ROBUST discussion

UPDATE:

Icy Road Publishing and The Country Clerk have joined forces to publish Book Stop Central, a newsletter for small and indie authors.

Most authors have a few email addresses belonging to our fans, but we don't have a regular, monthly or even weekly newsletter. My thought was if we pool our addresses and create ad for each other's books, we can share in the success.

That's where Book Stop Central comes into play. A pool of email addresses and a minimal set up fee will give all of us a better chance of selling our books.

Check it out at Icy Road Publishing

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I know that Cool Main Press sends out ARCS, and (I thank you for the books).

But does anyone else here have an actual Mailing List they use to announce the publication of their books?

I've started to wrestle with Mail Chimp. Not really pleased with my results, yet.

Anyways, I like to open up a discussion on Mailing Lists and other Marketing ideas.

I was tempted to do a mailing list a while back, but so many folks are wary of such things, because of Internet paranoia, more than anything else.

Put me on it and run your tests. I'll let you know if and when I get updates. Keep me on it too. I like your writing. :)

[email protected]

^_^

Thank you! Twice!

In theory, a personal mailing list would work like Book Bub or Pixel of Ink (Ads with them are expensive now), for your own work. But I couldn't send out Monthly Newsletter to save my hide.

My former employer used Mail Chimp to create her mailing list for art/craft classes and it worked like a charm for her. But she had 2k addresses.

Mail Chimp appears to be a real bugger to use. I can't get back into the message I spent all night last night working on. I can't tell if I sent out the newsletter today, or if it will come out on the date I scheduled.

AAARRRggggg!

I swear, I'll get that monkey figured out!

:-P

The CoolMain mailing list is just people who reviewed our books. Its purpose is to generate reviews. The list is small enough, perhaps a 100 names, to be handled manually each time it is required.

That's what I thought.

What I'm attempting is more like Pixel of Ink, only monthly.

The link to the mailing list is at the end of each of Mom's e-books, along with ads for her other stories and my e-books. So if anyone wants to add their name to the list, they can.

Creating the newsletter is surprisingly difficult in Mail Chimp. The interface acts crippled compared to any HTML editor I've ever used.

Even pasting the text to Notepad has minimal results, it might strip out codes, but overlaying codes on the text has uneven results. My HTML skills are rusty.

I think Word is all HTML codes now, so I may be able to format the text in Word and paste it to the newsletter. If that works then it's just a matter of adding a jpeg and a few links. Easier than wrestling with a crude interface.

We'll see what happens with the July mailing.

If I can get a good looking newsletter, I might be able to sell ad space. First things first - It's very crude at this stage.

UPDATE!

We have been working like mad on the newsletter and Book Stop Central has been getting some interest on a local level.

So far all our email addresses in the pool are in the US. Therefore the links we want are for US websites.

We're open to international authors wanting to hit the US market. We're open to sending press releases to UK addresses if someone wants to do that on a regular basis.

This is what it looks like:

http://www.icyroadpublishing.com/2015...

This is how we've set it up:

HOW IT WORKS
Your book(s) will be added to our newsletter "Book Stop Central' for 3 months.

Each ad will require:

* $10 set up fee per book
* your email addresses
* a copy of the book's cover in JPEG format
* the blurb for the book
* the vendor website links you want included in your ad

The $10 will cover the creation of the ad, adding the cover, text and links you send us. If your book is available as a paperback, provide us with that link, or the website of the books store where the book is available.

At the end of 3 months, you can sign up for 3 more months. We will send out a quarterly newsletter with number of openings, additions to the mailing list and clicks the newsletter receives.

WHAT'S THE CATCH?
We really NEED you to add at least 10 emails to our list each quarter. The success of this venture will depend on the number of email addresses we get. We need the addresses of fans, people who want to buy your books. Random addresses are not going to give us the same results.

Our goal is to have 1000 addresses by the first of January.

GOT A RELEASE COMING?
If you would like us to send out a special Newsletter, we can do that if you send us the information, cover art and links. The price will reflect the time required to produce your press release.

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Contact us at: [email protected] if you're interested in signing up. I'll send you the invitation email.

If you want to join, send us your email addresses for the pool, book cover image in JPEG format, book blurb, and links. We'll do the set up work, send you a test newsletter and an invoice via PayPal.

The first newsletter goes out at the end of July.

I'm going to post the results on www.icyroadpublishing.com so our authors can see the results of the email campaign.

Not sure if this will work for anyone here, but I wanted to issue the invitation in case it would be helpful.

You can advertise this my group Indie Authors International if you wish. https://www.facebook.com/groups/16021...

Thank you!

It will take a day or so, but I will put it up.

Our co-op is closer to home than I imagined. We're all in the same town. LOL What are the chances?

I don't know.

I've been getting a few more addresses of readers here and there. I posted a signup to Indie Authors international.

In a few days I'll follow it with a sign-up for authors.

"Book Stop Central" appears to be working.

My sales continue to climb on Barnes & Noble.