why you need more reader pipelines 💡

Future proofing your author business View in browser Hey, A few things over the last week got me thinking about Reader Pipelines & Independence, but first I have to apologize for the ropey video feed on my last livestream... and share a couple of deals to smooth things over too. It's my own fault. There I was, joking about drinking beer while simulcasting to YouTube and Facebook at the same time, saying something like "It's Friday the 13th, what could possibly go wrong?" Everything, as it turned out! I was blissfully unaware at the time, but it seems my stream got corrupted about ten or fifteen minutes in… and proceeded to stay like that for the next hour or so, and I had no indication at my end at all. This is what happens when you taunt The Dark Ones. And that was only the beginning of the tech issue nightmare which inspired this week's email. I do appreciate all the people who stuck around to watch the low-poly version of me bob around for a while. At least the audio was okay. So if you missed it, and are feeling low-polyamorous, you can check out the rather smudgy replay here on YouTube. I'm hoping to interface with Streamyard this week to identify the cause of the horrific technical fail because I put a lot of effort into these livestreams and I would like to do them regularly on themed topics and take your questions live — it's fun! — but it's far too much effort if technical issues like that could recur. Regular YouTube videos will keep coming regardless — don't worry on that front. I really enjoy making them and I think they are starting to get a bit more pro. And YouTube is an actual income stream now as well as an increasingly importantly traffic source for my site now too. I have a video coming this week on the topic of rapid release. Make sure to subscribe to my channel on YouTube to get a ping when it drops. DepositPhotos Returns! Before we dive into the actual topic of Reader Pipelines this week, a couple of Black Friday chicks have escaped from the Deals Coop early! The DepositPhotos deal is back. Probably AppSumo's most popular deal ever. Definitely the most popular among authors. 100 photo credits for $39, how can you beat that? Credits never expire and you can stack as many codes as you like - so no reason not to stock up. This is a serious money-saver and a stonking deal for anyone who uses pictures for their covers, website, newsletters, or social channels.  Grab the deal from AppSumo here. And as with all their deals, they have a 60-day money back thingy. Another AppSumo deal for you is this fun one from StickerMule. It's… your logo on some packing tape and I'm not sure what else to say about it. Okay, let's see: you get the packing tape free. You get it delivered for free. How do they make a profit on this? I have no idea. What am I going to do with this? I HAVE NO IDEA. But it's $9 so why the hell not. More Deals on Friday? The last few years, I've done a popular deals-filled email on The Big Day with all sorts of wonderful junk (and a few useful things too). If I can rustle up enough saucy savings between now and Friday, your trusty Deals Sherpa will surely step up; it's just looking a little thin right now. Bargain-flingers of the world: you have been officially called out. Step into the Octagon of Value… if you dare. *cracks money-saving knuckles* Reader Pipelines & Independence I've been thinking a lot about independence recently. Self-reliance, contingency plans, not putting all your eggs in one basket — that kind of thing. These are the subjects you start pondering when your Facebook ad account gets banned. And then re-enabled. And then banned again. Which has happened to me four times in the last week or so. (It's also the reason this email is reaching you on a Monday instead of last Friday — don't worry, you haven't lost track of days again!) Usually when self-publishers talk about not being too reliant on something, that "thing" is usually Amazon and the discussion is about exclusivity and whether it's better to chase Kindle Unlimited gold or go with the widest distribution possible. A perma-debate in Indieland that has been rolling for five solid years please make it stop. (Don't worry, we won't be throwing in our two cents today. If that question is tormenting you, there's a dedicated chapter in Let's Get Digital on the basics — which is a free on all retailers — and several of them in Amazon Decoded for a more advanced discussion — which is not free, but totally worth it according to two random people surveyed in my house.) It's more about making sure my business is robust enough to weather some storms and trying to avoid being overly reliant on any company/tool/platform which is outside my direct control. Which is an understandable concern when you have spent time and money and effort building up a presence somewhere like Facebook, only to have it ripped away with no course of appeal. Well, technically I could appeal, and did, successfully… before getting banned again right away in an endless loop of canned blandishments and fist-chewing frustration. I can only imagine how bad it would be if something like that happened during a launch or promotion; I was already like a cat on a hot tin roof with thorns in all four paws. But I do know it would have been far worse to lose my Facebook ad account a year or two ago, because I was much more dependant on that source of traffic/readers. This year, I have diversified quite a bit and have a steady stream of traffic/readers coming in from different sources. Permafrees. Magnets of several kinds. Website. Newsletter. Course. Facebook Ads. BookBub Ads. Deal sites. Blog posts. YouTube videos. Resource pages. Losing any of those things would suck, of course, I'm not saying otherwise. They are good traffic sources and in many cases I've put a lot of effort into them. However, I'm diversified enough that even losing a couple of the bigger ones wouldn't sink me anymore. A case in point: MailerLite had some major issues earlier in the year when it was migrating to a new provider, and the outage happened right during launch week. But I had enough other sources of traffic that even being blocked off from my mailing list didn't ruin the release. It's the same reason I've been devoting more effort to building up a presence on YouTube, rather than doing much with video on Facebook — to the extent that YouTube is challenging Facebook as a traffic source for me now, even at this early stage. It's the same reason I put extra effort into building up readers in places like Canada and Australia and New Zealand; more diversification makes my business more shockproof. And more stable too in terms of income. I don't get as many wild swings as I used to. Which is great — I only have a few dark hairs left, and I'd like to keep them. I think it's very important for authors taking their first marketing steps to try and hone in one thing (like email, for example, or BookBub Ads) and get better at it before moving on to the next. But when you do have a solid, functioning reader pipeline, the next think you should do is add another. It doesn't just help you grow your readership; it also protects you from outside shocks and wild swings in the market. Dave P.S. Virus-slaying music this week is Dolly Parton with Bargain Store. DavidGaughran.com Broomfield Business Park, Malahide, Co. Dublin, Ireland You received this email because you signed up at DavidGaughran.com. Unsubscribe