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Updates regarding BookFunnel Universal Links (formerly Sales Pages): th-cam.com/video/xyKfKoIPZ4c/w-d-xo.htmlsi=4d0QY1GlQcO7g645

Thanks so much for your support. Bookfunnel is the Nobu Taco of the publishing industry. We need to chat and let you know about our schemes for next year. We have some cool things lined up, and it sounds like they complement what you’ve been planning in your secret lair.

Personally, I can't stand looking at the layouts on my phone. However, if you change the phone's orientation, so you are viewing it sideways, it is a thousand percent better. When using color, beware there are people who are colorblind, and can't see certain color combinations. I like using dark themes, but have at least one sub who brought to my attention that she cannot see blue on a black background. That was an easy fix for me.

I must be doing something terribly wrong. I use MailerLite, and because I use autoresend, the open rates are a little under reported. They report 60.5 percent opens, but when I do the math, it is actually 68 percent. The click rate is pretty accurate at 9.6 percent. As far as unsubscribe rates, 0.30 percent. I really don't care if it is high. The way I see it, those self deleting themselves from my list, saves me the effort of having to do it for them. I do weekly culling of my subscriber list removing zero opens and zero clicks after the welcome message and three newsletters. I also remove subs that don't maintain a ten percent open rate after ten newsletters, in increments of ten, and those who are inactive for ten weeks are deleted too. I know, I am a pain in the ass, but it seems to work for me. As for zero clicks, as long as they are opening my newsletters, they are potential customers. Some make purchases directly from the sales platform rather than following links in the newsletters. And I get sales from people who are not on my subscriber list. I send weekly newsletters. I have enough content to do so. I never do an advertisement slam. I want them to get value for their time. With each newsletter, I write an original blog. It may be about my garden and include pictures, computer repair, or updates, a ride in the country on my ebike, research I am doing, work in progress, future plans, anything special that has happened, and more. Most of my blogs are more like a letter to my subscribers as if they are friends or family. That may explain my excessively high open rates, and more opens equates to more clicks. I also use a lot of color on a dark background to make my newsletters stand out as different form the other author newsletters. It works.

Open rates. Aren’t they rather overstated than understated, as anyone using an Apple mail client automatically looks for the tracking pixels in emails, and reports all emails as opened? That was a ‘privacy’ thing they put in a year or two ago. Google is supposedly going to follow suit at some point.

One thought. I'm exploring BF -- I've had it for a few years, and I'm seeing what else I can use it for. I didn't know what print codes were, and you didn't talk about it until well into the seminar. Might want to start with that kind of info in these seminars. But good content, as always.

Can you review a blurb for a book not yet published? Preparing publications of my next novel so am dealing with much blurb anxiety :)

Thanks 🎉

This was ridiculously helpful!

Super helpful, thank you! Love the final tip :D

Mal Cooper is really good. Took one of her Facebook courses and it really helped me understand the basics

❤🎉

This is a man, why is he dressed as a woman?

Excellent info. Thanks so much!

I really love that you all do this! Very helpful and informative!!

I'm a newbie author, only started writing 3 years ago, and only seriously 1-1/2 years ago, but I have never heard of "reader magnets" until this video. And I am on book Twitter on a daily basis. Would you mind defining reader magnets the next time you talk about them? I was at a total loss for the first portion of this video. I got the gist from the context, but it would be nice if you set the stage for us newbies. Five reader magnets: A free sample A prequel (Typical reader magnet) A bonus chapter or bonus chapters at the end of each book A feedback magnet that helps you figure out who should be on your review team A superfan magnet

Great tips! Thanks!

I would love it if you expanded on these different magnets in different videos.

Tryng to find the webinar you mention about how to create a landing page for your promos, b/c you have to add a book to create a landing page so I don't understand how you can do it, and it's not in the help pages. But I can't find the one you mentioned. It would be useful to link to things you mention in the description underneath. Thanks

I love all the advice before you even got to talking Facebook ads. Great stuff! BTW: I've read that peak number of humans could be as low as 12 billion (> 4B more than now)

Can you explain further about this: Amazon "won't let you give readers a book in exchange for a review." What does that mean for the entire ARC system?

Great! I missed the live, so thanks for uploading here!

Topic idea ... I just went to your webinar today about reader magnets. A great follow-up would be the automation/onboarding emails sent out to new subscribers. Basically, how to continue the funnels that were started by that webinar / TH-cam video.

The only thing I did not notice mentioned on the pen name debate was the marketing costs increasing exponentially with every new pen name you create. 2 pen names means double, 3 means 3x, etc.

So to be clear, if I use this link in the back of my book, it won't violate the clauses on many retailers about not using competitor links?

And now I see that being able to add in images means you have to upgrade your plan. Disappointing.

How do you create that wide format, is that in themes?

I had so much fun being on! Thanks for having me!!

@BookFunnel You should discuss dictation. I've had great results writing 4000+ words per hour by recording voice notes on my phone and transcribing them on my PC with OpenAI Whisper (a free, open-source tool). I never liked Dragon or other speech to text tools, but Whisper has been 99+% accurate for me. And I already can type 100 words per minute, so I never thought dictation would work for me!

Super useful, thank you! 🙂

A cool topic, one that many writers do not think about before getting into the business. Many struggle because they are under the false assumption that all they have to do is write; the books will sell off the shelf by themselves, and they won' t have any financial worries. And, of course, they are the best writer since Dickens and Hemingway. Yeh, right. I'd be a gazillionaire if that were true. It is better to get into the business, see how it works with your lifestyle, and determine what you are willing to commit to doing, your financial situation, and then plan from there. Spider Robinson worked as a security guard while writing to make ends meet.

Felt oddly spoken to.

Some great ideas. I'd been thinking about surveying my mailing list subscribers.

Loved this insght!

Hi Jack! Great webinar. I would love to take you up on the offer for a critique on my blurb for my horror-fantasy novel, Under a God-Made Mountain: In the halls of a living nightmare, survival means confronting the darkness you cannot escape. Melk found his life in the jaws of a lion. As an orphan who knew only violence, he found purpose as a tamer of the great war cats used in his nation's crusade. But when an act of defiance seals his fate, he is banished to Mount Methugarna, a labyrinth said to be home to unspeakable horrors. Beneath, five other criminals await the same doom. Together, the depraved company must navigate the mountain’s cursed depths. But survival is not the only test-something far worse than death stalks the corridors. As Melk battles the monsters outside and within, he realizes that his greatest enemy may be the darkness that has always lurked inside his soul. Under a God-Made Mountain is a fast-paced, horror fantasy journey through the darkness that lurks within us and beneath our feet that would appeal to fans of the horror in Pan’s Labyrinth and the coming-of-age story of The Book of Lost Things.

Jack, I'd love a critique of The House on Constantinople. Thanks so much for this webinar.

Your audio is really low in the beginning

Hi Jack. I enjoyed the call yesterday and appreciated how much time you put into it. I didn't ask about my book blurb but would like to take advantage of doing that here now. So, here's the blurb: Katie didn’t expect the most haunted castle in Europe to hold the answers to an incredible family secret. During a summer studying abroad in Transylvania, she finds herself at the gates of Bran Castle, the one time prison of medieval ruler, Vlad “The Impaler.” More recently, in life, Bran Castle was home to the King and Queen of Romania. In death, the castle was home to just the queen’s heart. Now, along with 15-year-old Katie’s friends Cam, John, and new roommate Ruth, she uncovers a century-old mystery and a terrifying adventure. Will haunting spirits from the past lead her to safety and treasure, or push her into the hands of a deadly ex-secret policeman hunting for the same prize? Thanks again for your time

Thank you so much for doing this! When his girlfriend dumps him right before his best friend’s wedding, Zach panics and asks the new girl at work to be his plus one. No one at the weddings ever met his ex, so this should save on the drama. Right? Wrong. Despite everything, Zach and Sky have a great time, and she fits right in with his friends. After years trying to make everyone but himself happy, Zach has finally found someone who likes him for the right reasons. But Sky’s got secrets, like the fact that she’s living in her car, and she’s afraid spending more time with Zach might unravel them. But when her past catches up to her, she’s in way over her head. It might take more than a lifeguard to come to the rescue.

My Romance Blurb: “Either we’ll fall deeply in love, or I’ll kill her.” With independence and fortune, Francesca Grey has the freedom to seek excitement. So when she finds a secret message about French spies, her keen intuition leads her to a new and dangerous purpose. But when Francesca teams up with an undercover agent, her heart will pound for different reasons. Discover if Francesca can bravely escape a cliff fall, capture upon an enemy ship, or the enchanting gentle ways of the king’s agent. Amid love and dangers, Francesca must choose to leap into the deep. Sebastian Buckingham, on the hunt for a French sympathizer, has no time for romance. Yet, since his newfound ally enjoys putting her life on the line, more than just his false identity is at risk. Sebastian’s untouched heart never knew fear until his enemies chose Francesca as their target. He must make her understand that his world of espionage is too dangerous for a lady … before it’s too late! Please critique here if you would please.

Thanks so much for this - and the critique on my blurb! I've already had a go at rewriting it ... Two murders, a party of disguised suspects, and a seaside village full of cake. Why send invitations to a party in a building which doesn't yet exist? Why plan and pay for it anonymously and insist guests come in disguise? Police Officer Crystal Clere is only mildly curious, as she has a murder to solve. And cakes to bake, romances to fix, friends and an elderly relative in need of help. When the new hall is built, and Crystal belatedly receives a party invitation, there's an opportunity to solve some of her problems. Wearing a fake moustache she's having fun and making progress, until one of the guests is murdered. Community spirit is strong in Little Mallow and everyone seems to be involved. Half are suspects - all with alibis. The many witnesses don't know what they saw. Crystal is asking, and being asked, countless questions. Who planned and paid for the party? Are they the killer? Is there a link with the first murder? Nobody is giving her answers, but she's assisted by an extremely unofficial sidekick and her friends are happy to supply far-fetched theories. Can Crystal Clere see through all the distraction to bring love and justice to Little Mallow?

Thanks, Jack! Appreciate the thoughts! I'll give this a shot.

I also think a handy new feature would be automatic recommendation on group promos that we would be to good join. Sometimes there's an overwhelming amount of promos out there, and it be nice if we could be recommended a good fit for a certain promo based on click requirements, sub-genres, previous history, etc...

Hi Jack! Me again (I hope you don't mind!) A follow up question on the first FB ads video... I've been running a generic ad (as demonstrated in the webinar) to a landing page for my free reader magnet for close to two weeks now. I'm getting clicks, but not downloads/people not joining my mailing list. Do you think this a problem with the ad or my offering? My reader magnet is currently a 16 story fantasy anthology collection of my work.

Thank you! This was awesome!

Lots to think about here. Thanks.

Thanks Jack!

This is one of the best tutorials I've taken ref FB. Thank you!

FB ad newbie here. Thank you for this. Great info.

Good information. I am going to have to listen to it again before placing my first ads. With summer at its end, what month do you suggest running the first adds?