So you’ve written a book and you’re about to publish it. Maybe you know you’re going to write another, maybe you have six more planned in the series, or maybe you have no idea what will come next, but you think perhaps you should know who your readers are. These days we all have to market ourselves and if you can market directly to people who love your work, it’s that much easier.
You are in the most powerful position right now to capture information about your market.
If you have no website, no twitter following, no social media presence at all, no speaking platform – nothing else at all – you can still start building a list of people who like your writing.If you have all these things, you can still capture a specific list who love your books.
Simply add to the end of the book a link to a website with a sign up list.
You can do this inside your print book or at the end of your Kindle book. Even if your book is out there, you can modify your files for print on demand or ebooks. So it’s not too late for anyone.
The example right is at the end of Pentecost and www.ProphecyNovel.com points to a signup page.
How do you actually set up list-building software?
Read about the basics of list-building here. I use Aweber (affiliate link) which is one of the best and most highly reputable services as well as being easy to use. You also need a site to put it on (you can use a wordpress.com free site) and a URL if you want an easy to remember one. This one just points back to a page on this blog so nothing too exciting there but I will point it to a special page once Prophecy gets going e.g. free chapters etc.
This has the obvious benefit of giving you a list of people who liked your book enough to sign up for the next one. You can email them directly when you have your next book out or send out information prior to get the launch started early.
It also has the added benefit of giving you a kick up the ass! I get emails daily showing that people are signing up for Prophecy and every day, I think I could have made another sale. There is great power in the backlist, and great earning potential and this is a daily reminder I need to get on with the series.
How are you building a list of readers for your next launch? Does this help?
This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.