I had this idea… In every one of us, there is at least a little selfishness.
There is that want to succeed and get ahead. There is that fear that if you help others, they might overtake you in the success ladder.
Is that really important? Should everyone be treated as a competitor? That shouldn't be the case, right?
So, this post is to let you know what I understand about building a readership. How do we do that?
To aspiring writers, and new authors like me, these are things that we need to learn.
First off, you’re not gonna make money with only one book, one story. You’re new. Who knows you? Why would I risk buying your book, not knowing if it will be good or bad? Give me a sample. That’s how business works. That’s how a lot of businesses start. By giving away a sample, a freebie… Here, try this out! See if you like it! If you do, buy some!
Kind of hard to do when you only have one book. Once you’ve given it away, what’s there to buy? So, yeah… you gotta write more than one book. And the more you write, the more choices your readers will have.
Personally, I write under different genres. I love reading from multiple genres so I felt like writing under them as well. Diversity! Some authors choose to write under different pen names for different genres, to create a brand for a particular name, so to speak. But my brand is writing multiple genres, so…
Anyway, back to the main point of this post: building a readership. And as mentioned, you need reader magnets. If you write 200-page romance novels, you can write a magnet that is about 50-page. If you write a short story collection of ten stories, you can write a magnet that contains three stories. Depends on you, really. There’s no concrete rule. Only that you should let the reader get an understanding of your writing style. Throw in an invitation to visit your author page and check out your other works if they like the magnet.
Now, to build your readers list, normally you give out the reader magnet in exchange for their email address, so you can have a means to contact them in the future if you have written something new or whatnot.
They can always unsubscribe if what you’re giving out is no longer up to their cup of tea. It may or may not be your fault. Maybe you send out too many newsletters, or they feel what you send is irrelevant to them, unhelpful, or simply not something they like to receive.
Now, how to build that list? You can use a number of services.
Number one on my list is BookFunnel. Then, there’s BookSweeps, LibraryThing, StoryOrigin, BookSprout, Voracious Readers Only, ProlificWorks, AuthorsXP…
Some of these can be used for free (BookSprout, LibraryThing, StoryOrigin).
Kinda limited. BookSprout, the free features is up to 20 ARCs per book. LibraryThing is up to 50 ARCs per book. StoryOrigin requires three types of files, EPUB, MOBI and PDF. I don’t think I’ve tried it yet because of this requirement.
Others are paid services.
BookFunnel currently has a plan for 10 USD per month, which I use. In my two months with BookFunnel, I was able to get over 700+ of subscribers through my reader magnet. I plan to pause my use of BookFunnel. One, I need a new magnet that would suit certain promo conditions. What I learned from here is that your magnet should incorporate a number of tropes so you can freely join multiple promos. Like in romance, you have small town, billionaire, second chance, paranormal, sweet or steamy, etc. You got to combine some of these to be able to join more promos. If you’ve written small town romance, you can’t join the book promo for city romance. If you’ve written sweet romance, your magnet won’t quality for steamy reads. Some promos require certain tropes, second chances, paranormal, billionaire… that kind of thing. New adult, young adult, coming of age… there are a lot of combinations. Which is why I realized I should write another magnet.
BookSweeps is at least 50 USD per promo. This one is genre specific. Steamy romance? Sweet and clean romance? Paranormal romance? They target a particular audience with each promo, and the promo is like lottery. They offer an ereader plus 50+ books from all the authors who joined. A promo is normally participated by at least 50 authors, up to sixty, I think. That’s their limit or range. I tried one promo and got over 700 subscribers.
If I do my Math, the budget is good for five months in BookFunnel. Your friend here at BookSweeps is time. The promo runs for nine days, I think, and you get your list of subscribers a week after the promo ended.
Downside in both BookFunnel and BookSweeps is that when you send out your regular newsletter, some peeps are bound to unsubscribe. Especially the ones who joined through BookSweeps. They only subscribed for a chance to win that ereader. They didn’t actually get anything for subscribing, which is why it’s important to give them something the first time you send out your newsletter to them. That’s what I did, and even so, I still saw 60+ people unsubscribing from my list. That’s normal. That’s something you should expect.
ProlificWorks. There’s a free service. There’s a paid one. The free service doesn’t allow you to collect email addresses, which is why I didn’t bother using it any further. I saw people claiming my magnet but I don’t know who they are, no way to contact them for further freebies or something. The paid plan, I think is higher than BookFunnel. I can only afford one at a time.
StoryOrigin. I don’t have much to say because I haven’t tried it yet. Three file types! I tried, actually, but I’m not sure if it was the internet connection or something else, because it didn’t work. I wasn’t able to save my book. Try it. It’s free. That’s what I know. It’s free.
BookSprout. Mainly for romance. My first try, only one claimed. The second, which is poetry, none. The third, only one as well. I got one review from the first one. None on the third. The free service allows you to give out as many as 20 Advance Reader Copies. Meaning you can get at least twenty people, but them leaving reviews is not guaranteed. Still, I got my first review from there, so… thanks. Not part of your list, you can invite them.
Voracious Readers Only. They have free. They have paid. The free is like a trial. If you liked it, you can try their paid one. I got 30+ readers from there. But… but… but! I used my BookFunnel link here. I think it’s not required, you can send them a copy of your magnet and they will provide it to those who wanted to claim a copy and they will send you a list of those who claimed. I’m not sure. I didn’t completely read the terms because I have BookFunnel, that’s what I used.
LibraryThing. It’s previously not free, but now it is! Good news, right? The service allows you to give away up to 50 copies of your book and users will request a copy. If more than 50 requests it, they do a lottery of some sort and only 50 is selected, then you get the email addresses of those people. They are not your subscribers, but you can invite them to join your list. They only signed up for that particular giveaway you do on this platform.
I may have mixed newsletter builders and places to get reviews. The thing is, for places where you seek reviews, they technically did not sign-up to your newsletter, so be careful not to include them in your newsletter recipients. You can invite them when you send out the ARCs, but that’s it. You don’t want to get reported for sending newsletters to people who didn’t sign-up for it. That would be bad, and might lead you to be banned from using an email service, like MailChimp or ConvertKit or something else. Whatever you’re using. If you aren’t using one yet, because you’re still building up your list, and haven’t sent out a newsletter email yet… cool, my next post would be about it, then. Mainly, MailChimp, because that’s what I use.
So, there you go. Check these services out. Nope, this post isn’t sponsored. I’ve checked these myself and used them. These are my personal opinion from my experience.
Thanks. Enjoy reading. Enjoy writing.
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