Category: Tutorials

In part one of this article, I discussed InstaFreebie, the site that lets you give away a book for free in exchange for the person’s email address, in order to grow your mailing list. I also mentioned I ended up with almost 2,000 new names on my mailing list because of InstaFreebie promos I participated in.

I was very excited to get the new names, but a little hesitant, because people signed up for the list with the express purpose of getting a free book. We’ve all signed up for lists we’re not interested in to get something free (well, at least I have). Given that, I was concerned I’d have a 50 percent unsubscribe rate, or some ridiculous number, because people didn’t want to be bothered with additional emails. It didn’t help that a few of the email addresses indicated the person was giving me a junk address — stuff like [email protected].

I decided to test out my new subscribers to see what happened. Continue reading “InstaFreebie Offers Authors a Chance to Build Mailing Lists, Find Fans”

Back in August, I started hearing authors talk about a site called InstaFreebie, where you could give away a free copy of your book in exchange for recipients signing up for your mailing list. Both Jim Devitt and Shawn Inmon have discussed the importance of mailing lists. Authors on different online groups said they’d scored upwards of a thousand names added to their lists using InstaFreebie.

Obviously, this sounded very cool to me. I thought I’d give it a try. What do you need to participate in InstaFreebie? Simple. A book you’re willing to give away for FREE. The book cannot be in KDP Select because it violates Amazon’s terms of service. (I will note, some authors give away a KDP book sampler — the 10 percent you’re allowed to post elsewhere — to drive sales to the actual book on the Amazon store. I don’t know how successful this is.)

Once you’ve picked a book you want to give away, you need three things: Continue reading “InstaFreebie Offers Authors a Chance to Build Mailing Lists, Find Fans”