The BEST Way To Grow Your Subscriber List
For less than $50? Yup.
You probably know that growing your email subscriber list can be an extremely effective and efficient way to grow your readership.
What is the best way I’ve found to grow email subscriber lists? Booksweeps! *
*I am not an affiliate, so there is no financial gain to me if you use their services. I’ve grown my own and my authors’ subscriber lists by the thousands using this service. Your mileage may vary. ‘Sweeps’ are GDPR-compliant.
Learn more about Ryan Zee, the owner, and his fantastic staff here.
Tell me more!
Booksweeps is a platform that hosts book giveaways for authors in various genres. It's a nifty tool that can help writers in a few ways:
Building an Email List: Writers often struggle to grow their reader email lists. Booksweeps lets you run giveaways where readers enter by subscribing to your email list. This can help you gather a dedicated audience who are genuinely interested in your work.
Cross-Promotion: It's like a collective effort. Multiple authors come together to promote their books within a specific genre or theme. This means more exposure for your work since you're reaching the fans of other authors in your niche.
Reader Engagement: It's a fantastic way to engage with your readers and keep them excited about your upcoming releases. They get a chance to win books they're interested in, and you get to keep them in the loop about your writing journey.
Reviews and Ratings: When readers download your book as part of a giveaway, they might leave reviews and ratings on platforms like Amazon. Positive reviews can boost your book's visibility and credibility.
Networking: Booksweeps events often connect you with other authors and potential collaborators. Networking in the writing world is invaluable for finding new clients and opportunities.
As an author and book marketer, I searched for years to find an effective and reasonably priced way to grow my email subscriber list. Why? Email marketing is a great place to cultivate loyal readers because you can add value directly to them.
Additionally, since readers opted in, you can use email marketing to provide more resources to readers who are interested in what you have to say (via Hubspot).
40 percent of B2B marketers say email newsletters are most critical to their content marketing success, and 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email.
Furthermore, 99% of consumers check their email every day, and it is by far the preferred way to receive updates from brands.
While this data is specific to companies, you can extrapolate or do further research on the effectiveness of email book marketing.
Tip: Have an enticing call-to-action right at the end of all your books, pointing people towards a clean sign-up page on your website, so that you can capture as many of those readers as possible who were delighted with your story. (Source: David Gaughran).
How to get started?
You must have a book published to participate. Then, create a free account. Once you create it, you’ll see the AUTHOR LOGIN option on the top right. Log in, and click on JOIN A PROMO.
Then you’ll see this screen. below. Scroll down to see which promo interests you because you have a few choices:
Grow email subscriber list
Grow your Amazon following
Grow your BookBub following
Look for which call to action you prefer and then which promo features your genre. Click on that particular genre/growth option, and you will see this below (twenty-one different options as of today) - here’s a snapshot, as I can’t fit them all:
All promos are $50, but if you become a free member, they offer a 15% discount, which equals $42.50. They provide all the visual materials for you to share on socials, and even copy with hashtags. It’s very well-organized.
Are there any hidden costs?
Nope. Just your $50/promo, and supplying one book to the winner. Learn more directly from Booksweeps https://support.booksweeps.com/category/13-booksweeps-101. You can gift the winner a book via an online store, or you can send it via snail mail. They provide all this info after the promo.
They create promos monthly, and you can create your own as well.
Does it work to grow your Substack?
Yes, indeed. They provide you with a list of names in a spreadsheet after the promo, which you can import here, or to your own Mailchimp or Mailerlite, or whichever you use.
More Q&A:
The last list-builder, I got 800 new subscribers to my MailerLite, and three of my clients received 500-1000 new subs. Genres of client books (I know you're wondering) range from nonfiction, to historical fiction, sci-fi, and literary fiction.
Listen, I get it. It’s a lot. That’s why I love this smooth system. I’m so pleased with the results and had to share.
Have you any experience with Booksweeps? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Please comment below, and if you find this newsletter helpful, please share and/or subscribe (it’s free).
All writers are welcome! Join my audio space #BookMarketingChat - a free, weekly space I host on Twitter/X, generously sponsored by Booklinker.
Upcoming #BookMarketingChat Twitter/X Spaces, every Wednesday at 11 am pst/2 pm est - click the orange highlighted link below to set a reminder now:
(Recorded) 8/30: AI Writing Tools with
Vennie Kocsisand Mischa's Musings on how they are specifically using AI to aid their writing and marketing.
(Recorded) 9/6: Open Q&A on all things book marketing!
(Recorded) 9/13: Author interview and giveaway with Julia’s Newsletter - Julia Park Tracey, author of the novel, The Bereaved.
(Recorded) 9/20: Author interview and giveaway with Brian Williams, MD, author of the new memoir, The Bodies Keep Coming.
Coming up:
9/27 Open Q&A on all things book marketing - and newsletters!
10/4 Open Q&A on all things book marketing - X(Twitter) changes you need to know.
*Spaces are audio-only. Click on the above links to set a reminder now or to listen to the replays.
New: What Are You Reading?
Over the pandemic, I became fascinated with Station Eleven (show and book) on Max. I’ve watched it now three times and become more awestruck at the connections - so, so many themes about life, death, healing, and renewal. Deeply powerful stuff.
Stick with it. The beauty is in the slow reveal.
If you want to learn more, click here to watch the trailer and here to learn more about the deeply moving aspects of the story. From Collider:
HBO Max’s Station Eleven is a post-apocalyptic tale that focuses not on the destruction of the world, but on its renewal. It’s a deeply cathartic experience about strangers, art, and community, and its twisty timeline, braiding pre-, mid-, and post-apocalypse characters and events, threads together beautifully by the end, highlighting how the before and the after echo and shape perceptions, memories, and actions.
But as astonishing as it is the first time through when it’s surprising and fresh, a rewatch only deepens the experience. Details and themes become clearer — knowing the destination allows the watcher to see the signposts along the route.
Thank you for reading!
I'm a big believer in BookSweeps to grow email lists. But other readers may want to bear in mind that not all BookSweeps promotions provide authors with email addresses for newsletter mailing lists. Some are aimed at growing a base of followers on social media, Amazon or BookBub. So choose wisely.
There are also StoryOrigin and BookFunnel where you can grow your email list using a free ebook as a reader magnet. Have you tried these to compare against the BookSweeps? Do you think BookSweeps is suitable for the MG reader target audience—and newsletters?