Indie Writers: Building Your Email List

There’s a saying: the money is in the list. An email list is the best way to connect to your audience. You can communicate directly, without worrying about how a platform might change, and you can get feedback from your fans and readers.

So how do you build an email list? There’s a lot of great advice out there, but it boils down to a few steps:

Step 1. Start a Blog

Or at least have a website. You’ll need to have a page where people can sign up for your list, and if you have a blog, you can attract more visitors to your site with strong content.

Dukeo offers some tips for starting a blog, which includes signing up for a host for your domain, and installing WordPress. Blogging does take effort, but there are tools that can help you automate some of the work and make the process easier. Helene in Between has a post of 35 free resources, such as scheduling tools, design tools, and writing ideas.

For more tips on starting a blog, check out these articles on Digital Pubbing.

Step 2. Create Landing Pages

These are also known as lead generation pages or sales pages, or they could just be ways to funnel people into your email newsletter. For examples of these types of pages, see this one on The World’s Greatest Book, or Copyhacker’s “The Non-Gimme-Gimme Approach to Writing Lead Generation Pages.”

Step 3. Promote Your Page

Next, you need to get people interested in your page, so that they’ll sign up for your newsletter. Mayaelious offers five tips, such as creating an online challenge and hosting a webinar. Klient Boost also recommends social group promotions, community upvoting sites, and strategic paid promotion.

Step 4. Write Content People Want to Read

Drip content is great. Just make sure you have a catchy email subject line. You can create welcome sequences or sales funnels that automatically go out to people after they sign up for your newsletter. For ideas or templates you can draw inspiration from, check out:

• Convertkit’s “How to Use Email Marketing to Boost Your Side Hustle“
• Teachable Blog’s “How to Create An Automated Free Trial Funnel“
• Wishpond’s “5 Drip Email Templates That Work“
• Caressa Lenae’s “How To Conquer A Simple High-Converting Sales Funnel“
• Fix My Story’s “Invite ‘Em In: Onboarding for Authors“

For other types of content (content that’s not part of an automation sequence), check out:

• Content Marketing Institute’s “8 Things Any Good Marketer Should Know About Email“
• Content Marketing Institute’s “How to Write Email Newsletters People Want to Open and Act On“

And that’s it! It may take some trial and error, but if you write content people want to read, they’ll continue to follow your newsletter, and you’ll build trust in your brand.

More Inspiration

Kayla Hollatz shared 13 newsletters for creatives, if you’re looking for “awesome content upgrades, insightful case studies, relevant webinar and workshop notifications, and all kinds of exclusive content.”