Beware of the Bots in Your Life

It has come to my attention that there are a lot of bots—as in fake email addresses—on my subscribers list. And I’m pretty sure I know how they got there.

Like everyone else, I wanted my subscribers list to grow quickly. In general a subscribers list is the most important list in an author’s life. It’s a direct line to the people who care about your work. The ones who want to hear from you, want to know what you’re working on, want to read your blog or your writing news.

That’s why subscribers lists grow so slowly. These are relationships that require nurturing.

First the subscriber has to love your book, then they have to enjoy your email content. Not everyone loves our work enough to want to be a subscriber. The people who do are the special ones. The ones we connect with!

So, why did I think that joining a book giveaway with several other science fiction books would result in quality subscribers? Only one person would win the books from the giveaway. All of the other people would not even know whose subscribers lists they were joining.

Yes, they’re sci-fi readers, but why would they want to hear from a bunch of authors they probably have never heard of?

The new subscribers are readers who have never read your book, so they’re not actual readers.

The giveaway provides one chance to connect with one reader: the winner. No one else. And that winner might be winning twenty or more sci-fi books, so there’s a good chance yours is headed for the TBR list.

The truth is that this “promo” didn’t land me any quality subscribers that I know of. I received a list of 250 new people who leaped onto my list in a lump. But they don’t open my emails. And now that Mailchimp (my marketing platform) has a new feature, I can see that many of them are fake addresses. Bots!

So, this is just to say, buyer beware. It may seem like a good idea to spend a little money and join a big giveaway that will result in a few hundred new “subscribers.” But more likely than not what you’ll end up with is an audience that never opens your emails, people who unsubscribe, and a bunch of fake humans.

Save your money. Hone your patience. Wait for those real subscribers to come around. The alternative doesn’t work!

There’s only one real way to grow your list. Appeal to the people who want to hear from you.