I spend my days hunched over my desk writing articles for a handful of blogs. But after five o’clock, I put away my B2B toolkit and spend the next couple of hours hunched over my desk to write science fiction novels about tardigrades and time-travel-time-share-salesmen and futuristic theme park cops.
This second job has taught me a lot about managing expectations, living on a budget, and crying silently to myself while locked in the bathroom so my kids can’t hear me. Granted, I’ve learned a lot about character development. Subplots are second nature. I can toss off a vivid minor character without even trying. The biggest lesson, though, the one that rocked my boat was totally unexpected.
It was after midnight. I was worn out from conjugating verbs. I hadn’t even reeled in my participles. Just left them dangling. I was haggard and spent; I wasn’t just tired. I was exhausted. And not only from the work. None of my marketing shit was landing. It was killing me.
After work I’d done a little SMM on my upcoming title and looked at the numbers and they were…not impressive. Despite giving away hilarious, beautifully crafted chapter excerpts, besides posting LOL quotes on Facebook, and despite putting a reel on TikTok, despite all that, my reach had increased by exactly two readers.
I mean, I write content marketing articles all day. It’s for other people, but I pay attention. I know where they put them. I get to peek into their analytics dashboards and let me tell you, my articles perform.
So why wasn’t it happening for me in my own work? I got mad and growled I HATE building this stupid author’s platform! I hate begging for likes! I hate growth hacking!
I snapped open my laptop. I wrote a quick email to my less than a thousand readers, and told them I give up. I quit.
And look, I know this article is a little tongue in cheek, but this part isn’t. I wrote this:
In my last email, I explained how much I suck at marketing. It’s true, I’m not good at it. I hate the tedium of it. I hate how it makes me feel like a used car salesman.
I was thinking about this and lying there on the couch trying to rouse myself to face the pedantic hellscape of another round of Instagramming and Facebooking for growth when it hit me: I’m not an idiot. Not a complete idiot. I mean, I’m like 61% idiot. But I’m not an idiot about marketing.
I just don’t like social media.
I don’t like begging for numbers.
It doesn’t have anything to do with the experience of the writer or the reader. So, it doesn’t have anything to do with my actual work. It has nothing to do with me or you.
It’s stupid and I don’t want to do it.
I reject marketing as hard as I do the idea of a platform. DO YOU HEAR ME PUBLISHING UNIVERSE?! I REJECT YOUR STUPID MARKETING REQUIREMENTS!
What I care about, what drives me, what drives every author out there who can’t stop/won’t stop putting out books and stories, is the space between the reader and me. It’s numinous and magical. I mean, think about it. What I’m doing is listening to the voices in my head, then writing down what they say (or what they tell me to say). If I do this with enough selflessness, with enough craft, that is if I can wrestle my big fat ego out of the way of the words, then you will hear my voice in your head! THAT’S FUCKING WEIRD!
It’s also beautiful. It’s what feeds me. Reading a great book. Hearing the author’s voice whispering their story into my brain holes. It’s better than drugs. But to actually write something that works, that haunts someone else’s mind at a distance, to cast a spell that blooms a world inside their head . . . that’s waaaaaaay better than drugs.
I just want people to read my stories. I just want to be the voice in your head.
Which is why I’m not marketing anymore. Not the way I’m ‘supposed’ to. Screw it. Here’s my genius plan:
1. Someone downloads my free book or excerpt.
2. They really, really like it (I hope).
3. They tell their one true friend how good it is, then point that friend to my website to download their own copy.
4. Repeat forever.That’s it.
I’m not doing anything else.
If my writing can’t inspire you to share it with ONE person, then I haven’t done my job, and no amount of marketing can make up for that.
For the first time, some of the people on my list replied. Honestly, I think they were as surprised as I was. I think they were so used to getting shitty emails from every newsletter they belong to that real communication was refreshing.
My metrics for the last three emails:
Opened: 26%, 29%, 32%
Clicked: 2%, 6.63%, 12.66%
CTOR: 7%, 22.85%, 39.19%
When you consider the national average CTOR across all industries is 10.5%, these numbers look pretty good.
I kept my promise. No crappy marketing emails. No creepy product pushes. Just honest, short, text-based emails. Exactly the kind of thing I send to my friends.
I actually wrote one email that just said “How’s it going?” Because I remember I had an email list and I wondered how they were doing. So I asked. And they told me. A couple of readers replied with long emails. Most of them were pretty short. And I wrote back. And then it hit me, I’m not curating an email list.
Honestly, I don’t know how this is going to play out, but I can tell you this: I will never send some bogus highly-tuned sales mail again. Ever.
These people on my list, they are there in purpose because they liked my writing. Jesus Hathaway Christ, they mean the world to me.
They’re friends.
I’ve talked with a woman from England for three days about our favorite sandwiches. I talked with another guy about his retirement gig in Louisville. When I made a hilarious blunder, I didn’t try to hide it; I sent everyone a link so they could laugh too. And they did. They loved it.
Here’s the lesson in this, the thing I learned about email list curation:
Those email addresses you see in your MailerLite dashboard aren’t followers. They’re people. They’re people who love what you do enough to double-opt-in.
They are real.
You should be too.