Increasing your book’s fanbase while growing your email list.
Giveaways are a great way to increase your subscriber base, your fans on social media, get more likes, and so on. If you haven’t finished writing your book yet and don’t have a book to give for free, you can give away just about anything you want. I’ve even seen gift cards, Kindles, candles, all sorts of things.
But for it to be worth it to you, make sure the giveaway is relevant to your book or of interest to your target audience. You don’t want many people entering your giveaway that is not part of your target audience. For example, if you write nonfiction books on healing, giving away a $25 gift card to Starbucks is probably not relevant. However, if you write books about parenting or your target audience is moms, that could be a great giveaway.
Perhaps poll your audience to find out what they would like to receive as a giveaway. Maybe it’s a print copy of your latest book. Perhaps it’s a SWAG bag. Keep in mind: You don’t have to spend money to do this. And it doesn’t have to be fancy. There are plenty of apps that will help you set up a free giveaway – Rafflecopter, Gleam, King Sumo – some of them are free, some are not.
You could create a bundle of ebooks by getting together with a handful of other authors in your genre, have them each provide an e-copy, place them all in one Dropbox folder, and when people enter the giveaway, they’ll receive the link to the dropbox folder. You could also do this as a low-cost way to make some money too. A bundle of 10 books, for example, for $1.99 or $2.99. This way, you can share the revenue while increasing all of your book’s fanbase.
Action items for setting up your first giveaway!
Let’s start by giving away your book for free on your website.
You’ll need:
- A landing page
- An email CRM that will collect the emails and send out the e-copy of your book or send an email that directs them to a link (dropbox, website, etc.) where they can download the book.
- A “Thank you” page that directs them after they’ve entered their email address. That will let them know the free book is on the way, OR they’ll be notified when you pick a winner and invites them to follow you on social media (include the links) while they are waiting.
If nothing else, you now have an excellent way to collect email addresses from your website and increasing your book’s fanbase. Be sure people understand they are opting into a list, and make sure you send out an introduction email not long after they sign up so that they know who you are and why you’re emailing them.
