merita on Twitter: https://twitter.com/meritaking Merita’s Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5762816.Merita_King Merita’s Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Merita-King/e/B0062NEATG Merita’s Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/103300817631297019460 Merita on Authorgraph: https://www.authorgraph.com/authors/MeritaKing Talking points: Blake’s Seven: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake’s_7 Mailchimp for email marketing: http://www.paulteague.com/mailchimp-ar [Affiliate link] InstaFreebie: http://www.paulteague.com/IF [Affiliate link] Hootsuite: http://www.paulteague.com/hootsuite [Affiliate link] Merita’s article on EIN numbers and USA tax: https://meritaking.com/tag/tax-code/ Merita’s compelling description of her self-publishing journey: Since June 2011, I have been writing novels and short stories and now have a backlist of twelve books, with another finished to first draft and yet another half written. All have failed to sell and still nobody is interested in my work. I have tried doing free giveaways, one facebook release event I arranged garnered the impressive attendance of just 2. I am now experiencing the painful trauma of realising that I am wasting my time publishing and probably should not bother doing so again. When I say painful, I mean it. Failing at this is the most painful thing of my entire life so far. I cannot adequately explain how much I want to be a successful novelist, and to fail so spectacularly is a burden that is too much to bear. Merita’s writing for readers blog post: https://meritaking.com/2014/02/11/write-for-readers-dont-write-for-writers/ Merita’s romance novel: https://www.amazon.co.uk/W-O-L-Merita-King-ebook/dp/B00J9V9VCE/ Arthur C. Clarke novel ‘Childhood’s End’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood’s_End --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

Merita King's stories are inspired by watching Star Trek – with William Shatner – and Blakes 7, which was really popular in the UK in the 70s. Merita is the creator of The Lilean Chronicles, The Sinclair V-Logs series and several standalone stories. She is a self-published author and regular blogger who also provides some excellent and helpful ‘how to' articles on her website. Merita began writing in 2011 and has a back list of twelve books to her name. Merita's website: https://meritaking.com/ Merita on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MeritaKingNovelist/ Follow Merita on Twitter: https://twitter.com/meritaking Merita's Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5762816.Merita_King Merita's Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Merita-King/e/B0062NEATG Merita's Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/103300817631297019460 Merita on Authorgraph: https://www.authorgraph.com/authors/MeritaKing Talking points: Blake's Seven: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake's_7 Mailchimp for email marketing: http://www.paulteague.com/mailchimp-ar [Affiliate link] InstaFreebie: http://www.paulteague.com/IF [Affiliate link] Hootsuite: http://www.paulteague.com/hootsuite [Affiliate link] Merita's article on EIN numbers and USA tax: https://meritaking.com/tag/tax-code/ Merita's compelling description of her self-publishing journey: Since June 2011, I have been writing novels and short stories and now have a backlist of twelve books, with another finished to first draft and yet another half written. All have failed to sell and still nobody is interested in my work. I have tried doing free giveaways, one facebook release event I arranged garnered the impressive attendance of just 2. I am now experiencing the painful trauma of realising that I am wasting my time publishing and probably should not bother doing so again. When I say painful, I mean it. Failing at this is the most painful thing of my entire life so far. I cannot adequately explain how much I want to be a successful novelist, and to fail so spectacularly is a burden that is too much to bear. Merita's writing for readers blog post: https://meritaking.com/2014/02/11/write-for-readers-dont-write-for-writers/ Merita's romance novel: https://www.amazon.co.uk/W-O-L-Merita-King-ebook/dp/B00J9V9VCE/ Arthur C. Clarke novel ‘Childhood's End': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood's_End

1) Details of the Crime & Publishment event that I'm attending this week: http://www.crimeandpublishment.co.uk/ The ALLi Author Fringe is next Saturday! Find out more about the event on Saturday 18th March: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/lbf-indie-author-fringe-2017-speakers/ 2) My InstaFreebie Giveaway event - update. My Giveaway page: https://freebie-books.com/ The leaderboard: https://freebie-books.com/leaderboard/ Promo images that I have made available to participants: https://freebie-books.com/giveaway-promotional-images/ I am considering offering a paid-for Instafreebie service via a Wordpress multisite - users would get a cloned version of my Giveaway, done-for-you Google Forms and built-in training videos. The Giveaway pages would be re-usable. Find out more about Wordpress Multisite https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network This is what the template would look like: https://freebie-books.com/template/ They'd get a leaderboard and promos page too. Any thoughts on this? What would that service be worth to you? Please drop me a line at paul@paulteague.com 3) Mark Edwards on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mark-Edwards/e/B004PP3WV0/ Linwood Barclay on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Linwood-Barclay/e/B001IGONCG/ Harlan Coben on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Harlan-Coben/e/B000APCH7Y/ 4) Vellum formatting software https://vellum.pub/ How to use Vellum on a PC: https://paulteague.com/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ 5) My holding book covers for future projects - I know that Backpacker looks like a hiking book at the moment, but I couldn't find a decent image to get the ball rolling! 6) Helen Fazal does my editing work, here is her podcast interview link https://self-publishing-journeys.com/episode-13-helen-fazal/ Katja L. Kayne is the creator of The Novel Factory software https://self-publishing-journeys.com/episode-10-katja-l-kaine/ 7) StartUp is on Amazon Prime, not Netflix (oops, sorry about that!) but it's well worth a look if you like thrillers https://www.amazon.co.uk/Startup-Season-1/dp/B01M5DOUUW 7) This wee

1) Details of the Crime & Publishment event that I'm attending this week: http://www.crimeandpublishment.co.uk/ The ALLi Author Fringe is next Saturday! Find out more about the event on Saturday 18th March: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/lbf-indie-author-fringe-2017-speakers/ 2) My InstaFreebie Giveaway event - update. My Giveaway page: https://freebie-books.com/ The leaderboard: https://freebie-books.com/leaderboard/ Promo images that I have made available to participants: https://freebie-books.com/giveaway-promotional-images/ I am considering offering a paid-for Instafreebie service via a Wordpress multisite - users would get a cloned version of my Giveaway, done-for-you Google Forms and built-in training videos. The Giveaway pages would be re-usable. Find out more about Wordpress Multisite https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network This is what the template would look like: https://freebie-books.com/template/ They'd get a leaderboard and promos page too. Any thoughts on this? What would that service be worth to you? Please drop me a line at paul@paulteague.com 3) Mark Edwards on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mark-Edwards/e/B004PP3WV0/ Linwood Barclay on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Linwood-Barclay/e/B001IGONCG/ Harlan Coben on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Harlan-Coben/e/B000APCH7Y/ 4) Vellum formatting software https://vellum.pub/ How to use Vellum on a PC: https://paulteague.com/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ 5) My holding book covers for future projects - I know that Backpacker looks like a hiking book at the moment, but I couldn't find a decent image to get the ball rolling! 6) Helen Fazal does my editing work, here is her podcast interview link https://self-publishing-journeys.com/episode-13-helen-fazal/ Katja L. Kayne is the creator of The Novel Factory software https://self-publishing-journeys.com/episode-10-katja-l-kaine/ 7) StartUp is on Amazon Prime, not Netflix (oops, sorry about that!) but it's well worth a look if you like thrillers https://www.amazon.co.uk/Startup-Season-1/dp/B01M5DOUUW 7) This wee --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

In this week's episode author Chris Fox shares his expertise on the Amazon algorithm and how authors can train Amazon to help them sell books. Show Notes and Links: -How iBooks and other bookstores sell differently than Amazon. -Find out when is a good time to run book promotions to get the maximum lift on Amazon. -The importance of your "Also Boughts" section of your book sales page during the first 60 days of its launch. -Why email lists from curated sites like InstaFreebie may not be best to use for your book launch. -Why cost is not the biggest barrier keeping readers fro buying you books. -A discussion of reader magnets and better options than perma-free books. -Why Amazon is not your employer. -Why it's important early on to sell books to the right readers and who they are. -Find Chris' fiction and nonfiction books here: http://www.chrisfoxwrites.com/ -The Chris Fox YouTube channel with lots of tutorials for authors:  -Chris Fox's latest book, Six Figure Author--click here.

1) This week's writing progress = 5201 words, taking The Murder Place up to over 36k words now. The first draft should be written by 17th March now, if I can turn around editing fast enough, I hope to release this book on 3rd May. 2) New subscribers since February 1st, all due to my use of InstaFreebie: Get InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] My Instafreebie promo page for my 6-12 March event - don't share yet please :-) https://freebie-books.com/ 3) The Alli Author Fringe (online) event: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/5-week-countdown-to-indie-author-fringe/ Alliance of Independent Authors: https://paulteague.com/ALLI [My affiliate link] 4) My book pre-sales book listings on Amazon: Don't Tell Meg: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06WWFJLC3/ The Murder Place: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06WWPFCQ7/ 5) Kindle Scout: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/ Email response from Kindle Scout: 6) I highly recommend Vellum for formatting your ebooks: https://vellum.pub/ If you use a PC, here is how you can access Vellum without a MAC: https://paulteague.com/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ 7) I've decided to have a go at getting my thrillers formatted for Createspace - I'm taking http://www.frostbitepublishing.com/ out for a spin ... I'll let you know how it goes :-) This Week’s Self-Publishing News The Alliance of Independent Authors news update: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-starting-out/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

1) This week's writing is being done on Saturday - I'll post my progress image here once it's done :-) 2) My InstaFreebie book links: This is the InstaFreebie giveaway that I'm taking part in: http://sffbookbonanza.com/freebooks/ I'm using Pretty Link for my tracking links [My affiliate link] I have added over 350 new subscribers into just two of my lists in the past 7 days: Get InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] My promo page - don't share yet please :-)https://freebie-books.com/ 3) The Alli Author Fringe (online) event: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/5-week-countdown-to-indie-author-fringe/ Alliance of Independent Authors: https://paulteague.com/ALLI [My affiliate link] 4) The Author School event on 13th March: https://www.facebook.com/TheAuthorSchool/ 5) The Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester on Saturday 22nd April: https://selfpublishingconference.org.uk/ 6) Iain Rob Wright, who I'm interviewing next week: http://www.iainrobwright.com/

1) This week's writing is being done on Saturday - I'll post my progress image here once it's done :-) 2) My InstaFreebie book links: This is the InstaFreebie giveaway that I'm taking part in: http://sffbookbonanza.com/freebooks/ I'm using Pretty Link for my tracking links [My affiliate link] I have added over 350 new subscribers into just two of my lists in the past 7 days: Get InstaFreebie: https://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] My promo page - don't share yet please :-)https://freebie-books.com/ 3) The Alli Author Fringe (online) event: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/5-week-countdown-to-indie-author-fringe/ Alliance of Independent Authors: https://paulteague.com/ALLI [My affiliate link] 4) The Author School event on 13th March: https://www.facebook.com/TheAuthorSchool/ 5) The Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester on Saturday 22nd April: https://selfpublishingconference.org.uk/ 6) Iain Rob Wright, who I'm interviewing next week: http://www.iainrobwright.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

1) This week's writing progress - I'm now 50% of the way through Dead of Night :-) 2) My InstaFreebie book links: The Grid 1 on InstaFreebie: https://instafreebie.com/free/PgVtL The Secret Bunker 1 on InstaFreebie: https://instafreebie.com/free/pnClt Get InstaFreebie: http://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] A couple of things that I forgot to mention! Author cross-promotion site (for InstaFreebie): https://www.authorsxp.com The Grid 1 listing (for InstaFreebie promos): https://www.authorsxp.com/add-my-book/young-adult/1236-the-grid-1-fall-of-justice The Secret Bunker 1 listing (for InstaFreebie promos): https://www.authorsxp.com/add-my-book/young-adult/1237-the-secret-bunker-1-darkness-falls Mark Dawson's Facebook Genre Groups: http://info.selfpublishingformula.com/facebook-genre-groups 3) My Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1074408.Paul_Teague [My affiliate link] 4) Quickbooks Self-Employed - recommended tool for UK self-employed authors: http://paulteague.com/QBooks 5) Carlisle's Borderlines Book Festival: http://www.borderlinescarlisle.co.uk/ 6) My self-publishing training site: http://self-publishing-academy.com/ 7) Alliance of Independent Authors: http://paulteague.com/ALLI [My affiliate link] 8) GoToWebinar - the best webinar tool: https://www.gotomeeting.com/en-gb/webinar

1) This week's writing progress - I'm now 50% of the way through Dead of Night :-) 2) My InstaFreebie book links: The Grid 1 on InstaFreebie: https://instafreebie.com/free/PgVtL The Secret Bunker 1 on InstaFreebie: https://instafreebie.com/free/pnClt Get InstaFreebie: http://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] A couple of things that I forgot to mention! Author cross-promotion site (for InstaFreebie): https://www.authorsxp.com The Grid 1 listing (for InstaFreebie promos): https://www.authorsxp.com/add-my-book/young-adult/1236-the-grid-1-fall-of-justice The Secret Bunker 1 listing (for InstaFreebie promos): https://www.authorsxp.com/add-my-book/young-adult/1237-the-secret-bunker-1-darkness-falls Mark Dawson's Facebook Genre Groups: http://info.selfpublishingformula.com/facebook-genre-groups 3) My Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1074408.Paul_Teague [My affiliate link] 4) Quickbooks Self-Employed - recommended tool for UK self-employed authors: http://paulteague.com/QBooks 5) Carlisle's Borderlines Book Festival: http://www.borderlinescarlisle.co.uk/ 6) My self-publishing training site: http://self-publishing-academy.com/ 7) Alliance of Independent Authors: http://paulteague.com/ALLI [My affiliate link] 8) GoToWebinar - the best webinar tool: https://www.gotomeeting.com/en-gb/webinar --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

1) This week's writing progress - 5092 words written with a 21,076 total to date: This is the book that I'm writing: 2) My rejection this week was from Moth books: https://themoth.org/books 3) Instafreebie: http://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] 4) Zapier (used for moving leads from Mailchimp to GetResponse): https://zapier.com 5) Mailchimp: http://www.paulteague.com/mailchimp-ar [My affiliate link] I use this for training purposes, it's great for beginners but as you build your list you'll probably want to progress to another tool. GetResponse: http://www.paulteague.com/getresponse [My affiliate link] This is the email marketing service that I've used for several years. 6) ACX for audiobooks: http://www.acx.com/ 7) Vellum: https://vellum.pub/ My article about using Vellum on a PC rather than a Mac: http://www.paulteague.com/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ 8) Alliance of Independent Authors - highly recommended for all indie authors! http://self-publishing-journeys.com/ALLi [My affiliate link] 9) Another tax update sorted, with 0% retention in the USA: This Week's Self-Publishing News The Alliance of Independent Authors news update: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-around-the-world/

1) This week's writing progress - 5092 words written with a 21,076 total to date: This is the book that I'm writing: 2) My rejection this week was from Moth books: https://themoth.org/books 3) Instafreebie: http://self-publishing-journeys.com/IF [My affiliate link] 4) Zapier (used for moving leads from Mailchimp to GetResponse): https://zapier.com 5) Mailchimp: http://www.paulteague.com/mailchimp-ar [My affiliate link] I use this for training purposes, it's great for beginners but as you build your list you'll probably want to progress to another tool. GetResponse: http://www.paulteague.com/getresponse [My affiliate link] This is the email marketing service that I've used for several years. 6) ACX for audiobooks: http://www.acx.com/ 7) Vellum: https://vellum.pub/ My article about using Vellum on a PC rather than a Mac: http://www.paulteague.com/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/ 8) Alliance of Independent Authors - highly recommended for all indie authors! http://self-publishing-journeys.com/ALLi [My affiliate link] 9) Another tax update sorted, with 0% retention in the USA: This Week’s Self-Publishing News The Alliance of Independent Authors news update: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-around-the-world/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

Ron Vitale caught my attention on Twitter because of an excellent post that he made to his blog outlining in great details his indie-author outgoings and income. Few authors dare to share this information, but Ron broke it all down in great detail holding back nothing in the process. Ron is the author of the author of the Cinderella's Secret Witch Diaries and A Witch's Coven Novels series and is a sci-fi/fantasy writer. In his podcast interview, he gives a very detailed report on what you can expect to earn in your early days of indie publishing.     Find out more about Ron: Website: http://www.ronvitale.com/ Follow Ron on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ron.Vitale.Author/ Follow Ron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ronvitale Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Ron-Vitale/e/B004W0MQPG/ Follow Ron on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4078431.Ron_Vitale     Find out more about Ron: Website: http://www.ronvitale.com/ Follow Ron on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ron.Vitale.Author/ Follow Ron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ronvitale Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Ron-Vitale/e/B004W0MQPG/ Follow Ron on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4078431.Ron_Vitale Talking points: Ron's 2016 Income Report: http://www.ronvitale.com/blog/2016/12/18/what-i-learned-about-indie-publishing-in-2016 Neil Patel SEO blog: http://neilpatel.com/ InstaFreebie: http://www.paulteague.com/IF [My affiliate link] MailChimp: http://www.paulteague.com/mailchimp-ar [My affiliate link] 99Designs book cover design: http://self-publishing-journeys.com/99 [My affiliate link]  

Ron Vitale caught my attention on Twitter because of an excellent post that he made to his blog outlining in great details his indie-author outgoings and income. Few authors dare to share this information, but Ron broke it all down in great detail holding back nothing in the process. Ron is the author of the author of the Cinderella’s Secret Witch Diaries and A Witch’s Coven Novels series and is a sci-fi/fantasy writer. In his podcast interview, he gives a very detailed report on what you can expect to earn in your early days of indie publishing.     Find out more about Ron: Website: http://www.ronvitale.com/ Follow Ron on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ron.Vitale.Author/ Follow Ron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ronvitale Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Ron-Vitale/e/B004W0MQPG/ Follow Ron on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4078431.Ron_Vitale     Find out more about Ron: Website: http://www.ronvitale.com/ Follow Ron on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ron.Vitale.Author/ Follow Ron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ronvitale Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Ron-Vitale/e/B004W0MQPG/ Follow Ron on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4078431.Ron_Vitale Talking points: Ron’s 2016 Income Report: http://www.ronvitale.com/blog/2016/12/18/what-i-learned-about-indie-publishing-in-2016 Neil Patel SEO blog: http://neilpatel.com/ InstaFreebie: http://www.paulteague.com/IF [My affiliate link] MailChimp: http://www.paulteague.com/mailchimp-ar [My affiliate link] 99Designs book cover design: http://self-publishing-journeys.com/99 [My affiliate link]   --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

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Jon Cronshaw is an author and the host of the Short Science Fiction Review podcast. He is a former newspaper reporter and feature writer. Jon plans to release three post-apocalyptic thrillers in rapid succession in early 2017. To get properly warmed up for this feat, he's been taking part in the Ray Bradbury challenge, which asks writers to come up with one short story per week for a year. Find Out More: Jon's blog: https://joncronshaw.com/ Follow Jon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JLCronshaw Jon's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/joncronshawauthor/ Jon's Short Science Fiction Review podcast: https://twitter.com/ShortSFReview Talking points: InstaFreebie: http://www.paulteague.com/IF [My affiliate link] MailChimp: http://www.paulteague.com/mailchimp-ar [My affiliate link] Kindle Scout: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/ Ray Bradbury Challenge: http://raybradburychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ The Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine by James Altucher: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2014/05/the-ultimate-guide-for-becoming-an-idea-machine/ ZoomText software: http://www.zoomtext.com/products/zoomtext-magnifierreader/ ProWritingAid: http://self-publishing-journeys.com/PRA [My affiliate link] KickStarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/ CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/ Ingram Spark: http://www.ingramspark.com/ ACX (for audiobook production): http://www.acx.com/ BNIB library: http://www.rniblibrary.com/ AudioBookBoom for promoting audiobooks: https://audiobookboom.com/authors [Keep asking Amazon for new .co.uk and .com free promo codes] Amazon withholding tax – useful article at  https://meritaking.com/2012/09/13/navigating-the-usa-tax-nightmare-for-uk-authors/ Jon's cover designer: http://yocladesigns.com/ Jon's recommended writing resources The Creative Writer's Toolbelt: http://www.andrewjchamberlain.com/podcast Writing Excuses podcast: http://www.writingexcuses.com/ The Story Grid Podcast: h

Jon Cronshaw is an author and the host of the Short Science Fiction Review podcast. He is a former newspaper reporter and feature writer. Jon plans to release three post-apocalyptic thrillers in rapid succession in early 2017. To get properly warmed up for this feat, he’s been taking part in the Ray Bradbury challenge, which asks writers to come up with one short story per week for a year. Find Out More: Jon’s blog: https://joncronshaw.com/ Follow Jon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JLCronshaw Jon’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/joncronshawauthor/ Jon’s Short Science Fiction Review podcast: https://twitter.com/ShortSFReview Talking points: InstaFreebie: http://www.paulteague.com/IF [My affiliate link] MailChimp: http://www.paulteague.com/mailchimp-ar [My affiliate link] Kindle Scout: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/ Ray Bradbury Challenge: http://raybradburychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ The Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine by James Altucher: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2014/05/the-ultimate-guide-for-becoming-an-idea-machine/ ZoomText software: http://www.zoomtext.com/products/zoomtext-magnifierreader/ ProWritingAid: http://self-publishing-journeys.com/PRA [My affiliate link] KickStarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/ CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/ Ingram Spark: http://www.ingramspark.com/ ACX (for audiobook production): http://www.acx.com/ BNIB library: http://www.rniblibrary.com/ AudioBookBoom for promoting audiobooks: https://audiobookboom.com/authors [Keep asking Amazon for new .co.uk and .com free promo codes] Amazon withholding tax – useful article at  https://meritaking.com/2012/09/13/navigating-the-usa-tax-nightmare-for-uk-authors/ Jon’s cover designer: http://yocladesigns.com/ Jon’s recommended writing resources The Creative Writer’s Toolbelt: http://www.andrewjchamberlain.com/podcast Writing Excuses podcast: http://www.writingexcuses.com/ The Story Grid Podcast: h --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

This Week's Talking Points 1) This is how week 1 of my writing went https://youtu.be/VFP_Yrjnab0?t=8s :-) 2) I used SpeechPad for my transcriptions: https://www.speechpad.com/ 3) Crime and Publishment event: http://www.crimeandpublishment.co.uk/ 4) InstaFreebie for free e-book giveaways: http://www.paulteague.com/IF [Affiliate link] Also look at BookFunnel: https://bookfunnel.com/ 5) My 'work in progress' Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/PaulTeague it's probably still a bit early in my podcasting career to be pushing this for the time being! 6) Excellent ALLi guide to the best indie author competitions: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/allis-self-publishing-service-directory/award-and-contest-ratings-reviews/ 7) Brian Tracy's 'Flight Plan': https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flight-Plan-BRIAN-TRACY/dp/1626563225/

This Week's Talking Points 1) This is how week 1 of my writing went https://youtu.be/VFP_Yrjnab0?t=8s :-) 2) I used SpeechPad for my transcriptions: https://www.speechpad.com/ 3) Crime and Publishment event: http://www.crimeandpublishment.co.uk/ 4) InstaFreebie for free e-book giveaways: http://www.paulteague.com/IF [Affiliate link] Also look at BookFunnel: https://bookfunnel.com/ 5) My 'work in progress' Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/PaulTeague it's probably still a bit early in my podcasting career to be pushing this for the time being! 6) Excellent ALLi guide to the best indie author competitions: http://selfpublishingadvice.org/allis-self-publishing-service-directory/award-and-contest-ratings-reviews/ 7) Brian Tracy's 'Flight Plan': https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flight-Plan-BRIAN-TRACY/dp/1626563225/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/self-publishing-journeys/message

Welcome to The Horror Writers Podcast, the show with two horror authors discussing all things in the world of horror. Justin Sloan is a cross-genre novelist, focusing mostly on epic fantasy and urban fantasy. He's also an actor, podcaster, and video game writer. A former writer for Telltale Games, Justin's resume includes working on their officially licensed games for both The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. We talk to Justin about games, fantasy, and more. This episode of The Horror Writers Podcast is brought to you by Crystal Lake Publishing. Check out their brand new website at http://www.crystallakepub.com Remember to subscribe and to leave comments. We answer all of them. Be on the lookout for new episodes being posted every Sunday.   Episode Links: Support The Horror Writers Podcast on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thehorrorwriterspodcast?ty=h Justin Sloan's Website - http://wwww.justinsloanauthor.com The Creative Writing Career Podcast - http://www.creativewritingcareer.com Death Marked by Justin Sloan and Michael La Ronn on InstaFreebie - https://www.instafreebie.com/free/3YhK2 Death Marked by Justin Sloan and Michael La Ronn on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Death-Marked-Fantasy-Modern-Necromancy-ebook/dp/B01LYT0FIC Death Bound by Justin Sloan and Michael La Ronn on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Death-Bound-Fantasy-Modern-Necromancy-ebook/dp/B01LX356BU/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 Zach Bohannon's Website - http://www.zachbohannon.com J. Thorn's Website - http://jthorn.net All Graphics Provided by Digges Creative -  http://www.diggescreative.com

Author JL Hendricks shares what it's like to write awesome stories with vampires in them, how she manages her massive author newsletter (that she JUST started), and how she builds up that newsletter with Instafreebie and other services.

Author J.N.Chaney shares how he grew his mailing list fast with Instafreebie and how he leverages free promotions to sell more books.

Justin, Kevin, and Stephan chat with Ashley Durrer of Instafreebie about how the service can grow mailing lists for authors, as well as how this might apply to writers of video games and screenplays.