Amy's Newsletter Articles
I'm trying to track my writing progress better this year. I know there are a million "track your writing" tricks and programs out there, but I'm sharing mine in case someone likes it. I like to keep things simple. :) I'm finding it fun because if I write more than my minimum for the day the words I need to write each day to stay on track goes down, which is hugely gratifying. Makes me competitive with myself to bring that number down every day!
I was having problems mailing to Outlook customers with my personal domain (some of these email providers are HUGE pains when it comes to detecting "spam") and finally got a tech to send me this handy list of feedback loops for various bit email providers. If you send your own newsletter and worry your IP might be blocked (or it has been) be sure to sign up for at least Yahoo, Outlook and Gmail loops. When you do, they send complaint notices to you so you can remove those people --- which is a pain but a lot better than getting your whole system blocked because people repeatedly complained and you didn't know about it! Sadly, some people would rather report senders as spam than just unsubscribe. đ
Use Oct. 10-11 Amazon Prime Day to Your Advantage
Amazon's Prime Day, where they lower prices on tons of items, is great for sellers but less so for Indie book authors...
Downsides to Prime Day for Authors:
- Tons of other advertisers jockeying for positions means our Amazon book ads costs go up, while sales usually do not. KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR ADS. I turned mine off for a bit, but if yours are still on and you had high spending limits, you might want to check on those before you go broke!
- Amazon will be pushing their own books - which they can advertise for free, of course. No advantage there. Nah.
- Amazon will incentivize readers to spend their limited funds on their books by pushing 3x Kindle Points for purchases and then shoving their books in front of readers.
How to Use Prime to Your Advantage:
Since advertising on Amazon is so expensive, I decided to do mine on OTHER platforms regular retailers won't be using---namely AuthorsXP and my own newsletter list. I'm sending an email letting readers know they can get 3x Kindle Points for buying MY BOOKS, too! I'm hoping it will be a way to encourage readers who don't love buying full-priced books but don't mind doing it if they can get some other perk.
This will be my first time trying this, and I'll let you know how it goes! In the meantime, you can send a similar mailing to your newsletter list for free and test this theory yourself, so why not?! Let me know how it goes.
Believe it or not, there is no place you can effectively research bestselling books â you can see what is bestselling RIGHT THIS SECOND, but what about the last year or last quarter? And what if you don't want to include books that are only bestselling because they've got a Bookbub promotion running or another anomaly?
I'm writing a romcom for the first time in a long time and realized this horrifying fact very quickly as I tried to figure out what sells. Mind blown. I thought for sure there was somewhere I could go to get this important info!!
It hit me that I needed a way to sort Amazon category results by NUMBER OF REVIEWS. The books with the most reviews would be those that consistently sold the most over time (another search ability I needed---a way to filter by date).
It took some doing, but I found the answer!
Read more: Research all the bestselling books - Discover what is selling in your genre
Your book's cover and description play a HUGE role in overall sales.If you want to know if you're maximizing your "sellability" consider using platforms like Facebook and Amazon to run targeted ad campaigns to test and optimize.
I noticed a book of mine wasn't selling as it shouldâAmazon Ads said it was getting impressions and clicks, but then too few people went on to buy. I did a little research on books like mine and tweaked my descriptionâthe increase in sales was almost instant! Without those ads, I would have gone years not knowing a few simple tweaks could have changed everything (and in fact...did!).
Read more: Leveraging Facebook and Amazon Ads to Test Your Book's Cover and Description
ChatGPT is handy for fleshing out boring scenes...
Sometimes you have an idea for a scene you need to flesh out (a couple walks into a historic home for the first time, for example) but you know it will be boring to type. ChatGPT is a terrible writer, but it is good at throwing out ideas. You can type something like "John and Judy walk into a house built in the 17th century. Describe as they walk from room to room. Be detailed." and it will spit back something like the below. It is stiff and wooden (much like the house) but there are details here and there you can use to keep your own creative thoughts rolling. It seems to be obsessed with smoke and I'm not sure if a ghost is baking the bread, but you get the idea. :)
It helps you picture the place, and then you can describe it in your own much better words, interspersed with dialog and action and not all in one boring exposition/info dump! It keeps you writing when otherwise you might have to stop and work on conjuring up the house.
ChatGPT is great for generating ideas for promotional emails.
I usually tell it to pretend it is a marketing genius like this:
Pretend you're a marketing genius and write a promotional email urging readers to enter a giveaway for a collection of action-packed ebooks, a New York Times bestseller and paperbacks. Include a compelling subject line.
And it spits back something like this:
Subject: đ Win the Ultimate Adventure: Action-Packed eBooks, a NYT Bestseller & Paperbacks in our Exciting Giveaway! đ
Are you ready for the literary thrill of a lifetime? We've got an exhilarating opportunity just for you! đ Enter our exclusive giveaway and stand a chance to win a collection of action-packed eBooks, a New York Times bestseller, and captivating paperbacks that promise to keep you on the edge of your seat.
Imagine immersing yourself in the high-stakes adventures of daring heroes, exploring vivid worlds filled with danger and intrigue, and experiencing the rush of adrenaline with every turn of the page. đ This handpicked selection of adrenaline-fueled reads will transport you to the heart of the action, leaving you breathless and eager for more.
I pull the bits I like and reword them for my use.
You can also say things like, "Give me 20 ideas for compelling email subjects promoting a 99c sale of X" and it will spit out 20 ideas instantly. Only like one of the twenty? Ask for another twenty. It never gets annoyed, and what it provides might be different than your usual thought process. Send your brain in useful new directions!
Here's another example:
Give me 20 compelling email subject lines for a newsletter about using AI to generate marketing email subject lines and text for authors.
- đ Supercharge Your Email Campaigns with AI â Find Out How!
- Revolutionize Your Book Marketing with AI-Powered Emails
- Discover the Power of AI in Crafting Captivating Email Campaigns
- Transform Your Marketing Emails with AI â Start Today!
- AI: Your New Secret Weapon for Effective Email Marketing
- Write Emails like a Pro â Unleash the Power of AI
- Explore the Future of Book Marketing with AI-Generated Emails
- Skyrocket Your Book Sales with AI-Enhanced Email Campaigns
- The AI Revolution: Boosting Your Email Marketing Strategy
- Elevate Your Marketing Emails with the Magic of AI
- Achieve Unprecedented Email Engagement with AI
- AI-Driven Email Campaigns: The Future of Book Marketing
- How AI is Changing the Game for Author Email Marketing
- Turbocharge Your Email Strategy with AI â Hereâs How!
- Stand Out in the Inbox: Harness the Power of AI in Your Emails
- Tap into AI: Transform Your Email Marketing Strategy
- Mastering AI for Your Email Campaigns â A Guide for Authors
- Want to Write Captivating Emails? Let AI Show You How!
- Craft High-Converting Emails with AI â Get Started Today!
- Unlock the Potential of Your Email Campaigns with AI Technology
I marked in red the bits I liked and decided to call this email: Turbocharge Your Email Marketing with a New Secret Weapon: AI
Some essential facts about this informational series:
- I use ChatGPT-4 (big upgrade from 3)
- I'm aware it may grow up to destroy the world Terminator-style, but for now, I'm making it work for me to keep from worrying myself to death.
- AI lies. It fills knowledge gaps with things it reasons MIGHT be true. If you're using it for research, double-check everything!
- There is another AI site that provides reference links to the things it spits out called Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/ (There are a lot of AI sites now.)
- In all these examples, I'm not suggesting you use AI word for word - because it pulls information from many sources, you never know if it is plagiarizing someone somewhere.
- AI is most useful for kicking your own brain into gear!
- This article was written by a human. (me) đ
AI can be scaryâparticularly the idea that Amazon will be flooded with low-quality AI-generated books, making it even harder to sell our titles. I can tell you, as it stands now, AI's writing is pretty terrible. đ So, here in the years before we're all replaced by robots, let's USE AI to improve our writing lives!
1. ChatGPT Can Parse Contest Results
I ran a contest for readers to pick what animal theyâd like to see on the cover of my next book (if you're looking for things to put in your newsletters, readers love these little contests!). I received hundreds of submissions, and let them write-in whatever animal they wanted, so I knew it would take me a long time to sift through the results to find out which animals got the most votes.
ChatGPT to the rescue!
I pasted the list into ChatGPT and asked it to list how many times each type of animal appeared. It did. BAM! I found out how many people voted for each animal (including breeds, for exampleâit recognized âRussian Blueâ as a cat) in seconds!
That would have taken me an hour to do!
Some essential facts about this informational series:
- I use ChatGPT-4 (big upgrade from 3)
- I'm aware it may grow up to destroy the world Terminator-style, but for now, I'm making it work for me to keep from worrying myself to death.
- AI lies. It fills knowledge gaps with things it reasons MIGHT be true. If you're using it for research, double-check everything!
- There is another AI site that provides reference links to the things it spits out called Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/ (There are a lot of AI sites now.)
- In all these examples, I'm not suggesting you use AI word for word - because it pulls information from many sources, you never know if it is plagiarizing someone somewhere.
- AI is most useful for kicking your own brain into gear!
- This article was written by a human. (me) đ
Amazon is finally letting us see our followers!
Amazon has decided to stop hiding how many followers we have! Find out how many followers you have by going to your author central dashboard and then go to "marketing and reports".
Scroll down, and there are your followers!
Why you should grow this number...
I never spent a ton of time trying to get Amazon followers, even though:
a. Amazon is clearly the biggest market
b. They send out free "new release" and other marketing emails to your followers (up to them if and when, but it happens.)
Why wasn't I falling over myself to build this list?
Because I couldn't see my results. I could spend hundreds or thousands of dollars sending readers to follow me and never know if it worked.
Now I'll know what works and what doesn't!
Speaking of which...let AuthorsXP help you build your Amazon followers!
"I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops." â Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
I read Stephen King's On Writing years ago (it's great, you should get it if you haven't already read it!)
Dialog like:
"Absolutely not!" he said angrily.
"I'm afraid it's true," she said sadly.
is like nails on a chalkboard for me. I've immediately stopped reading books upon seeing too many of these. I've not bought books because they were in the preview. Which, granted is MY hangup, I'm psycho that way. đ In my writing, I avoid anything that ends with an ly like the plague. <--- you should avoid tired common similies, metaphors and idioms too!
But recently, (<--Gah! I do get the plague a handful of times per book...) I saw a similar quote attributed to King:
If you need to use an adverb, you've got the wrong verb
I realized it isn't enough to avoid adverbsâyou can turn the practice into a writing exercise to help your prose grow! Replace tired, lazy adverbs with fantastic, unique descriptions.
Some simple examples:
He angrily stomped across the room. can become He stomped across the room like an angry rhino.
and
She looked at him boldly can become She glared at him, chin high, fists curled, like a defiant suffragette.
These broader descriptions of the moment 'show-don't-tell' and offer your readers richer experiences. Whenever I feel the urge to use an adverb, I take it as a fun challenge to see how creative I can be in avoiding it!
Have you noticed some books have fancy graphics on their Amazon book pages? Here are some of mine for example below. Other authors do the "one graphic cut into strips" effect, which is cool. I didn't do this, because I wanted to use the same graphics for all my books, because I don't have a full-time marketing team creating everything for me. đ Every time I take the time to be uber-specific, it ends up making updating later on a nightmare!
Want some for your books? Here's how you do it!
STEP 1: Go to your Amazon marketing dashboard (login) and then click "marketing."
STEP 2: Choose your marketplace from the dropdown (country) and click "manage A+ content"
STEP 3: Click "start creating A+ content"
Step: 4: Give your new content a name and click "add Module"
The module you want to add is Standard Image & Dark Text Overlay
Step: 5: Choose module "standard image & dark or light text overlay."
You'll upload a graphic but skip adding text for the overlay.
Step: 6: Create graphics that are 970 pixels wide and 300 pixels tall - 72dpi
You can create these in programs like Photoshop or Canva or get a graphic designer to do it...
Step: 6: Upload, create another, upload, and hit "next add ASIN" to pick on which book page you'd like your designs to show.
Step 7: Then save when you're done!
You may or may not have received an email that looks like the screenshot below from some author you follow, but if you did, your first thought was probably -Hey! How did he/she get that promotion and how do I get one??
Read more: Amazon will send your recommendations to your fans...
YOU'LL BE FLAWLESS - GRAMMARLY PREMIUM IS WORTH IT.
I was a holdout. I'll admit it. Like many of you, I was using Grammarly's free version, which I love. It was life-changing how it checks all my writing online AND in Microsoft Word. I'm using it now and it has kept me from looking like an idiot four times already.
I didn't want to upgrade because I feared the "suggestions" would be wired more toward business writers, and my book manuscripts would be impossible to read for all the misguided suggestions that don't apply to fiction.
But, I finally gave in and upgraded... and WOW!! Grammarly Premium is TOTALLY WORTH IT. The extra suggestions lit my work-in-progress up like a Christmas tree and they were really good - not only did it spot additional punctuation issues, but most of the suggestions to reword things for clarity were spot on. Overall, suggestions I disagreed with were few and fiction-based (it hates it when I say "old man," which is necessary - it would like me to use a more gentle "older man." đ)
GET GRAMMARLY (Free or Premium!)
Just a heads up to beware of emails coming to your inbox telling you your domain is expiring and asking for you to renew. 99% of these are scams. They also arrive in your physical mailâjust because the information is printed on real paper, doesn't make it real!
Do yourself a favor and find out where you bought your website's domain name. If you're not sure you can do this:
1. Go here: https://www.whois.com/whois/ and type in your domain name.
2. You'll see page like the one shown here. The registrar is where you bought your domain. Sometimes the name won't be familiar, for instance, I originally bought my domain at enom and now it is called "Hover" - so you might have to type the registrar listed in Google to find out their more common, current name. You can also see when you're expiring for real.
3. If this is who you pay once a year for yearly domain renewal, you're done! If you're paying someone else, you've been paying a scammer.
Check into all this and never be duped!
I noticed that a lot of solid Facebook ads include snippets from the author's work in order to drop the viewer of the ad directly into the action of the book. A chunk of sexy dialog, a riveting description...I thought I'd try that for my own book ads, but groaned at the idea of having to read through my work to find the best snippets to use.
Then it hit me---Kindle already did that for me!
I opened my own book on Kindle, went up to the three dots in the upper right, and choose "popular highlights." That gave me a list of the lines in my book most underlined by readers. Not only did it do the work of finding the parts that most resonated with readers (and were the most likely to work well in an ad), but it was also fun to get a peek at what readers like (so I can do it more often!)
Part of a series offering ideas for streamlining so you can save DAYS of time in 2023!
Tip #2 - End of Book Material
As you've probably heard, it is smart to include information about your other books at the end of your books. Readers finish, they want more of your books to read (hopefully!) - the last thing you want is for them to not know where to get more or lose interest.
I used to have all my other books listed at the end of my books, with links to them, but that meant going in and changing that material in every single book with every new release to keep the list updated. Talk about a time suck!
Now, I include the links to the SERIES page on Amazon. That never changes and I don't have to update the list in every other book! đ
I write the same emails scores of times every week. You probably do too, from thanking readers who wrote to say they loved your book to asking other authors to share your book in their newsletters. Sure, I type fast, but I realized these repetitive emails take more time than I ever imagined.
Templates to the rescue!
Read more: Template Your Book Marketing Tip #1 - Template Your Emails
I find myself with photos on my phone I need on my laptop, and vice versa, all the time. I generally email them to myself, but that causes its own problems and what should take me 2 seconds takes me ten minutes of fussing. So I was stoked to find Snapdrop! Just open Snapdrop.net in your browser on two different browsers using the same network (your home wifi, for example) and you can swap many, large, whatever files easily!
Too late, I discovered imgcreator an AI Image creator. WOW. With this site, you type in a description of what you want AND IT MAKES IT FOR YOU. Whaaa...???
Read more: Cool Tools You Didn't Know Existed...Instant Image Creation
Much like the singer from the early 2000s, MOBY, Amazon's MOBI file format is gone. The official word from Amazon:
...starting August 2022, youâll no longer be able to send MOBI (.mobi, .azw) files to your library. Any MOBI files already in your Kindle library will not be affected by this change.
MOBI is an older file format and wonât support the newest Kindle features for documents. Any existing MOBI files you want to read with our most up-to-date features for documents will need to be re-sent in a compatible file format.
Also, compatible formats now include EPUB (.epub), which you can send to your library using your Send to Kindle email address. Weâll also be adding EPUB support to the free Kindle app for iOS and Android devices and the Send to Kindle desktop app for PC and Mac.
Recently I typed my own name into Google (which sounds pathetic LOL) but I do it from time to time to ensure the things I WANT to show up, do. Google Chrome immediately showed me what it thought I was about to search for, based on OTHER USERS searches. The number one suggestion? Amy Vansant Books in Order. So I searched for that to see what showed up and it was a bunch of websites that aren't MINE.
I don't want people looking for my books in order and getting swept to fantasticfiction.com or some other random site! I want them taken to my site or at the very least my books on Amazon. If people care enough about my books to search for their order, they should be signed up to my newsletter, don't you think?
So I created a page on my site called Amy Vansant books in order and listed the books there (in order) with links to buy. Should be no time at all before that page shows up first under searches because it is on amyvansant.com, which would carry the most authority for that search.
Try the trick yourself and make sure any obvious searches lead people back to YOUR website!
If you have a Google Alert or Talkwalker to alert you whenever your name shows up on the Internet, you've probably recieved more than one notice about your book being available someplace it shouldn't be. Most of these evil groups use a promise of your book to phish for credit cards. Some really have pirated versions of your book... either way, it's not a bad idea to OFFICIALLY copyright your book!
You can register a work with the United States Copyright Office-Library of Congress here.
It's $65 per title, which can add up fast if you've written a lot of books, but you can always knock them off one a month or every other month until you catch up. :)
If you have some free time this summer, how about figuring out who you are? Remember, books come and go, but you are selling YOU. Why should a reader want a book written by you? What makes your titles the ones your readers can't live without?
The more you connect with your readers the more you'll sell, and the more consent your branding is, the less effort it takes to ensure readers know and love YOU.
Read more: Author Branding: You're not selling books. You're selling YOU.
I had some time over the weekend and made a tee shirt! I heard someone say "Get Clever" and had this idea for a custom Pineapple Port Mysteries tee.
Read more: Creating Author Products for Fun, Profit and Promotion
I have a link checker that looks for bad links on the AuthorsXP.com website â most of which are bad links to author's websites (book sites and personal sites) in the AXP library I use to promote books for various events and read and review.
The biggest problem? Sites that don't start with HTTPS instead of HTTP. Google has made it clear it wants all websites to start with HTTPS â not just HTTP â or the site won't be indexed. In addition, many sites fail if the person going to it doesn't HAPPEN to type in HTTPS instead of HTTP, or if they stumble on an HTTP version of your link. Chances are old links to your website on many sites (not just mine) start with HTTP.
Read more: Your website could be "down" and you don't even know it...
There are sites where you can upload lists and pick a random winner, but it's probably best not to upload information to random sites. Here's how you can do it in Excel:
Your book has a bestseller tag on Amazon and you want to capture it for posterity (or marketing). But how?
CAPTURE THE ENTIRE VISIBLE SCREEN
WINDOWS: press the Windows + Print Screen (or PrtSc, PrtScn,âŠ) keys on your keyboard at the same time. By doing so, you capture the full screen of your computer and you can then paste that shot into Word, Photoshop, Emails, etc with CTRL-V.
MAC: press and hold these three keys together: Shift, Command, and 3. If you see a thumbnail in the corner of your screen, click it to edit the screenshot. Or wait for the screenshot to save to your desktop.
Read more: Taking screenshots: Partial, Visible and Full Page Captures
I'm going to share a little trick I have to boost my spirits when I need a little happiness. We all need a buoying moment when something is bringing us down about our writing â maybe you're stuck, maybe you're starting to feel like your book isn't going where you hoped, maybe you spotted a bad review that cut you to the core.
- Go to your book on Amazon.
- Hover over the stars under your name until your review panel pops up.
- Click on 5-Star reviews. That will hop you down to ONLY 5-star reviews.
- Now, in the "sort by" dropdown there, choose "most recent."
- Bookmark that page in your browser.
That Bookmarked URL will take you to your latest 5-star review whenever you feel like a boost! You can't use it every day unless you get reviews every day, but every once in a while it's nice to go there and see the latest nice things readers said.
It's almost that glorious time of the year between Christmas and January first when everyone leaves you alone. Well... if you're lucky. It's a great time to slow down and think, organize, plan... How do you plan to use it? Writing? NOT writing? Planning your marketing calendar for 2022?
Here are some ideas...
BOOKS
- Evaluate your covers. Are they hurting your sales? Do they look like the covers of best-selling books in your genre? (they should) Is your genre clear?
- Have you noticed book reviews complaining about your editing? Find an editor and try again. Nothing will hurt your reviews like books riddled with typos!
- Check all your book descriptions. Are they compelling? Do they contain relevant keywords?
- Speaking of keywords, are you using the right ones on Amazon for your book listing?
- Make sure the paperback and ebook versions of your book have the same information/cover
When readers ask you where to review your book, instead of saying "Go to the book on Amazon, scroll down until you see the reviews, click on the button..."send them this simple link:
https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review?asin=YOUR_ASIN
where YOUR_ASIN is replaced with...you guessed it... your book's ASIN number. This will take them DIRECTLY to the spot for reviewing. Much easier!
If you deal with people at all, you know everything you do is like the whisper game... every delay, repeat and extra move multiplies chances of error by a hundredfold.
Keep it simple!
"In our factory, we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope." â Peter Nivio Zarlenga
I chose that lipstick quote above for this newsletter because I found an article in The Atlantic about cozy mysteries (I know, weird, right?). Anyhoo, what it proposed, in part, was that people who read THRILLERS and people who read COZIES are actually similar: both are dealing with life. Cozy readers immerse themselves in a "kinder, gentler" world, one that distracts them from the difficulties of their own life. THRILLER readers want to read about lives in turmoil, so their own existence seems orderly in comparison.
Read more: The Dark Reality Behind âCozy Mysteries' - And what it means for authors
"A mind is like a parachute. It doesnât work if it is not open." - Frank Zappa.
I'd never heard of being a "pantser," until I was asked in an interview if I was "a pantser or a plotter?". Turned out pantsers write off the cuff, planning little before they start their novel. Plotters plan out everything ahead of time, and only then start to write.
I am 100% pantser. I start a book with little more in mind than a general theme.
I've been doing a giveaway like this for my last two releases:
ENTER TO WIN AND CELEBRATE THE RELEASE OF THE GIRL WHO WANTS & WIN!
PRIZES:
- A Kindle Reader
- A 6-month Subscription to Kindle Unlimited
- 20 copies of The Girl Who Wants
- EVERY ENTRY gets a free short story
- EVERY ENTRY gets free bonus content (to be delivered after launch)
NEW SERIES! A wildly entertaining, wholly unique tour de force of action, psychological drama and wit from USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Amy Vansant.
SAVE $2! Special Pre-Order Price
RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW ON AMAZON!
Ever get tired of writing "arched an eyebrow" or "frowned"?
I'm constantly trying to find new ways to describe my characters' common expressions and actions (I want to kill myself every time someone has to get out of a car again) and I have a paperback version of The Emotion Thesaurus I love to dip into when I find myself typing "shrugged" or "chewed her lip" for the fifth time.
It's a handy little list of the ways people express various emotions, and even if you don't pick one they list verbatim, sometimes picturing what they describe helps bring to mine a nice little simile of your own.
You can check it out on Amazon here...
As you may know, I'm wildly passionate that every serious author builds his or her personal reader email list. I've even spoken on this topic with groups like the South Florida Mystery Writers of America. Your newsletter is the only marketing YOU control and easily the most powerful selling tool for authors. It can be challenging to get it perfect, though, and one of the biggest problems is finding the best way to set up and send those newsletters to your readers.
See if this sounds familiar...
Hosting my site and subscribing to MailerLite, MailChimp (etc) is EXPENSIVE. The more reader emails I gather, the more it costs me. It's like being penalized for growing. AND sometimes they try and STOP me from adding new emails at all or suspend my account!! What can I do?
HERE'S HOW TO TAKE 100% CONTROL OF YOUR EMAIL MARKETING
1. Get on your own server
If you host on GoDaddy or other popular hosts, you'll find they'll only let you send X-number of emails a day. This is what makes using services like MailChimp (etc) necessary. Unfortunately, those services might ALSO actively block you from adding emails gained through newsletter builder programs.
How are you supposed to grow effectively with everything working against you?
What every serious, in-it-for-the-long-haul author should do is host on their own server. Then, you can grow your list and season your IP until you can send thousands of emails in a day with no harmful side effects. When an email is sent, it is sent from an IP (internet protocol) address assigned to the website sending it. GoDaddy, et all use ONE IP for potentially thousands of websites, so they canât let any one site send a ton of email for fear theyâll be blocked as a spammer by email services like AOL, Yahoo, Outlook, etc. If that IP is blocked, then NONE of the users on it can send emails effectively.
If you have your own IP, then you only need to worry about yourself.
You'd get your own IP and season it. This means you start small, sending batches of emails that wonât throw up red flags. Over time, the ISPs trust you, and then you can send as many as you like without being blocked. I send out over 300k a DAY, and my sending trust score is 97!
2. Getting on your own mailing program
Once you have your own hosting, you just have to get a mailing program that works like MailerLite and the rest of them, but that you don't have to pay for monthly orpay more and more as you grow.
There are two great mailing programs that work with Content Management systems (Wordpress and Joomla):
Mailpoet: https://www.mailpoet.com/
ACYMailing http://acymailing.com/acymailing.html
Each costs about $100 a year. I use ACYMailing to run AuthorsXP and my personal site.
HOW TO GET STARTED
As usual, doing things right requires some investment, but you'll save a lot of money over time (and grow faster and more effectively).
TO DO CHECKLIST:
- Transfer your current WordPress or Joomla site to a VPS/dedicated IP OR Redesign your site AS a WordPress or Joomla site if it isnât already
- Installation of email program (AYCMailing or MailPoet)
- Setup of newsletter template you can use going forward to make sending newsletters easy
- Setup of signup box on your site where readers can sign up for your list
- Seasoning your IP by sending newsletters to smaller groups regularly and growing slowly
You get the techy person in your life (maybe you!) to do this, or I can do it for you. I've owned a web development firm for 20+ years.
If you donât already have a self-hosted WordPress or Joomla-based site, weâd have to upgrade you to one of those (prices would vary based on the site size/complexity).
Iâd also share with you tricks to be sure your IP is seasoned correctly and avoid issues. If you ever did get a little overzealous, Iâd help you get back in business, too.
Once all that is done, you can sit back and GROW without having to worry about your newsletter again!
IN SHORT, THERE ARE TWO OPTIONS:
1. Install ACYMailing and see if it sends okay using your current host. If your list is small, you can start this way, and your hosts' restrictions on emails sent per day won't matter much.
COSTS: About $100 a year to keep the mailing program updated and a one-time setup of about $200. List growth possibly throttled by how many you can send per day based on your current web host rules.
2. Self Host. Hosting prices vary, but you can get your own VPS (virtual private server) for around $20 per month, giving you a TON of flexibility and the ability to send to your own email lists instead of using third-party mailing systems. Then, you can use ACYMailing. This hosting would probably be much faster and more secure than what you use now.
COSTS: About $100 a year to keep the mailing program updated and a one-time setup of about $400 (moving your site to the new server and setting everything up). Hosting around $20 per month. Unlimited list growth.
Everyone would need different amounts of help. Just contact me, and I can create a package just for you!
While people do get their books pirated (like it isn't already hard enough being an Indie author, thanks jerkfaces) most of the time sites use MENTION of our titles for phishing. They say they have your book, people go to get it, they're asked to enter a credit card (just to join, ha ha), if they're dumb enough on top of trying to steal our books they do, and then the evil people toddle off with their credit card number. (if you're willing to use a credit card, why wouldn't you just buy the book??)