This is part 2 of me (Sacha Greif) and Nathan's podcast about eBook marketing. As usual, feel free to ask us questions. And here is a link to the HN discussion about part 1: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4600394
I got the email list up to 800 subscribers at the time of launch. My goal was 1,000, and I didn’t quite make it. That list converted really well. I’m not sure the exact numbers, but after sending out an email to that list announcing the book I had $1,000 worth of sales in 10 minutes.
If you hypothetically know you have a product coming out, you really want to start with a built-in fanbase rather than starting from zero. This counsels collecting emails early and keeping them warm by sending them things they will enjoy, then reminding them a few times prior to launch a) what it was you were doing again and b) why it is going to make their lives better, after it launches, which is happening in a week.
P.S. Already launched? That is no reason to not start an email list today, since you will eventually have something of mutual interest to say to people, so start getting their permission to say it.
Exactly. It's amazing how well this can convert. For anyone wondering how to collect the emails, I found the simplest way is to write a very useful article or tutorial on your topic and have a signup link at the bottom. Pretty straight forward. You can also use the "free report" giveaway or something similar. I did this with a CSS3 course I put out last week.
It has taken me years to learn how important email is (and I'm just getting started).
Thanks for taking the time to write the transcript!
Nathan, how did you get your first few sales? You stated that you "..released the book. Sales started coming in." Those first few sales seem to be the most difficult (I'm currently trying to market an eBook myself), and I'm interested to see how you achieved your first batch of sales prior to your HN post.
8 comments
[ 577 ms ] story [ 683 ms ] threadI got the email list up to 800 subscribers at the time of launch. My goal was 1,000, and I didn’t quite make it. That list converted really well. I’m not sure the exact numbers, but after sending out an email to that list announcing the book I had $1,000 worth of sales in 10 minutes.
If you hypothetically know you have a product coming out, you really want to start with a built-in fanbase rather than starting from zero. This counsels collecting emails early and keeping them warm by sending them things they will enjoy, then reminding them a few times prior to launch a) what it was you were doing again and b) why it is going to make their lives better, after it launches, which is happening in a week.
P.S. Already launched? That is no reason to not start an email list today, since you will eventually have something of mutual interest to say to people, so start getting their permission to say it.
It has taken me years to learn how important email is (and I'm just getting started).
Nathan, how did you get your first few sales? You stated that you "..released the book. Sales started coming in." Those first few sales seem to be the most difficult (I'm currently trying to market an eBook myself), and I'm interested to see how you achieved your first batch of sales prior to your HN post.