Long Tail Writing

It’s been another week since I started this experiment with these different services. We have about 1-2 more weeks to go until we figure out how well this all works. This week I need to prepare my list, moving motivated readers to a different list. The hope is to make one list a larger “trading list” and another list a “motivated” list that loves my work. We shall see if this will work. BookFunnel I currently have been in two promotions. These are like newsletter swaps, but with more people. Last week I had about 47 email addresses. I now have about 124 email addresses. This has brought the $10/mo charge to be $0.08 per address.   I am pretty happy with these results. The truth of success through will be in determining how they respond to my unique content. I will be putting them in a different segment in a few weeks and sending a promo then. StoryOrigin I had messed up last time and my Amazon link was marketed. Oops. I’ve switched it to be my mailing list and no...

So I’ve used these systems and now have an impression to share from a week later. Your mileage may vary, but this is what has happened in my own use. BookFunnel First off, I had a hard time trying to figure out where I export the CSV file that has any user emails. I think that made it difficult to determine if this service was working or not. I paid $10/mo for this service, so out of all the ones listed, it’s the most vital to work. I ended up going to the book, then following it to the page in order to get the email list. I am scheduled for three promotions, the first one being kicked off yesterday. At the moment, I have 47 email addresses, which puts the cost per address at around 0.21c. It’s hard to say if that’s a bargain or not, as it all depends on how these users interact with my future newsletters. This is also the first day of things, and the promotions still have a long ways to go. The best users I’ve found (via Noisetrade) cost around 0.56c each. I am judging these users n...

My goal with my mailing list may be different than most. I am not looking to build a readership that buys a massive amount of books on day 1. My goal with my mailing list is to give away free stuff. The hope is that people enjoy that free stuff and leave reviews. These reviews will then influence other people and algorithms to get people to buy the books. In addition, I hope that I can slowly start making some fans of my work. Up until recently, my mailing list has been unfocused. I’ve told people about new books and upcoming books… but that really didn’t lead anywhere. Instead, I am finding giving away review copies to be a strategy that should work well. To do this, I am trying out several services. Here are my first impressions of these services. I hope to also include another post in August on how this effort went. (I won’t fully know until August 5 th or so) BookFunnel The focus of this service is to build a book advanced reader copy (ARC) and give it away to build ...

A recent trend in book publishing is building writing journals. The idea, as far a I understand it, is to build a journaling system that ties into an online platform. The hope is to build a skill enough where you can achieve a specific goal. Some journals focus on writing prompts while others are introspective (such as “burn after writing”). However, when I look at the preview of these journals via Amazon’s sneak peek, I can’t help but be disappointed. Usually these “books” are single questions filled with lots of free space. I don’t see charts, I don’t see a system, and I don’t see anything more than a marketing ploy. Perhaps I am missing the “system” behind many of these journals. Here are five things I think these journals are missing. Missing Journal Feature #1: Math and Tables This is my top compliant. It’s easier to build a product that is pure fiction then it is to build a scientifically useful product. How do you make a scientifically useful product? Include calcu...