I hope your autumn has been full of blessings. Many of you have already taken advantage of early ordering for Christmas. If you still need some copies of your book before Christmas, please make your order before Thanksgiving. We have no control over Amazon delivery. Author discounted orders took five weeks to deliver last year by the beginning of December.
Like I mentioned last month, we are starting something new at Roaring Lambs Publishing, especially for our authors! In an effort to help you with your marketing and plans for promoting your book or your book launch, we’ll be sending you monthly newsletters with marketing ideas, pointers, and hacks from some of the experts in the publishing industry.
Last month, we shared about Goodreads. Having a huge group of avid readers in one place for nothing more than to discuss books is an invaluable place for authors to spend time and energy. I hope you have been able to engage in Goodreads.
This month, we’ll be discussing the single most important way to share about your book. That’s not only my opinion. It is the opinion of every book marketer I’ve met. Well, except for those who were trying to sell me something! LOL! I’m speaking of a newsletter. If you haven’t started sending out newsletters at least monthly, you are missing a huge opportunity to add people to your audience. People to whom you have direct connection. But you do have to be careful about the way you send them.
Did you know that sending monthly group emails from your own email address can be considered spam? If one of your emails gets tagged as “spam,” your emails could be blocked not only to the address that marked you as spam, but they can also be tagged and deleted by the email provider. For example, if someone who uses Yahoo.com marks your email as spam, Yahoo could (and usually does) label all of your emails to any of their addresses as spam. Suddenly, your sister isn’t getting your emails anymore.
So be sure to use an email newsletter platform such as MailChimp, Mailjet, Curator, AWeber, or MailerLite (all .coms) or a program like them to send out your monthly emails. Most offer free options to start. As you choose your platform, be sure the plan allows for you to grow your audience to at least 500 under their free plan. They should also offer a link for people to sign up for your newsletter. You’ll want to use this link on your website or blogsite. And you can send the sign up link to MLaine@RoaringLambs.org. A team member will add it to your landing page on our website. (You can find yours on our Library at this LINK.)
Hope this hint about newsletters inspires you to start one. Let me know if you have any questions!
Marji Laine
Director
Roaring Lambs Publishing
And your Roaring Lambs Publishing Team
