Indie Authors is a community for indie and hybrid authors and publishers.
Email lists
Kjerendipity's 20/80 post made me wonder:
How do you add to your email lists? Is there a good program to do it? Do you have to have a blog? I heard a guy say he gave his ebook away for free if readers would sign up for the email list... Do I have to have something free to get people to sign up?




I'm using MailChimp for my list right now. I've heard there are better platforms out there, but it works for now and I'm not planning to re-evaluate until the list is big enough to need a paid option.
For subscriptions, I have a pop-up box and a sign-up page on my website. (That's at http://emmasavant.com/ if you're curious. The site needs a lot of work, but you can at least check out the sign-up boxes.) As you can see, I don't blog. I'd rather spend those words on my books!
My call to action on the newsletter sign-up doesn't specifically say I'm giving away free stuff, but hints that I might. I plan on occasionally using my list to give out advance review copies but didn't want to commit myself to anything specific.
This is super helpful! Thank you!
How are you planning on putting up your website? If you're using WordPress, let me know and I'll check which plugins I'm using. It took a lot of trial and error to find free ones that worked and weren't complicated.
Will my husband LET me use wordpress? I don't know, haha. When I did my photography website, he came up with something that was beautiful but impossible for me to update on my own, so I had to constantly pester him to help me update things... Needless to say, it wasn't the best setup for me. You're already on my shortlist of people to beg for help with all of this. ;)
Haha, I wish you the best of luck talking him around!