It's time to sell out 💸

(your books)  ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Hey, I’m back in your Inbox after missing last Friday. Apologies, I came down with a crippling case of ennui. While I haven’t been formally diagnosed, I’m blaming the changing of the seasons. Summer left without warning and I didn’t have time to prepare myself for the shift. The last trip to the beach went untaken and I was bereft, let me tell you. The relative charms of soups and stews and sweaters were falling on deaf ears until I solved the problem where all problems get solved: at the stovetop. Red beans and rice was the cure this year. Like many Creole dishes it is simply named but has a million steps, at least one of which involves opening a bottle of wine… even if it’s not intended for the pot. Slowly, slowly I came back to myself. the long hello A bumper episode this week to make up for my slovenly ways. We are returning to our ideal welcome sequence – designed to onboard readers correctly, maximize deliverability, set expectations, fulfil the promises we made, graduate them happy and engaged, and yes sell some books along the way too. In fact, we are wrapping up our sequence with the final step. At least of this "basic" version - more on that anon. For those who need to catch up, previous installments are here, but I’ll summarize the ideas below if you don’t want to chew through all this: Why you must ​welcome readers properly​. How to ​break the ice​. What ​the perfect welcome​ looks like. Where you should ​give readers a cookie​. When you need to check in with your readers. Wow, that guy can talk. OK let's sell some books. the recap I feel like there are two types of authors: those who won't stop banging on about their books, and those who are a little more reserved. Or maybe these are phases we all go through. Those who are naturally... sales-inclined, shall we say, have had enough admonishments from me already. I’ve cautioned to warm up readers first before hitting them over the head with hype – everyone hates those relentless mailing lists. Retail outlets are probably the worst example of this right now. You place an order, and then get hammered every single day to buy something – before your order has even arrived – and the emails are just so obnoxious that you want to unsubscribe immediately… but are afraid to do so in case there is some issue with delivery or whatever. By the time your doodad finally arrives a week later, you are so tired of their pushy emails that you don’t just unsubscribe, you swear never to buy something from them again. I’ve urged you to fulfil your promise before asking readers for anything else. There’s nothing worse than getting promised some freebie and then experiencing a rug-pull. Some online stores, for example, will dangle a discount code in exchange for an email address, but then after you sign up you find the code doesn’t apply to sale items, or to your first order, or to any newer items, or to anything which isn’t from a short list of things they have overstocked. Trust is so broken now – understandably so – that even if you do something like... give out the cookie in email two now instead of email one, or even just have a brief technical issue where your book doesn’t get delivered for half an hour, that people will assume you are scamming them. Make sure your freebie goes out right away; the process must be frictionless. You should also set expectations, establish cadence, and build trust. And the welcome sequence we have designed will go a long way towards doing that, especially if you have spent time thinking about the shared passions you have with your subscribers and have crafted constant around that which will create engagement – while also showing them that being on your list will involve just as many gives as asks. So, for those of you who are more than comfortable slipping on the pimp suit and hyping your work, you are now off the leash. The reader is primed. It’s time for you to go wild. The larger group, if I'm forced to guess, consists of those writers who can be shy or introverted. Or perhaps more outgoing in a general setting but then clam up when it comes to pushing their own work. Remember this: readers are on your list because they are interested in your books. You’ve done a lot of work already to warm them up, gain trust, prepare the ground. There's absolutely nothing wrong with selling your books. That’s why they are here. Your readers are ready. Now it’s time to shake your moneymaker. the focus To clarify: the focus of this email should be on one book and one book only. Yes, I know you have lots of books and several series and a million spin-offs and merch too. That’s wonderful. But any experienced marketer will tell you that a message is most effective when it has one clear CTA – call-to-action. It might sound counter-intuitive, but the data is clear. When you offer readers lots of choices in an email like this, the chances of them buying nothing shoots right up. But if you give them one clear choice, people are much more likely to take action. Craft your email around one book and one book only. You can mention alternatives, in case you are worried that a large tranche of incoming readers may have that particular one already, and you can link to your site or your Amazon page to cover those bases. But the focus of the email should be around one book, one choice, one call-to-action. (And those with larger back catalogues can avail of the bonus step we’ll cover next time, which will alleviate some of these issues.) One book, but how? the meat Natural salespeople need little instruction here, but to anyone who isn’t sure how to approach this kind of email, I suggest leaning on the assets already to hand – your cover, your blurb, your tagline – as these are already expertly crafted to hook your target reader. (Right?) There’s also something to be said for consistency in marketing materials. It can be a little jarring to have a book described one way in an email (or a Facebook ad) and then click through to Amazon and get a radically different vibe from the book description, or a different image altogether. This creates friction, and friction is death. There are so many distractions on “our” Amazon pages these days, anything that causes a reader to pause is offering them up on a plate to be led in a hundred different directions. Amazon does not care one jot if the reader you brought to the site buys something else instead; it only cares that they buy something of some description. And it will make damn sure that something shiny will catch that reader’s eye if they hesitate over your Buy button. So, consistency helps. And an easy way of ensuring consistency is to use your cover, your blurb, your tagline as the building blocks for your email. Huzzah! It’s half-written already. Go, you. This will vary wildly by genre but if your blurb is quite long you might want to shorten it down to a punchy paragraph or two. And if your blurb doesn’t include it on Amazon, it can be nice to finish things off with some social proof – like a tasty author/review quote. Note: going through this process can lead to you tightening up your blurb on Amazon – this is fine and normal! In the way that printing out your manuscript can make it read differently, seeing your blurb in another context can highlight issues with the flow or the hook that previously went unnoticed. Don’t fight it… but maybe don’t fall down that rabbit-hole for ever either. Another hard rule of digital marketing is that your CTA should be “above the fold.” Readers shouldn’t have to scroll down before they see your call-to-action and your Buy buttons. Shyer authors can hide the buy buttons at the end of the email, as if warming themselves up to ask readers for a purchase. Brasher types put them after the opening line. I actually recommend doing both. Eye-catching buttons up top and a follow-up CTA at the end with just a regular link. Your email can be structured like this. Brief intro CTA + buy buttons Blurb Social proof Closing CTA/Sign off And in case you are wondering what the CTA should be, I favor clarity here above getting clever. “Download on Kindle,” “Download now,” “Download on Amazon,” “Download today,” or some variation thereof all serve me well. Price is a wonderful hook, and I’m never shy about repeating my offer. Which means I’ll vary that when there is a discount or free promotion, mention of which I bake right into the CTA so that it says, “Download now for 99¢,” or “Download free today,” and so on. And that’s it. You have all the pieces already, it’s just a case of assembling them. Best part is that this truly is set-and-forget marketing. It runs 24/7 in the background, a sales pitch going out to everyone who signs up to your list – one which even warms them up first for you too. My kind of robot. next time This email is long enough already, so I’m going to snip here. Next time we’ll look at two final things: how you handle links in your emails, a surprisingly tricky problem, especially for wide authors, as well as that Bonus step for those with larger catalogues. Although next week I might finally cover Facebook's latest debacle: the plan to charge us for sharing links. And after digging through the details, it's more restrictive than you might imagine. We're discussing it right now on, eh, my Facebook Page. While we still can! Until then, Dave P.S. Writing music this week is Masakatsu Takagi with Marginalia #48. Interesting Paths, Apartado 108, Loja CTT, Lagos, Faro 8601-902 ​Unsubscribe | Update your profile​