Sure, you have many ways to grow your brand. Heck, 99% of my early success as an author was online with no need for in-person engagement. I'll keep my advice short, because with 1500 videos between two YouTube channels, you've got a LOT of advice to use there.
Be visible. That's it. You just need to put yourself or your book in front of as many people as possible. How you get visible is entirely up to how comfortable you are in certain situations.
That's the ticket. Social media isn't mandatory. Some folks just don't vibe with social media, so it's pointless to break ground there, because eventually you'll resent it. I'd recommend an email list above all things. Get an email list going. That's your life line. It'll start small, but as you scale, it'll grow massive so that every book launch or backlog push, you'll get a huge payoff.
Also, connect with other authors in your niche. If they have a newsletter and you have a newsletter, work out a quid pro quo system where you share their stuff, and they share yours (aka newsletter swap).
You're already on a great platform for building newsletters, but I'd recommend looking into email marketing services with automation. As it stands right now (unless it's something I missed), you don't get automation on Substack. I wish they would include it, because that'd be a game changer!
I'm partial to MailerLite, but you can always go for MailChimp or Convertkit. Recently, Convertkit increased their free subscriber base from 1,000 to 10,000, so if you're just breaking into email marketing, you've got three great choices with one having more than sufficient room for growth.
My issue is that I must do everything virtual. Do you have any advice for an author in that space?
Sure, you have many ways to grow your brand. Heck, 99% of my early success as an author was online with no need for in-person engagement. I'll keep my advice short, because with 1500 videos between two YouTube channels, you've got a LOT of advice to use there.
Be visible. That's it. You just need to put yourself or your book in front of as many people as possible. How you get visible is entirely up to how comfortable you are in certain situations.
That's what I've been doing; old-fashioned 1:1 over social media. How I did it selling ads for TV a decade ago.
That's the ticket. Social media isn't mandatory. Some folks just don't vibe with social media, so it's pointless to break ground there, because eventually you'll resent it. I'd recommend an email list above all things. Get an email list going. That's your life line. It'll start small, but as you scale, it'll grow massive so that every book launch or backlog push, you'll get a huge payoff.
Also, connect with other authors in your niche. If they have a newsletter and you have a newsletter, work out a quid pro quo system where you share their stuff, and they share yours (aka newsletter swap).
You're already on a great platform for building newsletters, but I'd recommend looking into email marketing services with automation. As it stands right now (unless it's something I missed), you don't get automation on Substack. I wish they would include it, because that'd be a game changer!
That was my next question, Dale. I really appreciate your insight. I'll look into email automation as well.
I'm partial to MailerLite, but you can always go for MailChimp or Convertkit. Recently, Convertkit increased their free subscriber base from 1,000 to 10,000, so if you're just breaking into email marketing, you've got three great choices with one having more than sufficient room for growth.
I like my Substack but is there a way to add my subscribers from here to convert kit and retain the substack interface? Idk if that makes sense.
Very informative, thanks 😊
Glad you enjoyed it! More to come.