A Fast Way To Grow Your Mailing List

In the past, I’ve really struggled with is building my email list. After getting it to a level I was tremendously proud of, it languished there for a long time, neither growing nor shrinking. While trying out different email list building strategies, I came across one in particular that produced truly incredible results. I’m talking 750+ email subscribers for about 1 hours work. Below, I’ll show you this fast way to grow your mailing list.

For me, this is one of the best email list hacks, if not the best. In the sections that follow, I’ll answer all of those questions that have strangled you with frustration for too long:

• Why do you need an email list?
• How can you grow an engaged email list?

And I’ll show you:

• How to build an email list fast
• How to build an email list for free
• How to build an email list from scratch
• How to build an email list without a website

Why Do You Need An Email List?

Statistically, the email list is the superior means of selling books in comparison to every other platform.

Those who join your email list have volunteered their personal information (their email address) to connect and follow you. They want to hear from you. They want to buy your books (though there are a few steps to come before simply thrusting your book into their face).

So when it comes to launching your book, your email list of engaged and loyal followers will be excited to buy your book, shooting you up the charts and planting a nice big grin on your pretty face.

That’s what we all want at the end of the day, isn’t it? It’s therefore important that we invest some time and effort in email list building and studying how to get email subscribers.

How To Build An Email List Fast

In my quest for expansion, I stumbled across Nick Stephenson. I could relate to Nick’s story a lot. He’d written books, self-published them on Amazon but wasn’t really getting the results he hoped for.

Years went by and nothing changed until he decided to dive into the world of marketing. He learned whatever he could from all different types of industries and applied them to the world of book marketing.

Nick Stephenson focused his efforts on building his email list. By using the techniques he’d learned, and after a lot of trial and error, he managed to grow his mailing list to 15,000 subscribers in just six months.

What did all of this email list building give him? Readers! Instead of sitting idly waiting for readers to come to him, he went out and found them.

There are a number of email list building strategies which can be employed to help you build an email list from scratch. Let’s look at them.

How To Build An Email List From Scratch

Nick adopted an email list building strategy called ‘book funnelling’. That is, making one of your books free to download on Amazon, either permanently or for a limited time.

Contained within that book is an advert for another free book which readers can get if they join your mailing list, or ‘book club’ as Nick prefers to call it—it definitely sounds better than ‘mailing list’. So what you’re doing is funnelling readers toward your email list.

You can find out how Nick sets up his books by heading over to his website, https://www.yourfirst10kreaders.com/. I highly recommend joining his mailing list. It includes a free course on his book funnel approach, plus lots of other great tips to grow your mailing list.

I’ve had mixed success with this method. Despite my free short story book hitting #1 in the fantasy anthology charts and staying in the top 10 for weeks, I didn’t get many subscribers from it.

There are better and more effective email list building strategies, though this is one that’s certainly worth doing.

A Guaranteed Way To Grow Your Email List Fast

I was completely surprised by how easy it was to do this.

It’s all about giveaways.

Yes, giveaways. Giving away free books, anything free (that people want of course). To enter, all a person has to do is join your mailing list.

This sounds ridiculously easy, doesn’t it? It pretty much is. I’m not trying to con you. One of my more recent giveaways saw me attract 457 subscribers. Here’s the proof.

My ‘Bundle of Writing Gifts’ consisted of paperbacks of my two books, Flying on the Ground and A Fantasy Writers’ Handbook, Stephen King and Margaret Atwood’s books on writing, a free tshirt featuring the cover of Flying on the Ground, and some bookmarks. Stuff I had on my bookshelves already (new copies).

Now some of those people do unsubscribe. They may only be interested in the prize and don’t care for your scribblings. Out of those who have subscribed, however, I think fewer than 10-15% have unsubscribed, which is a good retention rate if you ask me.

Picking The Right Giveaway Prize

It goes without saying that you need to give away things that people want.

So some key questions to ask yourself:

1. Who’s my target audience?
2. Will they want this prize?
3. What can I do to make this stand out from the crowd?

So to give you some more ideas, you could try:

• If you’re a romance writer, you could put together a fine bunch of romance books, plus your own of course, as well as some nice chocolates and maybe even a little bottle of bubbly.
• A Kindle pre-loaded with copies of all your books.
• As a fantasy writer, you can bundle up some of the most popular fantasy novels. I do it all the time and get great results. And the email subscribers I get are fantasy fans, so when I start sending them lots of free fantasy stories and books, I begin to win them over. 

How Do You Set Up A Giveaway?

As you no doubt noticed from that image above, I used a website to host my giveaway. That particular website is called Woorise.

Let me jump ahead a few steps to explain why you should try and host a giveaway without using these sites.

These websites do nothing but host your giveaway. They don’t promote them. That you have to do yourself. To promote them, all you do is fill out a form on giveaway directory websites and include the link to the giveaway form page (such as Woorise). This form page is literally just a landing page with a signup form.

So the idea clicked. If it’s just a landing page, why don’t I just make my own free one on Mailchimp and link it to my mailing list so people are automatically added (often a premium feature on a lot of email list giveaway hosting sites).

So here’s how you can do it too:

1. If you’re using an email list management website like Mailchimp already, great. If not, I recommend giving it a go. With Mailchimp, you can create a free account and build a list up to 2,000 subscribers. Beyond that, you have to pay. If you use another website to create landing pages, by all means use that. There are loads on the web. I’m most familiar with Mailchimp so for ease I’ll discuss that, but regardless, the principles remain the same.
2. On Mailchimp, head over to Create. Select Landing Page. Next, give it a name, link it to your chosen audience and click create.
3. Once you’ve completed the other details, head over to the design section. Here’s what I’d recommend:
   1. An attractive background image of your giveaway prizes or a bright, yet inoffensive solid background colour;
   2. Clear, easy to read text. A nice big title advertising the competition, and a clear, succinct description of the prizes;
   3. If you’re including your own books in the prize, I’d add a couple of short reviews of your books that you’re offering (if you have some). This helps defeat any cynicism in the mind of the potential entrant. Here’s the layout I used for my Bundle of Bookish Joy giveaway:

4. The form you use is all-important. The way I believe I’ve been able to retain so many email subscribers is because I asked a targeted question when people entered. Specifically, I asked them what they were interested in, and gave them options: i) my fiction; ii) free books; iii) writing-related content. Using this information, I can add tags to each subscriber so that they receive content that they are more likely to be interested in, and therefore engage with. Hopefully, it’ll make them less likely to unsubscribe.

Let’s look at how I reached all those entrants.

I mentioned giveaway page directories before. There exists on the web scores of these websites. They each have loyal and dedicated followings of bargain hunters who are on the lookout for some cool free stuff. Including yours!

I have to admit, I never knew these websites existed. Some of the stuff you can win is incredible. You have to do different tasks for different giveaways, but for our purposes we’re just focusing on obtaining an email address.

A lot of these directory websites don’t charge you to list your giveaway. Others may ask for $20+, some just a few dollars. It’s up to you how much you want to invest.

The forms on these websites are straightforward. Some of them ask you for an image. I tend to take a screenshot of my landing page sign up form, cut out the crap around the outside, and upload that.

Below, you can find a list of sites you can list your giveaway on.

Where Can You List A Giveaway?

Below, you can find a list of places where you can list your giveaway. Some of them are free to list, others may ask for payment. 

1. SweepstakesBible.com (paid)
2. Contestchest.com (free)
3. Contestgirl.com (free)
4. Giveawaymonkey.com (paid – cheap)
5. Theprizefinder.com (free)
6. TrueSweepstakes.com (free)
7. SweepGrab.com (free)
8. Sweetiessweeps.com (paid)
9. Giveawayfrenzy.com (free)
10. Totallyfreestuff.com (free)
11. Giveawaypromote.com (paid)
12. Winasweepstakes.com (free)
13. Giveawaybase.com (paid)
14. SweepsAdvantage.com (paid)
15. Sweeties Secret Sweeps (free)
16. Infinite Sweeps (free)
17. All UK Competitions (free)
18. UK Competitions (free)
19. Money Saving Expert (free)
20. I Love Giveaways (free)
21. Competition Database (free)
22. Sweepstake.com (free)
23. Contest Listing (free)
24. Giveaway Machine (free)
25. Reddit – r/contest, r/freebies, r/freebiesuk, r/giveaways, r/efreebies (all free)

There are many more websites. A quick Google search will give you a few more lists. You can also try searching for giveaway groups on Facebook and other social media platforms to share your giveaway on.

But using some of these sites alone, I reached a lot of people, and with the method used above, I managed to get a 25% conversion rate, which I’ve very happy with (that is the number of people who clicked the giveaway URL and then entered the competition). I’ve since been able to increase this to between 50-60%. Take a look for yourself.

And as a little bonus, here’s the list of top referrers:

The top three referrers all allow for free listings, so there you have it.

The only downside to using your own landing page, like through Mailchimp, is that you can’t track data like this list of referrers above. However, you can experiment with sites like Woorise to see which sites to focus your efforts on. You’ve got a bit of insight here to get you on your way, at least.

One of the best things about this email list building hacks is that you don’t need a website to do it. All you need is a Mailchimp account. 

Other Ways To Grow A Mailing List

In addition to giveaways, there are a number of other methods that you can employ to grow your mailing list. 

They may not bring the same volumes of subscribers as giveaways, but from experience, the types of people who do subscribe via these methods tend to be more engaged with your email marketing campaigns.

One such method is using reader magnets. This approach involves creating a free book or product that readers can download in exchange for joining your mailing list.

Once on your email list, you then engage with your followers by opening up about yourself, adding value to their lives, or by giving away more freebies. 

You can use reader magnets to do different things, too. While one approach is to encourage people to join your mailing list, you can also use them for book funneling. This is the process of using a book as a lead magnet or a tool to generate new leads. 

For example, you may wish to promote your novel, so as a book funnel you could create a sample version of your novel containing the first few chapters. The intention is to win readers over with the magnet and then funnel them toward buying your book within it.

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Richie Billing

Richie Billing writes fantasy fiction, historical fiction and stories of a darker nature. He's had over a dozen short stories published in various magazines and journals, with one adapted for BBC radio. In 2021 his debut novel, Pariah's Lament, an epic fantasy, was published by Of Metal and Magic. Richie also runs The Fantasy Writers' Toolshed, a podcast devoted to helping writers improve their craft.

Most nights you can find him up into the wee hours scribbling away or watching the NBA.

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