It's great when they buy our new releases, share our posts, review our books, and tell all their friends, but the algorithms running things like Gmail don't care for such frivolities – they only care about your rep.
Your sender reputation, that is.
We usually discuss sender rep with a negative framing, understandably, but I want to talk about a more positive aspect today: encouraging replies from your readers.
Because there's danger here, too.
Doing this in the wrong way can feel incredibly disingenuous – and I see authors doing it all the time. So, let's look at the correct way to handle everything, after a quick reminder of how sender rep works.
But before we get into that, I just wanted to thank everyone for all the support around the Image Workshop – which launched on Sunday. Episode 2 is in the works, and I hope to publish this weekend so make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel to find out when it drops.
I'll be doing lots more of these, especially because the reaction was so positive from everyone – so don't worry if your cover wasn't chosen yet, there'll be plenty more.
I expect the next episodes will be shorter, with less time spent on each cover, now that basic principles are established (and I get used to the format!). We'll also be addressing lots of the excellent questions posed in the comments of the first video – and thank you for those.
Final bit of housekeeping: if you follow my Facebook Page, you might have seen a talk I posted from Jack Conte at SXSW this year. It's really worth the watch because he has such an interesting perspective as a creator, musician, and, more recently, tech CEO. He has a great way of framing the development of the internet, the way it is changing (again) more recently – and the dangers and opportunities that will bring creators, artists, musicians, and writers. I will certainly be talking about this again once my brain has digested all the smart things he had to say!
What is Sender Rep?
We've talked about sender rep before in this here newsletter, and it became something of a hot topic a few months ago.
Generally speaking, though, sender reputation isn't spoken about very much – which is a pity as it quite neatly resolves several long-running debates in the author community
Should you use double opt-in? Yes.
Should you periodically remove terminally disengaged subscribers (after attempting to re-engage them)? Absolutely yes.
I'm not reopening those debates but if you want to dig into the details, this primer – Deliverability 101 – is a great jumping off point; work from there if you wish to go deeper on the topic.
Image courtesy of ConvertKit
The above image comes from that article, which neatly illustrates the effect of various subscriber actions, with the most positive on the left-hand side, and the most negative on the right.
If a subscriber opens or clicks your email, that's a positive subscriber action. If they mark your email as Spam, that's a negative one. Those who don't care for double opt-in or list optimization should note that emails getting deleted unread is a negative subscriber action that will accumulate significantly over time and harm your open rates.
I had a very interesting chat recently with Melissa Lambert – the Deliverability specialist at ConvertKit, and one of the co-hosts of the Deliverability Defined podcast, which is a fantastic resource if you really want to nerd out.
Melissa reminded me that getting replies from your subscribers is the most positive action a subscriber can take in terms of your sender rep – and you can see it in the chart above, furthest left.
But how do you get replies? What pitfalls do you need to avoid? And is all this a little… much?
Don't Be A Reply Guy
This is yet another facet of email marketing that has a bad rap because of techbros flogging nonsense, but as usual there is a right way to handle things where you get all the benefits and none of the stank.
We see bad examples of this all the time when we get funneled into one automation or another and each email ends with a generic question looking for a response – like "have you seen any good movies lately? Hit reply!!"
I might be over-sensitive to this, but it strikes me as deeply disingenuous. I also feel like it's cramming another ask into every email when you should be leaning towards gives.
Getting replies from readers is hugely valuable and you should absolutely seek them out – but I recommend being less generic, more authentic, and using this quite sparingly. The response will be far better, and (some) readers won't get that sinking feeling that they are being squeezed.
You really need to tie it into the content of your email, for it not to feel gratuitous. For example, if you were an author of noir psychological thrillers, you might write a newsletter breaking down the movie Shutter Island – talking about it, one genre geek to another.
The end of that email could be a great place to pose a question like, "Have you seen any good movies lately with a killer twist like that? Let me know."
It's not jarring or disingenuous because it's on topic, less generic, and feels authentic.
You don't need to seek replies all the time – in fact, I think that's a bad idea. But if you do this sparingly, at times that feel natural and appropriate, you can foster genuine engagement with your readers, tickle the Gmail algorithms a little, and maybe collect some valuable information from your core readers which can help you craft future books, newsletters, or social media content.
Plus getting all those replies is a healthy reminder that your audience are real people, and not just numbers in a column.
Of course, that comes with responsibility too – especially when your audience is significant – in terms of managing those replies.
There's no easy trick there, I'm afraid, but I think writers often need to be reminded that not every reply needs to be a ten-page essay, and sometimes you can kinda Reply All in your next newsletter, if you know what I mean.
Dave
P.S. Writing music this week is Life in Film with Get Closer.
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