friendos ♥

holy crapola have i been busy

I keep meaning to report and keep putting it off so here tis.

I decided to stop being a nerd and give newsletters a chance, and did a few NL builder activities. I increased my list from 50 organic subs to about 800. Here's why the volume game matters:

My open rate stayed about the same, but saw A BIG DIFFERENCE in clickthrough.

Clicks are not sales, however. Clicks are interest. I released a nichy book after I built my list and it sold on-par with my last bestseller, which had broader appeal. So working on my list did move the needle, though unclear how much.

GOOD NEWS

• I got over my paralysis about NLs and now it's just a thing I do. They're really not so bad, and I've fully embraced the argument that unsubs are good, because you won't waste that person's time anymore and they don't clutter up your list. So people who don't like it unsub, no big deal. I think I've had maybe 30 unsub so far which I understand is pretty normal for the volume.
• NLs feel a lot less pointless when hundreds of people are reading your emails, as opposed to like 20.
• I feel like my sales have plateaued for what I was previously doing, so from that perspective any boost is good
• I got a few superfans, and my first fan mail, which was pretty dang cool.

BAD NEWS

• If you gain subscribers with free books, it can be difficult to translate that to reader loyalty. Larger subscriber numbers make the lack of loyalty more obvious (e.g they only click free stuff), and that kinda sucks.
• There's no way I can juggle multiple pens AND do the marketing stuff. I'm only just now skimming the surface of that gauntlet and I feel like my plate is edging toward full.

Whether I'm doing "a lot" of work or not, it kinda feels like I am. So this experience reinforced I can't juggle too many pen names and I need to figure out how to balance it.