Seven Tips to Grow Your Mailing List

This week the indomitable Katie Davis has agreed to fill in for Grace (who is on a 2-week school visit marathon). Katie Davis has published nine books and appears monthly on the ABC affiliate show, Good Morning Connecticut, recommending great books for kids. She produces Brain Burps About Books, a podcast about kidlit, a blog and monthly newsletter. Smart about marketing, books and balance, we're so glad Katie has agreed to share some of her insights with us here:



In my last guest post I talked about all the different things I do in my career as a writer and illustrator and how I balance them. I know a lot of people who read like that just shut down, overwhelmed by everything that could be done. Either that or their heads spontaneously exploded. So let’s pick just one thing you can do to promote yourself and your career.

Let’s get you a mailing list. You are going to grow your audience and then stay connected. (No, that is NOT two things. I promise. Besides, after you’ve collected a mailing list you will want to stay connected and it won’t even feel like a second whole thing. Think of it as part two of the first thing. It’s the psychology of just doing ONE thing.)

Here are tips to grow your list:

1 - Every time you make an appearance as an author, bring your guest book. Whether it’s on your iPad or in a spiral notebook, ask people to sign up. I’ve brought my guest book to school visits, book festivals, conference appearances …wherever people are gathering to celebrate their love of children’s literature, I bring it. Ask only for their name and email address. Make sure they know you won’t share that list, and, though this seems obvious, ask them to print clearly.

2 – When at professional functions, ask for people’s business card and then ask them if it’s okay to add them to your mailing list. At ALA I collected almost 100 cards and only one person told me he didn’t want me to add him. I separated that card from the rest and wrote myself a gigantic note on the card so I wouldn’t include it by accident.

3- Sign up on your site. Make it easy to find, right at the top of your home page (I’m in the midst of a huge overhaul of my site and I’m definitely doing this one!)

4- Don’t abuse your list. Send out things of interest that isn’t just about you and your books. Write articles, include info about other books, or include lesson plans.

5- Give to get…

Elizabeth O. Dulemba grew her list by establishing “Coloring Page Tuesday” which is when she posts a new downloadable coloring page. She has over 2,500 subscribers and over 1.5 million page views of her site last year. That doesn't even include RSS subbers, facebook followers, etc.

Dianne de las Casas sends a monthly newsletter that includes activities that link to her books, but also suggestions about things to do with kids, her tour schedule, interviews with reviewers and sometimes even a recipe or two!

My own newsletter (sample) has book recommendations and unique information from authors about their books, links to my podcast interviews with other authors and experts, videos and occasional tips. On my new site I plan to have a weekly drawing for all new subscribers.
On your site include a “Tips for …(writing non-fiction for kids/making friends on Twitter/whatever you are good at!” or “Secrets to…” article to download. The key to get the download is your visitor’s email address.

I contacted one of the most successful and well-known children’s literature bloggers, Cynthia Leitich Smith, creator of Cynsations to ask how she increased her mailing list. She actually doesn’t have one, because as she told me, “Email addresses change.” However, I’m not sure at her level she needs a mailing list. After all, she gets 80,000 views per month. She can put her message out on her blog and basically, a bazillion people will see it.

She also told me, “While nailing down specific reasons is about as effective for me as reading tea leaves, I suspect the following are factors: (1) the blog is hosted and mirrored (reproduced) at more than one location for greater outreach and subscription options; (2) I tweet links to the posts and feature them on my facebook author page; (3) I've been blogging for a long time--since 2004--which has allowed ample opportunity to build both an audience and create back links that continue to attract traffic; (4) Cynsations builds on the success of my already popular children's-YA writer and literature resource site, a portal to the world of creating, reading, marketing, and publishing books for young readers; (5) the content is of consistent quality, offered on a regular basis, and features notable voices and visions from throughout the field.
Building on the last point, the content is not only regular and substantive, it's consistently positive, with a focus on inspiring and informing the youth literature community, especially writers. While I may highlight, say, links about supporting library financing, I don't share the particulars of my own political beliefs or otherwise delve into matters beyond the world of books. Consequently, my blog readers know what to expect. At the same time, I do personalize it a bit. While I don't, for example, go into any detail about my Valentine's Day plans, I will be sharing a photo of the flowers I received. It creates a (hopefully) warm and inviting online destination, offering real value to visitors.”

6- Put your signup link in your email signature.

7- Freebies! It’s always nice to offer something for an email address. How about a weekly drawing? I met a guy on Twitter who actually gives a tee shirt for every email address he gets. That’s a big expense if you’re getting a lot of sign ups! Just giving a signed copy of your book would be a huge prize, and would get your book out there. Other great prizes would be, if you are an established writer, to offer a critique to any unpublished writers who sign up.

This isn’t brain surgery, I’m not saying anything new, and if you google “how to increase your mailing list” I’m sure you’ll find even more ideas. The thing is to do something. And my most important tip of all, which should have it’s very own category: once you start building that list, use it for good, never for evil.

How to Achieve Balance Between Your (Sheesh, I Hate This Word) Platform and Your Writing

This week the indomitable Katie Davis has agreed to fill in for Grace (who is on a 2-week school visit marathon). Katie Davis has published nine books and appears monthly on the ABC affiliate show, Good Morning Connecticut, recommending great books for kids. She produces Brain Burps About Books, a podcast about kidlit, a blog and monthly newsletter. Smart about marketing, books and balance, we're so glad Katie has agreed to share some of her insights with us here:


Don’t freak out when you read what I’m about to write. I’ll tell you the trick in a second.


My platform consists of my blog, a monthly TV appearance on a local CT morning show to promote kidlit, a monthly newsletter, and a weekly podcast. Then there’s the usual tweeting, emailing, book promotion, and Facebook distraction. I also write and illustrate books, do a bunch of literacy-based volunteer stuff, and I have two teenagers, a very easy husband, and Mango the Adorable Dog.

When people hear about all this stuff I do they usually say, “Where did you get those extra hours in your day?” or “Well, you have more energy than I do!” or “You are insane.”

One of those comments is true but I’m not telling which.

I do get a lot done, but it’s not as much as I make it seem. I know how to do the whole smoke and mirrors thing. It gives the impression that I’m doing everything ALL the time.

To answer the question set up by my title, think REPURPOSE. It’s my new favorite word. Actually, Grace Lin inspired the subject of this post when she asked this very question on my podcast. She queried whether it was okay to re-use the same material for a blog post and a newsletter (or something like that). I believe it is definitely okay. And therein lies the smoke and the mirrors.

Even though it seems like I’m doing a lot – and don’t get me wrong, I am – I’m trying to make the most of what I do by getting more use out of each endeavor. I had a college friend who used to call this time-deepening.

How does this work? Here are the steps:

Say my Good Morning, CT gig is coming up. I’ll read the books I’m recommending (duh), then grab the covers off the internet. I send my producer the covers and blurbs about a week in advance so they know what images to show while I’m on. While I’m doing that, I have my newsletter open, and upload the images there, entering in the blurbs. I used to write my own copy for each book, but now with the added demands of the podcast, I’ve given that up and simply use the publisher’s description. I send an email to the authors, illustrators, and sometimes the publishers telling them I’m taking the book on TV and could they please send me a unique bit on the book’s creation for my newsletter. I offer writing prompts to facilitate that, and sometimes get some great “interviews” that way. Often I’ll also interview that same author on my podcast, so now I’ve time-deepened my reading and prep efforts once via the TV show, once, the podcast, and once through the newsletter.

I’ve also repurposed for my blog via my podcast because I write show notes for every episode and use them to help me with the accompanying blog post once the episode is ready to upload. I have started to time-deepen my podcast editing session by doing non-thinking activities while listening. When I hear something that requires cutting, I’ll click back over to Garageband, do my editing as necessary, and whenever any linkable comment comes up, I’ll go back to the open blog post window and make the bulleted note (because I always write up what’s in the episode so people will know what I covered…in case they especially do or do not want to listen)!

Because this post is so long, and I’m writing in detail what I do, it seems like a huge complicated effort, but because I re-use content across my various delivery systems it’s not as overwhelming as it seems. I’m not trying to be disingenuous, I do know it’s a lot, it’s just not as much as it appears to be.



If you are going to repurpose your content, there is one important point to stress. I think it’s crucial to include unique material in each category so, though you’re repurposing, you’re just overlapping. In other words, my podcast will give listeners something new that, if they also subscribe to my newsletter, they won’t have read. Or if someone reads my blog there is always something unique that they won’t see or hear in the podcast, the TV clip or the newsletter.

Doing all this re-using gives me time for my writing and illustrating. I get up and answer the bulk of my email first thing, over coffee. I try to schedule my time by tweeting only in the morning and evening (the operative word being try). I don’t always succeed. But I love doing all this stuff. It’s fun for me. When I feel overwhelmed, I remind myself that I don’t have to do it. Or I let something slide. Because in the end, what really matters is doing what I love, which is writing for children. Oh, and promoting other people’s books. Oh wait. Also supporting literacy and…

I think I’m going to need to repurpose my repurposing