Mailing List Misery, Mobiles & More
I finally bit the bullet and got a new iPhone. The one I had was ancient. Looking forward to taking and sharing photos with the new, improved iPhone 12 camera. None to show yet. But hope to have some good ones of Easter Eggs in time for next Friday. Here is the new phone.
For the last seven years or so, author gurus have been extolling the virtues of having a mailing list. Like most writers I have one; well three actually, all very modest in size. With the recent release of my new book, Mangetout, I did the logical thing and contacted my lists to announce the exciting news. I was under the impression that List One is comprised of readers with an interest in crime and/or darkly humorous fiction. Well, it seems I am mistaken and that the list consists of people living in north west London suffering from gluten allergies. I would have had more luck trying to sell them Lear jets than my 99c/99p book.
C’est la vie – time to bring out the big guns and move onto List Two. Now, I’m not sure who is on this list. Perhaps it is people who at school averaged a C in Trigonometry tests. A few of them took the plunge.
That left List Three. This list is reserved for people who prefer poached eggs to scrambled. A couple of them clicked the buy button.
My mailing list has undergone several Stalinesque purges, but evidently still consists mostly of Trotskyites, Capitalists, agitators and the bourgeois. What lessons are there to be learnt from the experience? According to someone I was talking to from the world of business, a mailing list that is not grown organically, ‘… is not worth its weight in manure, let alone gold.’
So, it is out with the giveaways and mailing list boost promos. I am going to try and stick to readers who have signed-up via the links at the back of my books.
In other news, I had a big free book promo for Tomorrow’s World: Darkly Humorous Tales From The Future. It hasn’t achieved much thus far apart from garnering some good reviews and ratings on Amazon.
Have a good weekend.
‘This book will certainly have you turning the pages to see what happens next …’ – The Daily Squib
I must admit that I struggle with growing my mailing list too. I seem to get more engagement on Facebook these days. 🙂
Send some of it my way, Heather. Facebook seems to be pay to play these days.
My experience with lists is they are a lot of work and you can’t just used them for book launches. Organic is the way to go. Good luck.
Thanks John, I’ll need it.
😊
Well I can see I’ll need to get that book after I get through a few more! Hopefully you’ll remind us again in a while.
Imagine there’ll be a reminder somewhere down the line, Tara.