Are you collecting & backing up your email lists?
If you are counting on creative-work income to help cover your expenses, are you backing up your list from subscriber platforms?
Email lists are your direct connection to people (with money) who have shown interest in your work.
Future you wants you to build and backup your email lists now, so that you:
- Don’t lose a huge source of income if your subscription platform crumbles overnight. You will still have direct contact to all your supporters and can email them to let them know how they can continue supporting you elsewhere.
- Can say to potential business partners (i.e. publishers, agents, etc.) you have a solid platform including an email list of [XX number] of subscribers.
- Can talk (and sell) directly to your supporters at any time without being held hostage by the whims of a huge social-media entity. If you’re relying on social media platforms, you’re competing for attention with everything the algorithm thinks is more important than you. Plus, social-media platforms can be fickle and can disappear overnight.
The most common ways to collect email addresses are through:
- Your website
- A subscription platform like Patreon, Substack, Ream, Bandcamp, etc.
- Through events i.e. On event registration forms, I include an option to join my newsletters. At the end of the event, I pass out feedback forms which include an email sign up option.
- Signature lines in your email, that link to a subscribe location.
It is time to start to consistently saving backups of your audience-contacts list.
I recommend backing up your list monthly, in a place you own, like a hard-drive, in cloud-storage you pay for, a flash-drive, etc.
If you participate in subscription platforms, your first step is to familiarize yourself with how to export your audience contact list. This is normally in settings, or audience, and exports as a spreadsheet. (.csv, .xlsx, etc.)
Once you’re in the habit of saving the list you can think about what you may want to do with it. If you have a website or blog that includes an RSS feed, I recommending looking for email providers with the RSS import post option to make your life easier. You can read about how this may benefit you in an upcoming post.
Email lists don’t sound glamorous, but when you really think about the fact that everyone on that list is supporting you it’s pretty cool.
Everyone who signed up felt a direct connection with your work and there’s a chance your creative work is making their life better in a way you can’t yet comprehend.
Now go back up your email list, and put a reminder on your calendar to do it again every month.
by Jessica Conoley
p.s. There’s still time to register for the May 31st, Empowered Querying class!