How to Create a Mailing List to Sell More Books

By Geoff Wakeling

Whenever you're self publishing, it's important to start building a mailing list of contacts and fans as quickly as possible. You can start getting sign ups before your first book is even on the shelves, and creating a buzz about your work is vital if you want to see sales swell and grow.

There are many ways to go about creating a database of emails, but you should remember that to create a group of fans who want to hear from you, they should actually want to sign up themselves. This means that your marketing approach should be more passive than aggressively forcing people to give you their email, ensuring that when you send out newsletters and updates, people are excited to hear what you have to say.

How to create a mailing list

Creating a mailing list is very easy to do, and in its simplest form you can just ask fans and readers to email you with the address. You can create an email group which you place these people into, and whenever you want to send out an announcement, you simply send out an email to the entire group. If you're using programs such as Hotmail or Outlook, make sure that you put your group email in the BCC category, otherwise you'll send out the entire mailing lists email addresses to everyone. There are also programs available which will make life even easier.

How to get subscribers

This can be the hard part because you want to create a group of fans who have chosen to sign up and hear more from you. Therefore, you should be careful not to market too aggressively and should instead allow readers to make up their own minds about joining.

• Put a note in the back of your books. One of the joys of self publishing is that you decide what you want in your books, and you can update at any time you want. At the end of all your books you can tell people briefly that you have a mailing list to sign up too, and encourage them to join if they want news. You can even include hyperlinks straight to your mailing list in the back of eBooks.


• Advertise your mailing list on your website. Most authors run a website and blog, and you can put the link to your mailing list here to encourage readers to sign up.


• Ask people to sign up. Though you should never assume that a reader wants to be added, you can out right ask them if they'd like to join. If readers email you about your books, respond to their message and ask if they'd like to join your mailing list. Meanwhile, post in forums and blogs to make sure that everyone knows that this option is available.

Creating a mailing list is well worth the effort, and you can find that subsequent book sales start off with a bang; largely thanks to the avid fans on your database.

For more information on writing books, and for a look into the novels by Geoff Wakeling, visit http://www.geoffreywakeling.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Geoff_Wakeling
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Create-a-Mailing-List-to-Sell-More-Books&id=7127398