HW#8 the Mighty Email List

I’ve had my email list since December 2023. It stagnated at around 30 for a long time until I discovered swaps and promos at StoryOrigin. Since then, it’s been growing steadily. I recently added Book Funnel to have access to their fan base. I just started swaps and promos there. My list is around 180 now. I’ve purchased a BookSweeps promo to market my book in May after it comes. I find them difficult to work with at the moment. I can’t login. Let’s see what tech support says. I’ve also signed up to have my book promoted in AuthorXP’s Fresh Friday new book announcement at the beginning of May. I hope these promos will increase the number of subscribers. My biggest challenge is getting my subscribers to read the newsletter and engage with me. I usually write a new blog post for each biweekly newsletter with a link in the newsletter to the post. The post has most of the personal thoughts and fun engagement stuff. The rest of the newsletter tends to be news. Right now, there is a lot to report with my launch coming. I expect to dial back the frequency to monthly or even less once the hubbub of launch dies down.

My reader magnet is a short story telling the backstory of the stone that is featured in Book one. Each book features a magical stone with a problem. I’m planning to write a short story for each stone telling how it came to have its problem, to be used as the new magnet as soon as possible before the next book launches.

I think my newsletter with the highest click rate so far was the one I sent last Friday talking about my imminent launch. The title was: “Eleven Days Out” It might be because there were a lot of links to clink in the email. You can see it here: https://preview.mailerlite.io/preview/686005/emails/118918891185374431