In my years as an Indie publisher, there have been a number of schools of thought as to what it took to be successful. In the salad days of 2012, the advice was, “Do a free run, then sit down and wait for the Brinks truck to back up with your money.” Those were good days, almost certainly too good to last. Since then, the advice has ranged from “write in a series and make the first book free” to “drive sales through Facebook ads,” to “use keywords and sharpened metadata to drive traffic.” Through it all, though, one thing has been constant: you need a mailing list.

The reason why is simple: You control how and when you access a mailing list, as opposed to investing everything into working the Amazon or social media algorithms. The problem with algorithms is, they change. What might be golden today can turn to lead tomorrow. A mailing list is yours forever, though, or at least until someone unsubscribes.

The key frustration I hear from most writers, though, is that it is awfully difficult to build a list into any kind of size that will deliver results. I feel your pain. Let’s look at the various ways to build a mailing list. Read more of this post