How to get ARC Readers

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Some tactics I used to get more ARC readers

Transcript

Hey, writer friends. I just hit over 100 people on my launch team.

Cheers. I’m pretty pumped about that number and I’m hoping it’s still growing a little bit over the next few weeks. I will be sending out ARCs the first week in August, but you can still sign up after that because the book doesn’t come out until September 30th, so you’ve got lots of time. We’re not here to talk about joining, although you can link in my tree. I want to talk about a few of the things I did that helped me get a launch team of over a hundred people.

Number one, I made it super simple to sign up. No application, no form. I did a form last time for my Lost Girl launch team. I had people like pick tears and how much they wanted to participate and I didn’t end up using any of the information. So all you gotta do, put in your email.

In hindsight, I should have added a section to put your first and last name as well. But you know, you live and learn. If I were sending out physical copies, I might have had a little more rigorous kind of application process because I would want to be sure that people were really going to participate, really going to leave a review. Because I don’t want to pay to send out a physical book if the person’s just going to take the book and not do anything because I’m only doing digital copies. You know what, sign up.

I hope you leave a review. If you don’t, it didn’t cost me anything. You’re still getting a free book, so keep that in mind. But and listen, I get not everyone’s going to leave a review. And you need to remember that when you’re building your launch team, which is why you want to make get as many people as possible because a good portion of those people probably won’t leave a review.

This is just how it goes. So what else? Utilized my mailing list and previous launch teams which feed into my mailing list. Yes, you need a mailing list. You need a mailing list because even if you have a substantial audience on social media, who knows what is going to happen to these apps eventually?

Case in point, what is happening on this app right now? Who knows how long it’s going to be around? You don’t know. So if you have a mailing list, you always have a way to get in touch with your people and it feels a lot more one on one. It feels more personal than shouting into the void that is social media.

So utilize your mailing list. I Emailed the people that were on my previous launch team, which did help the fact that I’d already built a launch team once. Next tip will help with that. So I emailed them first and started building the list based on who had already participated. I did reach out in general.

I shouted at. My whole mailing list at that point was about 400 people. Now it’s up to over 500. And asked the general mailing list who wanted to be on the launch team. And then I utilized my community.

Spent a long time before I was even ready for the list. Building a community and networking. Yeah, networking is a scary word for writers, But I was only able to get the people that I got and get the number of people that I got because I have been working on building a community of readers, of writers, of friends, of people who just want to support support me for a long, long, long time. There’s my booktop community here that I have put a lot of work into building mostly over the last year. Really started to grow this community here.

And you all are awesome and amazing. So I’ve spent a lot of time networking, going to writing groups, going to workshops, connecting with those people. And a lot of those people are the people on my launch team. So when I was ready to say, hey, I need a team, those people were there because I’ve done so much work in the past networking and building a community. And then because of all that work, I could utilize personal outreach.

And this does take time, and it is a lot of work, but it’s really, really helpful. So I just directly messaged a lot of people, and now, you know, the people that you can direct message without seeming like a crazy person. So. So that’s all in your. At your discretion.

But I have just kind of a message that I copy and pasted, and I would personalize it as needed. Copy and pasted that message and just direct message, a ton of people. Personal outreach is huge. That was kind of the final push that got me to 100, which was my goal. So I’m still moving up and beyond my goal, which is great.

If you want to join the team again, link in the tree. So those are some ways that I built a launch team of over 100 people. Let me know if you have any questions, specific questions about how to build a launch team. Join the team if you’d like. And let’s talk about launch teams.

And keep an eye out for my book, the Things We Cannot Change, A story about the ghost created by addiction. Coming September 30th.

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