Techology + Teamwork = Magic

On Writing, Resources

When Writers Get Together and Use Instafreebie

I wanted to start building a newsletter mailing list of science fiction fans for the launch of Cold War.  So I started from zero.  After Ken formatted our book on Draft2Digital, I put it up on Instafreebie.  The first few days after just sticking it up there, 33 people claimed it.  I was impressed because there had been no promo, just a pinned tweet and a link here.

Then Charles had an Instafreebie promo with two dozen other science fiction (ish) authors.  Despite getting lumped next to a bunch of manchest covers (The Needle is not a romance), we did astonishingly well. In one week, we went from 33 subscribers to 261.  About 15 unsubscribes, which is 6% unsubscribe rate.  Great, happy to unload those guys who won’t buy anything in the future.

Then the mailchimp results on my 3 email welcome sequence:

Our 1st welcome email has a 51.4% open rate.
Our 2nd email has a 46.9% open rate and 22.4% click rate.
Our 3rd email has a 41.5% open rate.

What’s in those emails?

The second email has links to book reviews of military sci fi novels that I have posted here in the past.  It’s a way to give something to the reader that I think (and hope) we have in common.  The third email has the preview chapter to the first book in the Cold War, Alien Incursion.

Alien Invasions – First Contact

I’m currently writing a 4th and 5th automation email as part of the welcome sequence, and will be including exclusive content–backstory for Keenan, a character introduced in The Needle.
What I hope will happen is that in the end, we will have a core group of subscribers who are genuinely interested in what we have to offer–military sci-fi fiction that thrills and entertains!

 

 

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