Launching A Book In The Applepocalypse 🚀

Solutions - we got solutions  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

​ Hey, A lot of what we have been chewing through this summer has been theoretical rather than practical – such is the nature of the email beast. Or Mailcepticon as I like to call him. This summer of emails has also been a few steps removed from the core job of a writer: penning books and getting them into readers' hands. So, let's flip the script today and take a look at the very most important thing you do with your mailing lists: launching a book. I want to look at how Apple's recent email changes will start affecting how we typically run our launches, and what changes you can make to sidestep some of those issues. And not just sidestep them, but swooooosh by them like a Nordic speedskater, he says while waggling his eyebrows in a slightly disturbing manner. Remember last Friday's email? We went through how you might have automations which are triggered by a reader opening/not opening a previous email, or campaigns you manually send to a segment on your list, based on whether someone opened an email or not. Lots of you replied asking about a pretty typical use case – re-sending your launch email to everyone who didn't open it – wondering what the hell you do now. Well, I have a pretty neat solution for you. But before we get to that, I just want to give a little heads-up on something kinda important. BookBub Ads Hit By Apple Changes Some of you may have received an email from BookBub warning of some side-effects from the Apple changes – and I have to confess that I owe some of you an apology here because I got this plain wrong. When the Apple news was first announced, many of you messaged asking what the impact would be on BookBub Ads, and I told you not to worry. However, I was exclusively thinking about how clicks on your ads are reported (which is unaffected) – I didn't consider that this could affect how ads are served (which might well be affected). And that distinction is important when many of us use CPM ads on BookBub, i.e. the ones where you are charged per 1,000 impressions. You can read BookBub's announcement on all that here. In summary, because Apple Mail will start registering many emails it receives as opened instantly, there is a danger that BookBub's system could serve ads in emails which weren't truly opened and viewed by readers, rather than our robotic betters. This won't affect ads placed on the BookBub website, or CPC ads, but will affect CPM ads – and as those are the centrepiece of my own BookBub strategy – which I have written about extensively in various places; it's only fair to warn you. BookBub has some info on the link above about what they are planning to do to mitigate these changes, and some advice for your campaigns, so do read that if you use BookBub Ads – especially CPM ads. My own take: I'm going to stay away from CPM ads for now until all this settles down – but CPC ads should be safe (if you can get them to work as well as CPM ads, of course, which has always been a struggle for me personally). I think it's a tough problem for BookBub to solve, quite frankly, and I don't quite know how they are going to tackle it. On the plus side, they have the same advantage we do – namely that these Apple changes are going to start affecting things slowly over time, so they can test and tweak and hopefully find a solution before the problem really starts to bite. And just for balance, I know others who are going to continue advertising on BookBub who are more bullish about all this and probably think I'm being a Negative Nelly here. I also think BookBub deserves credit for getting ahead of this and being pretty open about what's happening, even if I don't quite share their optimism around mooted solutions. (I suspect we'll discover lots more unpleasant side-effects of these Apple changes where the companies involved haven't been so forthright.) Finally on this: for those who have previously purchased my guide BookBub Ads Expert, I plan to update the resources page on my site that comes bundled with the book… once we get a bit more clarity on what all this means, and whether best practices even need to be updated, or CPC-focused strategies need to be leaned on instead, and so forth. Launching A Book In The Applepocalypse As promised, I'm not just giving you problems this week, but solutions too – and maybe a solution which is even better than your original way of doing things. Go me. The problem: many authors will do some form of re-send to non-openers when launching a book. In other words, they might send out their launch email on a Monday, and then they see that only 46% of the ungrateful wretches on their mailing list bothered to open the email, so they do a re-send to the other 54% on maybe Wednesday or Thursday. It's a pretty common strategy, and a reasonably effective one which can drive a nice clump of additional launch week purchases. Some others do that manually, some automate it, but the effect is the same. And both approaches get a little bit screwed by Apple's email changes. (Because if Apple is showing a chunk of your list as opening your email when they haven't, then they won't get your re-send.) So how do you solve this problem? You re-send to everyone. Okay, this sounds like a bit of cheat (mainly because it is a bit of a cheat). But you really can make this work… if you handle it deftly enough. The danger in this strategy is that it can feel spammy to your readers. There's nothing like sending them the same thing again, hitting them over the head with an ask, to drive readers towards that Unsubscribe button. Or even the Spam button. Maybe even to motivate them enough to send you a stinky email (which you really don't need when you are launching a book because you are already curled up in a ball on the ground screaming "Why! Whyyyyyyyyy!" Just me?). We don't want that, so let's avoid it. The key here is all in the framing. Even though you have sinister ulterior motives, you want the email to feel fresh and new. It must contain something of value, like all your emails to your readers. Some examples: • The Newsy Resend. "Howdy, I've been getting lots of questions about when the paperback and audiobook for Book 46 of The Neverending Dragonmouth Chronicles are out. The paperback should drop next week but the audio takes a little longer and won't be out until December – but your favorite narrator is returning so you can look forward to that! In the meantime, don't forget you can pick up your ebook copy right now…" • The Humblebrag Resend. "OMG you guys are so amazing, I can't believe you put me at #1 on Amazon for Antiques & Collectibles – Dolls, Toys & Memorabilia. I couldn't have done it without you! I'm going out with my wife to celebrate tonight and will raise a glass of Gewürztraminer in your honor. Oh and if you forgot to pick up your copy…" • The Competition Resend. "Who wants to win an all-expenses-paid trip to their local Starbucks to spend a $5 voucher? Just reply to this email by telling me who Jace hooks up with in the hot-tub in my latest book The Mountain Mailman Always Delivers and you'll get entered into the draw to win this amazing prize. And if you haven't grabbed your copy yet…" • The Last Chance Resend. "I forgot to mention on Monday that I'm also running a sale on all the rest of the books in my Laser Space Battle Smash series to celebrate my new release. You can get any of the books you haven't read yet for just $1.99 – and make sure to tell your friends! Oh and if you haven't grabbed Death to Alienface yet then pick up your copy before the price goes up to $4.99." • The Apology Resend. "I'm sorry to all my readers at Barnes & Noble who were eagerly awaiting my latest masterpiece People Doing Serious Things. It seems there was a problem with the pre-order but you can re-download the correct file now. For anyone else who missed Monday's announcement…" You get the idea. The last one is clearly the weakest of the bunch, but I'm including it because sometimes stuff happens and you are forced to do some kind of send like that – always try and use it as an opportunity to convert a few more sales (and to make it less of a whatever email for everyone else on your list who doesn't care about the problem you are addressing, then maybe try and drop some news or something else in there to have some kind of value for all recipients). I'm personally most keen on The Last Chance Resend or maybe The Newsy Resend, but you can make all of these work. And it's handy way of solving at least one of the pesky problems that Apple's changes are forcing upon us… and in an even better way than before, in my (not so) humble opinion. Until next time, Dave P.S. Writing music this week is The Lostines with Playing The Fool. ​ Broomfield Business Park, Malahide, Co. Dublin K36 AT04 ​Unsubscribe | Update your profile​