Email Marketing – Love/Hate

Don’t you just hate that often you need to leave your email to get the book, preview, sample or something else?

As a consumer, I tolerate it. What’s the harm? I can either unsubscribe or delete the email as soon as it arrives. Then, again, I don’t want to miss some promotions that I would enjoy. It has happened a time or two when I glanced at an email and promptly deleted it—only to retrieve it later when I could use that coupon or discount or whatever.

All the self-publishing gurus or marketing experts say that the email list or mailing list is the most important item as an independently published author (indie). Even traditional published authors should have a list. (However, the publisher or their publicists would likely take care of that.) There are thousands and thousands of books on Amazon. If a book wasn’t prominently displayed on a page (or on the shelf at B&N), chances are readers wouldn’t find it. So, I get the idea of having one’s own followers, i.e. the mailing list. One can announce a book launch or some other events. The irony is that I keep track of new releases online (Goodreads or Amazon). Then again, I wouldn’t discover any new writers easily. I suppose I’m the worst kind of readers to an indie author.

By the way, that’s why I made the flipbook available here on my site. Maybe someone would rather bookmark my site or check it regularly than hand over their email addresses and get bombarded.

I have a tiny list. I’m learning how not to bore the subscribers. Whether I succeed, I don’t know. In the back of my mind, I keep thinking these subscribers are just like me. They won’t bother reading the newsletter I sent out. It’ll go straight to the trash folder. Or, they’d just unsubscribe. Who knows? Maybe the next book I write will attract an agent and a publisher. And I wouldn’t have to worry about this email marketing nightmare.

Now, I should get back to writing that “high-concept” novel so the Hollywood types would come knocking on my door. Dream on, right?

Cheers!