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Back to email. Today we are going to explore a topic I’ve only touched on in passing: reader magnets.
Reader Magnets 101
A reader magnet is simply a piece of content you dangle to encourage readers to sign up to your mailing list. Most commonly for fiction authors, it’s a story which readers can download for free. A novel, novella, or short story will work. Preferably something in the same “universe” as some of your other books, often featuring some of the same characters – either your hero or a popular secondary character. For non-fiction, it’s pretty much the same: a related piece of content. But there’s a few extra options we’ll get to.
At least, that’s what the best reader magnets will be – the most effective in driving sign-ups. The best reader magnets aren’t just desirable, they are also exclusive. Having your reader magnet also available as a permafree on Amazon makes it less attractive. But doing the opposite, making your mailing list the only way someone can get a hot piece of content, can turbocharge sign-ups.
“But hey,” you might reasonably say, “I don’t want to give away a full book.” FINE. Be like that.
I kid, you don’t have to give away a full book. You have options here and can tailor this approach to suit your individual needs. For example, for my non-fiction list, I give away a short guide to a hot topic. For my historical fiction list, I am giving away a full-length, standalone backlist novel (or I will be next week, once I fix my website). And for my pen name SF list, I plan to just give away a short story featuring the characters from my main series.
Three different approaches, but it’s all content which is attractive to my target audience and exclusive. If people want to read it, the only option they have is to give me their email.
Freeloaders and Dead Weight
Some people are reticent to try this approach because it might attract freeloaders. It’s a fair objection! It can, and does. Especially if you are aggressively driving sign-ups with advertising or competitions or group promotions or whatever. But even if you aren’t engaging in those practices, you can still get people signing up who only want the free story and don’t want to be on any newsletter.
This is what I used to do - i.e. avoid using reader magnets because of these fears - but that was a mistake. There are other ways of dealing with these people that doesn’t involve having your hands tied and missing out on a very powerful way to grow your list.
It’s pretty simple, actually: just encourage them to unsubscribe.
This might sound strange but remember that you only want people on your list who really want to be on your list. You don’t want passengers (or hostages) or any kind of dead weight. You want interested readers. People who want to get emails from you. People who are interested in you and your books and who are happy to hear from you regularly.
You will have seen me do this during my own onboarding, and I also do it around any CTA that appears out there in the wild among a colder audience, one less familiar with me. Often I say something like “I explain this in more detail in my book Amazon Decoded which you can only get by signing up to my list [LINK]. But you can sign up, grab the book, then unsubscribe if you like – I don’t mind!”
And I mean that. I don’t mind. In fact, I prefer if they unsubscribe if they don’t want to be on my list. Dead weight costs me money. Dead weight drags down my open rates. Dead weight affects the deliverability of my newsletters. Having people on your list who don’t want to be there hurts your chances of getting into the inboxes of people who do want to be there. And that, my friends, is a crying shame.
So, encourage them to unsubscribe, and don’t be sad when they do. You haven’t lost them forever, you still have a good shot of hooking them with that free book and getting that sign-up again – it happens to me all the time.
I’d recommend encouraging them to unsubscribe more than once during onboarding, but we’ll talk more about onboarding and automation in a future email, I suspect. For now, let me mention something quickly about offboarding.
Lots of the people that unsubscribe are lost to you, sure. Either they didn’t like your emails, or maybe you cursed too much (or too little!), or they thought your book was awful, or maybe you got into a barfight with them. Hey, it happens… I’m told.
But not all of them are. Maybe some of them just want new release information and nothing else. Give them that option!
Don’t just use the default unsubscribe message – customize it. Offer people the chance to follow you on Amazon or BookBub if they just want New Release Alerts. You might be surprised how many people will do that. I certainly was.
It’s a simple trick, that I haven’t seen anyone else do, and can help you squeeze some more value out of any unsubscribes (what a lovely way to speak about our dear readers!).
I love things that you do once and keep paying out forever! Here’s how you customize your unsubscribe page at Mailerlite. Just note that if you jump on this today, you might run into a little bug that won't allow you to add content blocks to your unsubscribe/confirmation page. Mailerlite are in the process of fixing it, so I think that will all be fixed next week - just so you go-getters don't wonder what the bejaysus I'm talking about!
Reader Magnet Alternatives
Maybe you don’t have enough stuff out there yet to make something exclusive to your list, or perhaps you are starting a new pen name, or branching out into a new genre, and won’t have enough content to do this for a while. What are your options?
Let’s look at non-fiction first, as that’s a lot more obvious. Fiction writers should still read this section… for reasons that will become clear momentarily.
Non-fictioneers don’t have to give away a book at all – it’s just what I choose to do as it works well for me. The options are pretty much endless: Workbooks, checklists, video How Tos, case studies, deep dives, cheat sheets, private Facebook groups, private websites – you can do a quick Google search and see a thousand blog posts breaking down dozens more options too.
You can pick what sounds most attractive to your target audience (and most fun for you to put together). Remember, you can have more than one magnet, if that’s what works for you. Technically speaking, I actually dangle a few things to drive sign-ups to this list. Amazon Decoded is the obvious thing, but that Email Archive drives a fair few sign-ups, and that’s simply just a private page on my site. Other people do similar things with Facebook groups, or worksheets.
(You can also use this type of content to drive other things, like sales – for example I have a private part of my site for purchasers of BookBub Ads Expert where they get ad examples, and extra resources, and a place to get feedback on their ads.)
Really slick content marketers engage in a practice known as content upgrades – which basically means having a bunch of magnets and using them strategically. For example, if I had a blog post on my site about Facebook Ads, I might have a sidebar saying something like “Sign up here to get my free guide to Facebook Ads” – and then copy that strategy across ten different hot topics on my site. I would totally do this if I didn’t also have a job writing novels, as it works really well. If I just wrote non-fiction, I would definitely go that route and be growing my non-fiction list more aggressively.
How does any of this translate to fiction? Well, in a few ways, actually.
First off, you can have a non-fiction magnet for your fiction list. This might sound strange, but it works! A cozy mystery author might put together a recipe book of all the dishes her food-critic heroine ate in the novel. A mystery writer might have downloadable case files for all the criminals he’s chasing… but only if you sign up to his newsletter. Epic fantasy fans might enjoy downloadable high-res maps of your world. You get the idea.
Second, you can do content upgrades with fiction too! Extended scenes, deleted scenes, alternative endings, origin stories, storyworld quizzes, fantasy movie casting, character interviews, serials, story personalization – there are just so many options.
(Note: a lot of this content can also work as part of the stuff going into your regular newsletter! Just remember to mix in a healthy amount of non-you content also. I’d recommend making that the majority, in fact. Also a good rule for social media generally…)
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, I’ve sold you on the merits of reader magnets, that the most effective ones are attractive and exclusive, but also tying back to the stuff you are actually trying to sell too. And I hope you aren’t too worried about the prospect of freeloaders, because they are far easier to handle than you might suspect.
One last tip: freshen up that reader magnet! Even if the content you are pushing out as your reader magnet is totes evergreen, it’s still a good idea to freshen up your offering every so often, just like it can (sometimes) be a good idea to do a cover refresh.
Maybe your original magnet was really successful but didn’t appeal to a sub-section of your target audience for whatever reason. A new one might. I also think you get re-energized when you have something new to push – just like with a cover refresh. The book feels new to you again, and you come across as more jazzed when selling it to readers.
I wouldn’t do this too often, but if you are starting to sense a drop-off in attractiveness of your reader magnet, then that might be a good time. For example, I’ll be switching out Amazon Decoded as my reader magnet later this year. Partly because of that, but mostly because I’m turning it into a full length book. I’ll have something else, something different taking its place – aimed at the same target audience, and also exclusive, but should draw in some fresh subscribers too.
It can be a little tricky figuring out some of the details, such as whether a given content-lump should be a Facebook post or an onboarding email or a regular email or a reader magnet, but just dive in and get your hands dirty; you’ll get a better sense of that when the rubber hits the road.
Dave
P.S. Content wrangling music this week is Kitty, Daisy & Lewis with Honolulu Rock-a-roll-a.
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