I recently looked at my writing career, and asked myself, well, how is it going? I told myself that it was going pretty good. That I’d published the book that I set out to publish and that, all things considered, is success.
But then, I had this feeling that I ought to be doing more. Writing more. Posting more. Being in the thick of things more.
So I went looking for inspiration, on how to do things, and what to think about when doing those things. In short, I wanted a do to list to help me with the various things I needed to do to market myself. And yes, I had that yucky feeling about marketing, as it always brings up used car salesmen and the like. But I started reading up about it. I bought several “market yourself!” type of books, and didn’t expect much of them. However, they gave me some great ideas, and Mail Chimp is one of them.
(If you’re intersted, the books I bought and thought were useful as pertains to marketing were many, but the two that stood out were Let’s Get Visible by David Gaughran and Write, Publish, Repeat by Johnny Truant and Sean Platt.)
But to focus on Mail Chimp, I had been reading David Gaughran’s blog for a few weeks now, and stumbled upon a post that talked about, as I recall, not depending on the major social media applications and websites. Social media rises and falls, just like Rome, and in the end, you don’t want your information and records to be in someone else’s hands. One of the solutions to that issue is to create your own mailing list, as described in this post: The Author With The Biggest Mailing List Wins.
I was so very energized by this idea, that I went and created my own email list. I have posted on my blog, and also on my new FaceBook Author page. I’m still not sure how to make it “go” as it were, but I have been informed by David’s blog post (and his book) that a very good idea would be to publicize it. Which I will do, but for now, please consider this an announcement about my new mailing list!
The mailing list will inform anyone who joins about the following types of information:
- New Releases
- Cover Reveals (always fun!)
- Freebies and Giveaways
And that’s it! The idea, David says, is not to spam or over inform. Give readers something good and interesting and brief, always.
So if you’re interested, you join my mailing list, which you can find on my main blog page! You can always unsubscribe at a future date, as well!
