By Shaunta Grimes
Today, I want to go over one idea for a really simple thing you can do right now to start building your list.
It's so easy, that I almost feel weird sharing it. It's going to make me look like Captain Obvious. But, I know I was scared to do it, so I figure you might be, too.
And I want to give you a simple plan for what you can do with your list, once you have it set up.
Pluck the Low Hanging Fruit
There are people who will be on your list, without you having to do much work. Except, you know, the thing that can be the scariest: ask.
Your mom. Your Uncle Todd. Your best friend. All of those old elementary school buddies you're friends with on Facebook.
Those people, though, they can be the hardest to ask. Because then people you know will know what you're up to. They’ll know that you think you're awesome enough to have an email list.
Trust me, I get how scary this is.
I'd like you to consider doing it anyway.
Text or message or call and say this to the people you're closest to:
Hey, I'm going to be blogging about ______ and I would really love it if you'd join my email list.
They'll say yes. Because they love you and they're interested in what you're doing.
Then ask: What's your best email.
Then go to 'subscribers' on ConvertKit and manually add them. Put them in your Welcome sequence, so they get your welcome email.
Post the same thing on Facebook, only link to your ConvertKit form so that people can sign up themselves.
You can go back to your Welcome form on ConvertKit. Click 'view' and you'll get a page with your form. Share that URL.
Start adding a little line to the bottom of your blog posts as well. For now, it can just say something simple like let’s stay in touch. Link the invitation to an Upscri.be or your ConverKit form.
Here's a post from Bryan Harris at VideoFruit about asking.
A Simple Email List Plan
You're probably thinking: great, I have a few people on my list. Now what do I do?
Here's what I did at first:
Send two emails a month.
In the first, share a bunch of really cool stuff you've found over the last few weeks. Keep a list in your editorial calendar!
In the second, share what you've been working on. Links to your best posts, updates about your fiction writing, etc.
That's it. Start there. As your list grows, you might find you want to write more. Maybe a weekly newsletter. And maybe you'll want to share links to your best Medium posts more often. When you have a book to sell, you'll want to let your list know.
But for now, start with those two emails.
(DISCLAIMER: This post contains affiliate links.)
Here’s my secret weapon for sticking with whatever your thing is.
Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s represented by Elizabeth Bennett at Transatlantic Literary Agency and her most recent book is The Astonishing Maybe. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the original Ninja Writer.Today we’re going to get familiar with and set up on ConvertKit.
Is this the last post in the Anti-Blogging for Creatives series? I hope not, I like the series and am learning from it.
I do have subscribers on the other platform on which I blog (where I have at least 300 posts, so I'm squinting at thinking about what it's going to take to migrate them all)