Amy Vansant started AuthorsXP.com, a website dedicated to helping authors promote their books and build their audience. Authors can find newsletter buidlers, giveways, facebook ad help, reviews, beta readers and more at AuthorsXP.com.
Today Amy tells us how she started it, how the site has grown and what new items are coming for indie authors.
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TRANSCRIPTION STARTS HERE:
Kat
All right, welcome back, everyone, to Pencils and Lipstick. Today I have with me Amy Vansant. I’m very excited to have her. Hello, Amy. How are you doing?
Amy
Good. How are you?
Kat
Good. Before we get started, would you just tell everyone a little bit about you in case they don’t know who you are?
Amy
I’m an Amy Vansant, author of mostly mysteries little urban fantasy, little romance, and I started AuthorsXP, which is a marketing site for authors because I was an author and I was getting frustrated, so I figured I’d make my own solution.
Kat
So are you an indie author?
Amy
Yes.
Kat
Okay, so how long have you been an author and at what point did AuthorsXP, because it’s such a big idea, as we go into this, at what point in your career did you decide that you were going to also do that?
Amy
Well, it started a lot smaller, not totally sure, to be honest with you. I think my first book came out in 2015. I’d always been a writer, but I had stopped because I started a web development firm. So I was making more of money, obviously, doing websites and books. So I started to sort of exclusively do that. And then sometime in, I guess, 2014, I thought, what am I doing? I was always supposed to be a writer. And unfortunately, by the time I realized that you could publish on Amazon and all that kind of stuff, I’d already missed that. So that kind of sucks, but anyway, I plugged away at it and I just started to get frustrated that it seemed like everybody else in the world had control over what marketing I could do. I could only do so much. I had to pour money into it every step of the way, and I didn’t know what would work and what wouldn’t. And by that time, I had started talking to other authors, and I thought, wow, we could really do something if we all got together and shared each other’s books in our individual newsletters, to compound what we were doing. So that’s how it started. It was just supposed to be a newsletter swap, and then turns out authors, because we’re very busy and we often have other jobs and whatnot, people just weren’t thinking about doing the swaps, and it wasn’t really clicking the way I hoped it would. So I started to do sort of a daily deal, newsletter, kind of book club, ask, obviously much smaller. And then as that started to pick up, then authors would say to me, hey, I wish you had reviews. So I added that, and then I thought I should do giveaways so people can build their newsletter. So then I started that, and so basically, where I am now has a little bit of everything, but it was all recommendations from other authors of what they wanted.
Kat
It’s grown really fast, though. I mean, if you publish in 2015, and maybe this is around.
Amy
I want to say I started in 2017.
Kat
Okay, so, I mean, a lot of authors are told, start your newsletter, right, indie authors, and then start with swaps. And the biggest problem with that, especially new authors, is like: A. What do I write in my newsletter, how do I get people on my newsletter? And then you can only swap so much because you have one book and then a lot of times it’s a lot of work, let’s just say.
Amy
Yeah, I was just talking to an author the other day who got into some swap where they had to dedicate basically their newsletter to the swap. So they were sending out a newsletter every day featuring a different author because of this group. And then her numbers, people that were following her were dropping because they were tired of getting so much.
Kat
Yeah, that’s interesting because authors are not necessarily marketing geniuses. And so what might seem like a great idea, send out one email a day, actually flops fantastically because everyone unsubscribes and then you can’t put them back on and you’re stuck with like a smaller list afterwards, which is exactly the opposite of what you want to have.
Amy
You have so many emails as it is. You sort of have to the way I do it with people that I swap with, we kind of created a little group of our own and then I said, look, anytime somebody has something that they want to share, like a sale or a new release, just post it. But send it. I need an email that sends it to all of us. Just send it. If we can do it, we’ll do it, if we can’t, we can’t. No pressure. Sometimes you get in somebody’s newsletter, sometimes you don’t. It’s just the way it works out. And that way when people do send their newsletter anyway, organically, if they can fit my book in, great. If they can’t that the timing is off, is on. So I would recommend that there’s to start little groups. I’ve tried on AuthorsXP to facilitate that and create little groups, but just people are just too it’s too much to organize for them.
Kat
Yeah, that’s a lot of handholding, I would say. But that’s not a bad idea, at least, aside from having these other marketing tools to find a group of authors that you have sort of similar tastes or you feel comfortable sharing their books and sort of doing that on your own as a group. I mean, we got Google Docs, Google Drive, all these things that people could do, for sure. I joined swaps and groups and stuff, but I only do it with my newsletter and I really think that at least from my audience works the best. I can’t email them 500 times a week, they will leave.
Amy
Plus it’s a good thing because now my newsletters that I send out, for me, they kind of follow a pattern that’s usually, here’s what I’ve got going on, very briefly. Not like buy buy buy buy my books. Just if something new is happening sale. And then I’ll have like a cute little story, usually about my dog, and then I’ll have a link to the giveaway at AuthorsXP so they can sign up to win things if they want. And then the whole bottom of it will be three or four or six books from friends of mine basically that are having sales or new releases. So it becomes a value add for the people that I’m mailing to. They’re like, oh, I know her newsletter. It always comes with deals from other authors.
Kat
Yeah. And that’ll make them at least open it right to scroll through and check it out. I’ve had StoryOrigin and they’ve talked a little bit. I haven’t had BookFunnel yet. But how does AuthorsXP differ in the marketing sense for indie authors and things from StoryOrigin and I don’t know, maybe if it’s a little bit the same, but could you give us a background on what AuthorsXP does and then sort of how it differs or is similar?
Amy
I’m not familiar with StoryOrigin.
Kat
It’s she same as BookFunnel.
Amy
Yeah, because I have my own thing.
Kat
You don’t usually have time to know everything?
Amy
It’s weird.
Kat
That it is weird.
Amy
I mean, I think the thing that makes me different is that: A. I’ve got so many different things. So if you want to build your followers on social media, you can do that. If you want to build your personal newsletter, you can do that if you want. Just do like a cheap I keep my daily deal newsletter to $10 for others. So if you want to send out to about 100,000 readers for $10, you could do that. I’m and then I have Spotlights, which feature a whole series by an author or combination of books that are related by a single author, which I think, I could be wrong, but I think I was one of the first people to do that. It started to show up, I think Written Word Media is doing it now and a couple of other people, I swear, I think they got it from me. But to me it just made sense. I mean, you want to push your series and if you got a new release you can do a mailing, where the first book is free or 99 cents and then you’ve got your middle books and you have your new release, maybe.
Kat
Yeah, of course. I mean, you want the people to know that it’s a series, not just.
Amy
I was surprised, nobody was made me frustrated because that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to call with these other marketing people that I was working with, the Robin Ruth today and all those, and say, hey, why can’t we do this?
Kat
Yeah, exactly. So you just did it. The thing about AuthorsXP and I found you guys a couple of months ago, I think you were on Novel Marketing Show, but it could have been another podcast because as my audience knows, that’s what I do when I’m walking the dog, is listen to podcasts. And I had not known about you. So I was getting a bit frustrated with using BookFunnel and StoryOrigin, which are great tools, I still use them, but you sort of end up in the same loop sometimes. And here’s my problem, I didn’t want to start my own swap because I don’t have the time to do it. So I was just trying to find swaps that other people have put together, but they were either too long or they didn’t really fit. And then some of the other marketing sites might be great, but they’re pretty pricey. Like Written Word Media, they have a huge newsletter list, like 350,000 or whatever. It kind of depends on the genre, but they’re pricey. So when I heard about you, I went straight to your website and I was surprised how many things you had. Like the newsletter builder has been amazing for me. I mean, I have kind of gotten to that point where you’re a little stuck, you’re like pushing it out on social media, but you sort of get in that loop with StoryOrigin, everyone’s already signed up for everyone’s newsletter, so you’re just sort of in the same circle. So it’s been amazing. I think I’ve added 1000 sign ups. Of course, some people unsubscribe or whatever, but that’s maybe joining three newsletter signups, maybe four. So for anyone who’s looking to get out of that little sum, it’s been great for me and I’ve been telling people to try it out. But how do you keep your prices so low? Is that just a conscious decision? What makes you decide to do that?
Amy
The key is not getting rich.
Kat
That not being a goal, on your vision board.
Amy
I mean, because I’m an author and I I basically I could feel like what things are worth, like what I’d be willing to pay for. So I try and keep it to that, you know, and everybody’s different. I I mean, I’ve I’ve had readers tweet me and say, oh, I would never pay 99 cents for a book. There’s somebody who you’re probably not going to sell on a lot of things. And then other people think, oh my god, you’re so cheap. So it just depends on. Plus, I like to try and find ways to save money. Like, I’m super excited about the Facebook teams that I’m doing now. Okay, so after many years swogging away Facebook ads, I’ve got it figured out to do them about as well as you can, but it still is very expensive for a single author. So I thought, well, why wouldn’t I just do these like my mailing list and have multiple authors in an ad? And then it’s basically a giveaway and then at the end, all the authors get the list of the people from Facebook who signed up, which will keep the list fresher. So that like you said, you don’t end up in that loop of the same people who sign up for promotions and whatnot.
Kat
Yeah, I saw that. Did you just roll that out or did I just see it?
Amy
Yeah, it’s only been like two or three months, I think.
Kat
I think it’s an impressive idea. Thank goodness you know how to do it. It’s like one of those ideas that you might think, oh, this would be a great to do, but nobody really knows. Like Facebook ads are still scary sometimes and I don’t know and that’s a lot of work behind it. So tell us. It’s basically you sign up to be part of a group and you at AuthorsXP run the ads, right?
Amy
Instead of you as an author running your own ad and trying to I guess usually you’re trying to sell your books and you send the link right to Amazon, which nine times out of ten, unless you get actually ten times out of ten, you’re not going to make more money than you’re putting into the ads. At least not right away. Maybe eventually enough people will read through a deep series that you couldn’t make your money back, but you’re definitely never going to get rich with one or two books. So what this is, is instead of sending people to buy books with the ads, sending them to the AuthorsXP site to sign up for a giveaway, where they’ll win books from authors and I’ll do a mix of the authors that are involved and then also maybe throw in a bestseller and people sign up for it. And the people signing up are from Facebook, which is everybody, right? They’re not people that only sign up to promo sites, they’re just people who read that I’m targeting. So it’s a like fresh breeze when it comes to promo sites to get these people and they win books and you get the list at the end to add to your newsletter so then you can market them your books.
Kat
Yeah, I think that’s an amazing idea and I’m surprised that people haven’t done it before.
Amy
It does sort of require: A. Figuring out how to do the ads as effectively as possible, years basically, and: B. Having a whole bunch of authors that you can come in with you. So I happen to have those two things going for it.
Kat
Yes. It’s great that you have sort of figured this out and that you are like that tool that we can go to and be like, please do this. AuthorsXP is a tool. Sorry, you’re having too good a time here. So you have the Facebook ads but you also do and that’s as a group, like a giveaway. What’s amazing for that, like you said, is usually when you do your ads, which I’ve done, I’ve dabbled. And I haven’t yet for books, I haven’t really done. I’ve done it for other things. But you’re right, you’re not going to make your money back. It’s almost like a psychological thing. Like if I didn’t sell enough books to make the money back, it feels frustrating. Whereas if I’m running ads for something else where I don’t expect to make money, but I want sign ups more than anything, then it’s not as frustrating. But I love that it’s not going to Amazon. That’s not your expectation there. So they’re winning a book. The other difference for you too is that you can sign up as an author. You can sign up to give your like you give away one book, like two people win the whole batch, right?
Amy
Yeah, I usually do it that way. It’s more out of hand than anything else at this point. But I feel like if people think there’s two chances, they might win all the books. Yeah, it’s like that little extra push off the cliff to get them to sign up.
Kat
I mean, it doesn’t cost us much, like 30 cents to send ebooks to people. But I also really enjoy that you can sign up as an author to possibly send a print book if you want. So I always sign up for that and I just find it like this little touch it costs me, I send a media mail and it’s $3.80 or something. And I have books printed because I have books printed. So I think it’s just this little personal touch. Of course, you’re only getting to one reader at a time, but still, I don’t know. For me, I enjoy it. I can send out the ebook and then send out a little print book. And I always get an email when people receive it. They’re like, they’re so excited, hopefully they like the book.
Amy
They can take a picture of it and send it for social media?
Kat
Yeah, giving them a little note. I find that a really nice added touch that you can choose to be part of. And like you said, then you get the list that you can add to your readers newsletter. But on Facebook you also do social media as well, right?
Amy
Yeah, I guess some other booksweeps, I think they do builders for book club and things like that. And I used to do them as individual events and then I thought, why bother? It could just be like, it’s a rolling thing now. So basically I have a page where people can win a Kindle every month, I give one away, and every time they follow somebody on any social media that I have listed there, they get an entry. So I have people who come and they follow everybody. And I have other ones who just follow the mystery writers or just follow the romance writers. But if you sign up for that it’s just a guarantee you’ll get 200 followers and I don’t take you off the page until you have the 200. So if it takes a week, if it takes a year, it doesn’t matter. You’re there for the long haul. It’s like a set it and forget it kind of thing.
Kat
Oh, that’s really cool. I didn’t actually know about this one. Now I’m going to have to go and sign up for that. What’s really interesting is with AuthorsXP, I’ve started out really slow. When I get your newsletter and I read it and I see the new things that are happening and maybe it’s just because I got a little bit tired of sort of the other way of doing it, which again, it’s no big deal to do like BookFunnel and StoryOrigin. They have their place and they’re awesome. But you have so many different things for authors. Do you get feedback from them? Like, do you have people who have been with you for a while and do you have success stories?
Amy
Yeah, actually they’re all over the site. I have testimonials and whatnot because it occurred to me at some point that I should probably keep them open somewhere. Probably the bottom line on that is if someone is unhappy for any reason, all they have to do is tell me and I’ll refund them, which came from some of my early frustration. Somebody I won’t name, a group I advertised with and I was really trying to push a new release and they said if I signed up for this extra special, like $200 thing that they really, you know, knock it out the park. And I was trying to go up the ladder here. So it was a big deal for me to spend the money and that was the only thing I had running at the time because it was maybe three weeks after release and I got zero sales, so I knew it was zero from them. And I was a new author, so that wasn’t getting really a lot of words from other places yet. So I could really see that it was a failing there. And I let them know and they told me that they: A. Wouldn’t give me my money back and B. Wouldn’t let me put money towards something else and C. Said it was probably my bookstore, which I had already advertised with a bunch of other people and had been really successful with it so I ended up with zero sales.
Kat
Zero sales is not your books fault because somebody’s going to take a chance out there.
Amy
And that was also one of the things that pushed me to start this site because I was like, I’m going to start the site and if people are ever unhappy with anything I do, I’m just going to give them their money back and move on because I want people to be happy. And if you are confused about what I have or what’s been done or anything. You can email me any time. And I am a psycho about keeping things out of my inbox, so I have to answer everybody. And that’s primarily why I’ve got people that have been using the site in the beginning and still are and just been doing everything that I offer because they know if anything goes wrong, I’m right there.
Kat
Yeah, you’re always informing us through the newsletter. And you guys have with AuthorsXP, you have the readers that sign up, right? So part of this works because readers sign up, they stay on the reading newsletter and they receive the promotions, the daily deals and all that stuff. But also the authors will then also push whatever giveaway they’re part of or whatever things that they’ve signed up for, as well. But you don’t only lean on the other authors. Sometimes, if you’re paying for another site to do this. Unfortunately, with your story, you don’t know if they’re pushing unless maybe you’re on every single one of their newsletters. I don’t know. You’d really have to follow up with everyone, however they’re doing it.
Amy
Right? Nobody has the time to do that.
Kat
Nobody has the time, but zero sales is pretty suspicious. But on the other hand, the other ones, if you’re starting out with BookFunnel, you’re really depending on the authors to do their part. And of course they have mechanisms in place for kicking people out or whatever. But that also requires whoever is running that newsletter sign up or giveaway or whatever to kick the person out and to follow up. You’re relying on so many things. What I love about AuthorsXP is you have the AuthorsXP newsletter, you have the other authors. People are excited it only runs for one week. I really love that because sometimes things run for a month and I feel like I need to push it. But it’s the same thing. If everyone on my list already looked and they already picked whatever, then I’ll push it twice. But five times, six times, you can’t push the same thing. Am I talking you up enough? Because I love this. Have I convinced everyone here? For readers, you have a couple of other things. You can become a beta reader. How does that work? How do people sign up for that?
Amy
I just started to notice that some of the readers were writing me. They wanted to talk to authors, interact with authors. They loved looking for typos and things like that. So I know that I run my personal books through like 900 editors and they’re still readers to me, and say, oh, you forgot a period at the end of the sentence or this comma was missing. So I just thought that would be kind of fun to let readers do things like that.
Kat
Yes, because they will find them.
Amy
Or become fans of the author. But if it’s like a three pronged thing it’s like, I hook up the author with the readers, the readers provide a service, basically, and then the readers usually end up talking to the author, becoming friends with the author, becoming fans of the author, and it can get a little evangelical for them. So it’s nice to have these people that you’ve made connections with.
Kat
Yeah, I think that’s great. I mean, as an author, you appreciate it or somebody they almost feel like they’re working with you rather than on Goodreads. I feel like people have their pencil with a vengeance just ready to go out and slame them.
Amy
Goodreads is terrifying.
Kat
It has become the most terrifying place in the whole world. I, like, really started because somebody was pushing it, like, 18 months ago. So I was like, oh, I should get back on a Goodreads. It’s like, I regret it, I regret every every minute of it. Well, it’s just the atmosphere isn’t the same. It’s not a collaboration. It’s more of like, how can I get this author? Like, how can I stab them in the back? Whereas this is more of a collaboration, like you said, where they they want to have a little more contact with the author, and so they’re, like, excited to help them out because, as you said, once we’ve read this book 90,000 times, we can’t see that typo anymore. It’s a weird trick of the mind, even if you’re really fanatical about typos and grammar. I have an author that was like, he’s a line editor. He’s like, It’s impossible, but it’s true. My book has a typo. Yes, because it’s yours. You know what it’s supposed to say. How does the Read and Review work for Write for Readers? So if an author uploads, they give permission to give one away to be reviewed by the readers?
Amy
Yes. I have a little dashboard for the readers that sign up for a Read and Review. And so the author signs up, says, I want reviews for this book. I send that book out to the readers saying, does anybody want to read and review this? And then the ones that do sign up, and then once they sign up, they can download the book, which is provided by the author, and they review it, and they mark it reviewed when they’re done, so you can see who reviewed it.
Kat
Oh, that’s really interesting, because reviews are, like, one of the hardest things for us.
Amy
And it takes like, I need to get between 20 and 40 reviewers before I can get, like, eight reviews per author, for sure. Because people are people. They get busy, or if they change their mind or they decide they don’t like the book, or they just never remember they even signed up for it. It was just a spur of the moment thing. So, again, I try to make it one of those no pressure things. If you’re the author and you’ve only gotten four reviews and you’re supposed to get eight, I’ll just send out the notice again and get new readers to come.
Kat
Okay, that’s really nice though, because you’re sending it out to the AuthorsXP list readers, because that sort of gets, again, outside of the author’s bubble newsletter circle and find new people and maybe there and people looking to read specifically to review, right?
Amy
Right. I’ve got a personal newsletter of 60,000 readers, but I don’t want to offer it to all of them to review because they’re my audience, they’re my people that will hopefully maybe get makeup and bucks to read my books. The last thing I want to do is give it to all of them for free. That would defeat the purpose of having a newsletter.
Kat
Yes. That’s a huge list. 60,000 is huge. But you’re still always looking for new readers, right?
Amy
Oh yeah, because that 60,000 was originally probably 200,000. But people come, people go, so you have to constantly feed the beast to keep the readers that are really good.
Kat
Yes. I think of myself as a reader, I will devour maybe two or three of the same author and then I’ll move on like I’m a typical reader. I always think of myself when I’m like, yeah, that person got tired of me and they left. So what then is the difference for AuthorsXP of reading and reviewing and being a beta reader?
Amy
The beta readers are a pretty specific group. They’re people that probably signed up for Read and Review, and then on the site readers, there’s a page where they can sign up to be a beta reader. But the people that do that, that’s what they like to do. So since I was having readers say, I want a beta reader for authors, what can I do? I set up that page and then people signed up for it. And then whenever somebody says, I want somebody to read my book and let me know if I’m on track, if this is going to click with audiences, then I’ll send it out to that pretty small group of beta readers and the people that are interested in it, because people have their genre. I got beta readers that only read science fiction and some that read everything. So I’ll send it out and the ones that are interested will sign up and then the author sends them the book and gets stuff back. And I’ve gotten great reviews for that, actually. I get a lot of authors saying, wow, these people sent me like four pages about what they like and what they did, and then they get didn’t.
Kat
Really? That’s interesting because finding beta readers, I feel like the romance writers, they can find their beta readers, but sometimes it’s difficult to find beta readers. I almost gave up on it, like I’m chasing after people, did you read the book? Did you fill out the form? Did you give it? Or the feedback is like, yeah, it was good.
Amy
I guess the people that sign up for it, I’m sure a lot of them do, just say, I liked it, but some people aren’t really getting into it.
Kat
Okay. And then you can, as a reader and an author, create an arc team through AuthorsXP as well. Street team, I guess I don’t know how many there are so many different names for these things. Yeah.
Amy
I think I should call them arc team. Maybe that would be clear. I’ve got some mailing out to all the readers. And I just say here is this author who is looking for people to be on their arc team, if it’s a genre they like, they just sign up.
Kat
This is interesting because what AuthorsXP then has is a list of curated readers who really understand what they’re doing. Instead of going out and being like, do you want to be part of my street team? And having to have meetings with people and explain to them what they’re doing and then follow up with them. Because with a street team, for anyone who doesn’t know, it’s when you’re coming out with a new book and you’re trying to get the word out right, so you’re using readers who are kind of fans of your books. And a lot of times we’re just asking anyone, let’s be honest, sometimes authors are just asking anyone to then read the book before it comes out to be ready with their review. Like the day it comes out to buy a copy, to tell other people sort of get this, like I don’t know what to call it, like this ripple effect, right? It just ends up being a lot of running after people because they either don’t understand it or they forget, or they just want to support you. They’re not really into it. But with AuthorsXP, then you have curated, they know what they’re doing, they know what they’re signing up for. I’m sure there are people who don’t follow through, but there isn’t as much I don’t know, maybe not as much running after them.
Amy
Well, there’s multiple paths to it too, because having my reader group for myself is the best thing in the world. Because I know as soon as I release the book, I’m going to have 30 reviews in a couple of days, and then I don’t have to worry about if the natural stuff happens. But if you’re an author who wants a street team, you could sign up for the street team option on AuthorsXP. Or even if you just do the reading review, you can keep those people. I mean, I’d be insane to think, don’t you ever contact them again about a future book. There’s no way I can stop you from doing that. So either way, you can be constantly adding people to your own personal group of readers, which I highly recommend, because, like I said, I don’t even think about reviews anymore. It just happens for me.
Kat
Right. So how many books do you have out?
Amy
30 something. 31. 31?
Kat
Holy cow. Okay, you’ve written 30 books and put this site together in all these things in the last, how many years is that?
Amy
Five, six years.
Kat
You’re insane. Do you sleep? Answer all emails. You’re making us look bad, amy.
Amy
Well, it helps when you had a web development firm and then everything changed. People all doing their own websites and whatnot. So as the income goes down, you have to find other ways to email.
Kat
This is true, but you being a web developer.
Amy
That was a big piece of the puzzle there, too. If I had to pay someone to build AuthorsXP, it wouldn’t have been possible.
Kat
Right. So you have that know how, because I might get the idea. I mean, obviously you already have it, but I wouldn’t have known how to build it. I’d be like, yeah, somebody else will have to do that. So you write cozy mystery and what else do you write?
Amy
I have an urban fantasy series, which is done now. And then I have what turned out to be a cozy mystery. I didn’t write it as a cozy mystery originally, but that’s the group that adopted it. So that’s how I went going forward. And then I have what I kind of call a cozy thriller, in that it’s got more violence than a cozy mystery would have or more action. It’s like a thriller thing, but I leave out the cursing and I don’t get too gory and nothing really horrific happens. So it’s still for gentle readers. So that totally offends the fans that I already had for my cozy series. But if they wanted maybe a little more bite, they could kind of move up to this.
Kat
I mean, that’s a good idea though, right? It might be a slightly different genre, but it’s not completely different.
Amy
I would have been fine having it be a little rougher than it is, but I knew from having an urban fantasy readership and the cozy readership, that they didn’t really overlap. The cozy people thought the urban fantasy stuff was weird. I couldn’t make the most out of my readership. So when I decided I wanted to write a thriller, I decided I’m just not going to do anything too gross.
Kat
Right. I mean, in the end, we still have to make money because it takes time. Somehow, it must take you five days to write a book if you’ve written 30.
Amy
Two and a half months.
Kat
Two and a half months. Well, good for you. My goodness. So do you write under Amy Vansant?
Amy
Yeah.
Kat
All of the genres?
Amy
I couldn’t even bear to have multiple personalities, it’s hard enough. I just combined everything. I used to have different street teams, one for the urban fantasy thing and one for the mysteries and whatnot. And even that was just too much work. So I just combined everything. And if you like my books and you don’t want to read one and you want to read the other, that’s great. Just ignore me when I’m talking about the other one.
Kat
I feel you. You know what, it’s interesting because like 30 years ago, people were allowed to write whatever they wanted and sometimes you got a little confused with like, Nora Roberts and you’re like, wait, did she move from romance to mystery? How did this happen? But you still read it like other people, sure. I mean, Steven King has always written horror, although his short stories are not horror, he has sweet ones. Anyway, all that I’m on my soapbox again because I write several genres. I agree with you, I’ll leave it at that.
Amy
You get bored of writing the same thing all the time. And I only ended the urban fantasy because it just doesn’t do as well as the mysteries and I don’t have the energy to pour into this whole other audience.
Kat
But that’s why, because you have all these books and you’ve curated your readers list for the last eight years, I guess, I can’t count when it’s 2023, the last few years. And you’ve done these different things through AuthorsXP, I assume you use the tools that AuthorsXP has between the giveaways and things you don’t have to think of reviews anymore. So that’s kind of how AuthorsXP is helping newer writers get to that point where if they can send out to their newsletter. 60,000 people on a newsletter is a lot.
Amy
At 60,000, that is pretty highly curated because I’m pretty maniacal about knocking people off with like dead emails and things like that. So I’m not saying if you get a list from one of our giveaways, you’ll never get a couple of people that are dead emails because people do put bad emails into forms all the time, not thinking that that meant they couldn’t possibly win because we can’t contact them, but it regularly cleans those off and whatnot. So there’s lots of people that say they’ve got 200,00 or 300,000 people on their list and there’s really only 60 viable people. So I’d rather have a really good smaller list than a huge, useless list.
Kat
Yes, because you’re going to pay for that big list anyway. People are insane if they think that. Yeah, that’s the thing for anyone who’s a newer writer, I have four books out, so I still consider myself, compared to you, a newer writer, even though we’ve been doing it at the same time. But if you don’t have as many books or you haven’t worked on your author newsletter, some of us come in late to the game because life. If you use these tools, of course some people are going to drop off. Maybe they just wanted to see if they would win or they didn’t use the right email or typos. Like, I signed up for a course, I bought a course and I never got it. And I had to frantically tell them I gave money and I put a typo in my email. But that doesn’t mean, like I said in the beginning, I think I’ve gotten every time I use AuthorsXP, I get maybe 250 to 350 emails. I always assume 20% are going to bounce or drop off or unsubscribe. It’s not a big deal. It’s still building exponentially my list much faster than I could do organically.
Amy
Yeah. And I try and keep them, like I said, as clean as possible. So, you know, you’re not getting a bunch of useful.
Kat
Right. So if somebody’s starting out or they’re just finding you, where would you suggest that they start with AuthorsXP?
Amy
I guess it depends if your primary focus is immediate sales or building yourself as an author over time. The mailing list builders, like you said, are awesome for the long haul so that you can keep building your newsletter. I get lots of authors, too, that say, I’m absolutely not going to do my own newsletters, too much work, whatever. They usually just do the sales. So you can try the daily deal for $10. You can’t really go wrong and you can do the series Spotlights and do your whole series. So those are probably my top three.
Kat
And have you seen like a price range that works the best for the daily deals and the sales promotions?
Amy
I just haven’t decided. In my notes, I would try and leave it at $10 for as long as I can. And then you have the option to upgrade. I think it’s $20. And then I put you at the top of the newsletter so you can go to me.
Kat
For how they price their book when they put it.
Amy
Yeah, it definitely hopes to be $2.99 or less. And actually, Book Club did a whole one of their articles. They showed the drop off, basically. So, you know, how many people will get a free book? How many will get a 99 cents. People that sign up for sites like mine, that’s their primary goal is to get a deal. So, no, you’re not going to sell a whole lot of $6.99. Okay.
Kat
Yeah. So using using that time, what I you know, if you, if you normally have it at $5.99 or $6.99 and you knock it off, then psychologically people think they’re getting a deal and you’re going to make money and you’re going to find new readers.
Amy
Yeah. I mean, the key is to get new readers and have that series. I know everybody has their own thing that they like to write. Some people really only write one-offs and whatnot, but like, if you’re going to be in it for the long haul, you’re pretty much going to have to do a series because that’s what really keeps people reading them.
Kat
Yes. This is what I’m working on now. Because I was covered for years and then I was like, I guess I have to write some sequels. So good advice. So where can people find your books and then where can people sign up and look at AuthorsXP?
Amy
You can stop by my website AmyVansant.com and sign up for my newsletter and I’ll let you know about sales from me and other people. And then AuthorsXP is AuthorsXP.com.
Kat
They can sign up as an author and then they can also sign up as a reader, right?
Amy
It’s right in the center and then in the upper right hand corner is a login for authors or setting up new accounts, which is free.
Kat
Well, I can’t recommend it enough. As I’ve said, I’ve really benefited from it. So thank you for coming on and sharing with people how AuthorsXP is helping indie authors. I really appreciate you.
Amy
Thank you for having me.