The Publishing Performance Show

Evan Gow of StoryOrigin - The Power of Author Newsletters: Inside StoryOrigin

• Teddy Smith • Episode 55

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Evan Gow is the founder of StoryOrigin, a platform designed to help authors grow their readership through newsletter marketing, review management, and cross-promotions. With a background in tech entrepreneurship and creative writing, he created StoryOrigin to streamline the essential tools authors need for success.


In this episode:

  • Benefits of author newsletters
  • Creating effective reader magnets
  • Newsletter content strategies
  • Cross-promotion techniques
  • Building subscriber lists
  • Newsletter monetization options
  • Platform features and integrations


Resources mentioned:

  • StoryOrigin: https://storyoriginapp.com/
    • MailerLite recommendation
    • Newsletter swap directory
    • Group promotions
    • Universal book links
    • Review copy landing pages


Book recommendations:


Connect with Evan:


Connect with Teddy Smith:

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[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Hi everyone and welcome to The Publishing Performance Show. Today I'm joined by Evan Gow, who's the founder of Story Origin. Now Story Origin is a company that helps you do all of the types of marketing that are outside of the more traditional types of marketing. So we're looking at things like how you can grow your reader list by doing things like email swaps, by creating an amazing newsletter, by getting more reviews for your book, by reviewing the competition or building an author website.

[00:00:30] Teddy Smith: StoryOrigin is an amazing company and it does so many things and it does all of the things that you need to be doing in the background of your business. So definitely check out story origin after the show, but in this episode, we're going to be going through how you can do those reader swaps, how you can build your newsletter list and how you can get more fans by doing different types of marketing outside of things like advertising and direct sales.

[00:00:51] Teddy Smith: So it's a super interesting episode. And let me know what you think at the end. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Publishing Performance Show. I'm here with Evan Gow, who's the founder and indie developer of StoryOrigin. So thank you very much for joining me, Evan. 

[00:01:04] Evan Gow: Thanks for having me on. So 

[00:01:07] Teddy Smith: why don't you tell us a bit about your backgrounds and what led you to create StoryOrigin 

[00:01:13] Evan Gow: in the first place?

[00:01:13] Evan Gow: Yeah, so I used to write short stories back in high school and got interested in tech and entrepreneurship in college. And worked for a few years and then I wanted to get back into writing and then build tools for writers at the same time. So I went and I talked to a bunch of authors and I heard, you know, I use this service for building my mailing list, another service for finding reviewers, another service for, uh, creating universal book links, some combination of Facebook groups and Google forms to arrange newsletter swaps, you know, a different service for building my website, different service, you know, some combination of email and, you know, And Google Docs for like, uh, beta copies and all this stuff.

[00:01:51] Evan Gow: And I was like, okay, I, I see the problem here. Like you've got eight different services, five different spreadsheets. You're doing all this context switching between all these things and having you remember like, okay, I want to do this today. So I need to go log into that. And then I'm going to later. Okay.

[00:02:07] Evan Gow: I'm going to build one thing that does it all. So StoryOrigin has a, ton of tools for authors to do all those things we were talking about. So whether it's, you know, building your mailing list, finding reviewers, building your website, uh, working with beta readers, building, you know, all of these different things that you need, all that infrastructure you need as an author, uh, Story Origin is there with you every step of the way.

[00:02:32] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Amazing. I mean, I've had so many good things about Story Origin and how it can help. Um, so yeah, it's pretty exciting to have you on the thing I want to talk to you mostly about today was actually was newsletters because I speak to a lot of people, a lot of authors, especially fiction authors, and they basically just use their newsletter as a bit of a way of just chatting to their audience.

[00:02:53] Teddy Smith: And it is, you know, there's nothing wrong with doing that, but sometimes I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity. So I thought we could maybe talk about having a more important newsletter during today's show. So what do you think the main benefits of having a newsletter are for authors? 

[00:03:09] Evan Gow: Yeah, I mean, a newsletter is fantastic because it is the only real way that you can have a direct point of contact with your audience.

[00:03:21] Evan Gow: If you look across the sort of landscape of ways that authors can, you know, draw in. Readers and all that stuff. You look at advertising platforms or you look at social media, all that stuff. It's not really, you're not building a personal relationship with your audience in the same way that a newsletter allows you to do.

[00:03:44] Evan Gow: So when you send out that email, uh, when you send out your newsletter. Your audience is going to be a lot more likely to be open to like responding and actually having a personal connection with you as an author and those people that are on your mailing list are a lot more likely to become your champions so they might be.

[00:04:08] Evan Gow: Be willing to join your review team, you know, get an early copy of your next release and be ready to leave that review on day one, or they might become beta readers for you, or they might be willing to join your review or your street team where they're just willing to, uh, release, you know, post about your, or.

[00:04:28] Evan Gow: Books, new release and all that stuff and so really help you out as an author and then the other thing is with that newsletter, you are in control of your own mailing list. Right? So no one else. No one really controls email. It's this sort of decentralized system. And so if for whatever reason. Your email service provider, if they, you know, go out of business, you just take your email list that you've got and you can go over to a different email service provider, right?

[00:04:58] Evan Gow: It's not like these other platforms, uh, as well where like Facebook or Twitter or whatever can just ban your account and then you are up the creek without a paddle. You You own that sort of direct connection with your audience. And so that is extremely valuable to authors. 

[00:05:17] Teddy Smith: Yeah. I think a newsletter is one of the most important marketing things that any author can do.

[00:05:22] Teddy Smith: And from speaking to people on this podcast so much. It just seems to be like, create your newsletter as soon as possible. You know, there's no, the best time to start is right now. You know, you've, you've, you've missed those opportunities. Um, and I think along with advertising, which can get you quite quick and direct results, newsletter is, is slightly more of a long game, but it's the way you can, as you say, build that relationship with customers and really get connection with them.

[00:05:47] Teddy Smith: I think. 

[00:05:49] Evan Gow: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, advertising platforms, social media, all that stuff can play a role, certainly. Um, and so they can be valuable in their own right. But that mailing list is really the only way that you have to have that direct connection with your readers. 

[00:06:06] Teddy Smith: Hmm. Yeah, definitely. Now, one of the main things that is difficult for authors to get is getting those people to be on their main list in the first place.

[00:06:14] Teddy Smith: So. What strategies do you really recommend for people to get those initial users? And also then to get the growth and get the further users later on? 

[00:06:24] Evan Gow: Right. Yeah, exactly. The, the first question you kind of have to ask yourself is like, okay, so I started, you know, I, I, I created a MailChimper account or I created a MailerLite account or whatever email service provider you want to use.

[00:06:37] Evan Gow: I've, I've created a list on it. Why, why would people want to? Join my mailing list, right? Yes, it's the first question you have to answer. And so there, what I recommend is you are an author and you are looking for readers to join your mailing list. Give them something that they want, give them something to read, uh, for free when they sign up to your mailing list.

[00:06:59] Evan Gow: And so for. fiction authors, I generally recommend using a, you know, 10 to 20, 000 word prequel short story to your book or your series. Uh, a prequel short story is just a great way to hook people into reading up the follow up book or series. And so it just blends really seamlessly with, uh, doing that, you know, upselling them into buying into the next book in the series.

[00:07:29] Evan Gow: Uh, but it does not have to be a prequel short story. So usually I, I like to say. These are recommendations, not roadblocks, right? Because like you said, starting an email list early is so important and spending, you know, six months because that's how long it's going to take you to write a prequel short story and get it edited and then find a book cover and do all that stuff.

[00:07:54] Evan Gow: If that's going to take you that much time, it would be much better to find whatever you can take today and get started building your mailing list with that. So if you've already you know, written and published book one in your series. Take the first three chapters out of it. Use that sample as your reader magnet.

[00:08:10] Evan Gow: And so give that away for free when people sign up to your mailing list. or if you've got a, you know, a bunch of short stories that you've just had laying around doing nothing for a long time and you've never published them, compile that into an anthology and give that anthology of short stories away to readers to sign up to your mailing list.

[00:08:30] Evan Gow: Uh, And if you're a nonfiction author, you can do something like if you, uh, if you do something with like diet and exercise, you might have like a, a meal plan, or you might have worksheets for tracking things, something related to your book that may be like a sort of a companion to helping you out. Uh, your readers fulfill whatever goal or, or, you know, put whatever knowledge is in your nonfiction book to work.

[00:08:59] Evan Gow: Um, and so, yeah, those are the different sorts of ideas that you might use as a fiction or nonfiction author to entice readers to sign up to your mailing list. 

[00:09:08] Teddy Smith: Yeah, I mean, nonfiction is a bit easier because obviously you're, you're already teaching something that is, you're usually teaching something or you're giving away information.

[00:09:17] Teddy Smith: So the leader magnet can be further information or it could be something to use like videos or a spreadsheet or a checklist to use with your nonfiction book. But I think fiction authors could maybe learn a bit from that because, for example, with some of my books, they're about meditation and yoga and things like that.

[00:09:34] Teddy Smith: I give away some videos. like explaining how to do some of the exercises, for example. But maybe if your book had some similar concepts, you could then give some similar videos away. It could be interviews with the author. It could be interviews about the book. And I think it could be a nice way to make your book stand out and get people onto your list as well.

[00:09:52] Evan Gow: I would always recommend for fiction authors, if you're giving something away, that it be something that is read. So I would. Actually make sure that, because one thing that you can have, that will sometimes happen is you are targeting, you're targeting readers is ultimately what you want at the end of the day.

[00:10:11] Evan Gow: And so, uh, I had a, a fiction author who he was a programmer and he created a little like mini game that was sort of related to his book as well. And you'd get access to this little mini game, but at the same time, that, That is a sort of a different target audience than like readers of epic fantasy, right?

[00:10:34] Evan Gow: And so, I always recommend make sure that whatever you're giving away matches the target audience that you are, you have for your books as well. And the same thing applies even if you're Even if what you're giving away is, is another book or whatever, right? So if you write a, if you write steamy romance, make sure that if you are writing like a prequel short story to your steamy romance, that prequel short story is Also, a steamy romance, right?

[00:11:03] Evan Gow: If you write a cozy romance novel, uh, or a cozy romance reader magnet, something or, or short story, and that's what you're giving away to entice people to sign up to your mailing list. And then they join your mailing list and they see a bunch of steamy stuff, uh, or they buy into your series and they like.

[00:11:21] Evan Gow: are buying the follow up, you know, to your prequel, and it's a steamy book, you're, you're setting, you're setting up an expectation for your readers that you're going to miss if the prequel doesn't match what, you know, book one is right. And so that can lead to potentially like bad reviews, because people are thinking they're going to get something that they're not getting, like they're, they're expecting something different.

[00:11:44] Evan Gow: And so, yeah, I would always recommend that Try to just make sure that whatever you're using as your reader magnet or your lead magnet, whatever, whichever term you want to use, uh, to draw people and entice people into joining your mailing list. That's going to match sort of your target audience 

[00:12:01] Teddy Smith: with your 

[00:12:01] Evan Gow: books.

[00:12:02] Teddy Smith: That's a really good point. I haven't thought about that to be honest. You know, it's really important to make sure you're keeping on the same category and you're otherwise you'd set reader expectations that they Would not get and that's really important because those two examples you gave about cozy romance and steamy romance.

[00:12:17] Teddy Smith: Those are quite different audiences Yes Yes, 

[00:12:21] Evan Gow: and in off and this is not like this is not something that I'm pulling out of thin air You know like this is these are these are examples of things that I have seen authors do and so I'm always just trying to make sure like We don't we want to make sure that we're not we can we can learn from other people's mistakes as well 

[00:12:40] Teddy Smith: Yeah, I can just imagine grandparents hats falling off when they, uh, when they, if they got the stevie romance one rather than the cozy one.

[00:12:47] Evan Gow: Yeah, exactly. Right. 

[00:12:49] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Now, once you, this, this will be, this will be definitely be different for fiction and nonfiction, but once you've got the subscribers. Is there particular things you think the authors should focus on writing about? Let's start with fiction first. It's going to be different for different people.

[00:13:04] Teddy Smith: For example, I spoke to Kevin J. Anderson. He's obviously a very prolific writer. In his newsletter, he just writes recipes and, you know, stuff he's been interested in, stuff he's doing. Now, I don't think that would necessarily work for people who don't have that reputation because You know, maybe if you're not famous, people aren't quite as interested in what heights you've been on, but what sort of content would work, do you think, best for fiction?

[00:13:27] Teddy Smith: Let's start with fiction writers. 

[00:13:30] Evan Gow: Well, so I would actually recommend basically the same thing for both fiction and nonfiction authors, and I break it down into your newsletter into sort of two pieces, which applies to anybody writing a newsletter. So there is the, there's one part of your newsletter where you are building rapport.

[00:13:49] Evan Gow: And the other part of your newsletter is providing value. So the part where you're building rapport, this is just where you're trying to establish a relationship with your audience. Um, it might just be like talking about You taking your dog for a walk or taking your kid to the playground or just something that, you know, funny that happened to you recently, um, you know, for example, I, one time was, uh, you know, shopping for, groceries online and I saw a product image that was like a single bottle of soy sauce, right?

[00:14:26] Evan Gow: And I, I, I was like, okay, I want two bottles of soy sauce. So I added two to the cart. And then what arrived was 12 bottles of soy sauce, because I didn't realize in the product description. It said, this is a pack of six, even though the product image wasn't synced. So it's like, so, so in my newsletter, I put, you know, me standing there holding up 12 bottles of soy sauce and just telling this story and put that in my newsletter and that was like, you know, I got.

[00:14:57] Evan Gow: I got several responses back from people like, I've done the exact same thing. Um, and that's just like, you're just trying to build, you know, show that you're a human. Like you have things that happen in your life. It doesn't always need to be funny or interesting stuff like that necessarily either. Um, it can just, again, like it can just be like you taking your dog out for the or walk or you like going, going to the park or something like that.

[00:15:22] Evan Gow: It doesn't always need to be like super interesting. So, uh, it's just sharing a little bit about your life. And so that's how you're, that's how you're building a relationship with your audience. And so the second part is providing value to your audience, giving them a reason to keep opening and clicking on your emails.

[00:15:39] Evan Gow: Because if all I ever did was send out pictures of me and my dog or whatever, and if that's all I sent out every single week or every single month or what people would stop. Subscribing to my newsletter because they're like, this is a very cute dog, Evan, but I'm looking for like advice about how to, you know, you know, make more money as an author or whatever.

[00:16:02] Evan Gow: Right. And so. So the providing value when you are an author is providing value to your readers. Usually, I would recommend giving them other books that they might want to check out or read, right? So if you are an author of, uh, romance or sci fi or fantasy or thriller, mystery, etc. Give them other books that they might want to check out that they might be interested in.

[00:16:31] Evan Gow: And so that's the second section of your newsletter, is other things that readers might enjoy, uh, your audience might enjoy reading. These don't have to be books that you have personally read. I would not think about this section of your newsletter as a list of recommendations. I would think about it more like the also bought section on Amazon.

[00:16:52] Evan Gow: So, you know, when you're scrolling down the product page on Amazon, you'll see, you know, readers that bought this also bought this. That's not Amazon saying, Jeff Bezos read this book and he is recommending these other books. He's read all these books and he's telling you these are the ones you're going to like, right?

[00:17:09] Evan Gow: No, it's just Amazon saying like, Hey, here's some other things that you might find interesting. We don't really know that, but. Here are things to check out. And so, I recommend you having that second part of your newsletter be very similar to that. Just like, here are some other things that you might want to check out that you might be interested in.

[00:17:28] Evan Gow: Because even if you really do love a book, and you recommend it to everybody that you know, and you say, this is the best book I've ever read, there's still going to be people who are going to be like, yeah, I did not like that book. That was awful. And so I don't even worry too much about like, you know, trying to trying to recommend things to the audience more just like here are other things that might be interesting to you.

[00:17:52] Evan Gow: And That's the thing that readers are always looking for because you, as an author, even if you're an insanely prolific author and you're writing, you know, a book every two months or something like that, readers can read 50, 100, you know, 200 books in a single year, some readers, right? So readers can just be substantial.

[00:18:17] Evan Gow: They can consume content much faster than you can write it as an author. And so. for those newsletters, I recommend sending out a newsletter at least once a month. Um, I've found that authors generally have actually higher open rates, higher click rates, et cetera, if they're sending out twice a month.

[00:18:37] Evan Gow: So, Uh, regardless though, you are not going to be having a new book to release every two weeks or every four weeks, most likely. And so, for those newsletters where you don't have a new release to talk about, you can have other books that you share and say, Hey, these are other things that you might want to check out.

[00:18:59] Evan Gow: And that's what provides the value to the readers to have them keep opening and clicking on your emails because they're always looking for, okay, what am I going to read next? Because I only have 50 pages left in my current book and I want to find what's going to be my next read. So I'm going to open Evan's next email because I want to check out like, Oh, what's some other, you know, sci fi or fantasy or romance or, uh, thriller books or whatever, uh, uh, that I.

[00:19:25] Evan Gow: might want to check out for my next read. 

[00:19:28] Teddy Smith: Yeah. When you're suggesting those other books to read, is that generally, do you monetize that in any way? Or is it a case of just here's something interesting you might look at? 

[00:19:38] Evan Gow: Yeah. So that is a great question. Where do you find these other books that you are going to say, here's some things that you might want to check out.

[00:19:46] Evan Gow: I generally recommend using that section to arrange cross promotions with other authors. So I would say to another author who writes in my genre, hey, uh, I'll agree to promote one of your books in one of my next newsletters if you agree to promote one of my books in one of your next newsletters. And arranging these cross promotions, so that particular type of a cross promotion, that's called a newsletter swap.

[00:20:11] Evan Gow: It's a one to one cross promotion where I'm saying I'll mention your book in my newsletter. If you mentioned my book in your newsletter, then there is another type of cross promotion called a group promotion. And a group promotion is where you, me, and let's say 20 other, you know, sci fi or fantasy authors or romance authors or whatever, you know, we all get, we all get together and we all list our books on a single landing page together.

[00:20:34] Evan Gow: And then we all agree to promote that single landing page. Showing all of our books in our newsletters, and so we all can, uh, we can all help each other out. That is another great type of, uh, cross promotion. And so when you have that section in your newsletter where you're saying, here's some other books to check out, those would be books that you've agreed to promote as a part of a newsletter swap or a group promotion that you've arranged with other authors.

[00:21:04] Evan Gow: And StoryOrigin has a list of other authors, what dates they're sending out their newsletters, um, and there's lists of group promos for dates that those are running, and you can request newsletter swaps with other authors, or request to join these group promos. And so that is where you would then find all those books and group promotions to stick in your newsletter.

[00:21:27] Evan Gow: Again, gives your readers a reason to keep opening and clicking on your emails. 

[00:21:32] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Does the newsletter swap service work a bit like a matchmaker as well to help you find people that are relevant to your niche? 

[00:21:41] Evan Gow: It is not a, I wouldn't call it a matchmaker service so much as more of a directory. Um, if you go on StoryOrigin, And you go to the upcoming list of newsletter swaps available.

[00:21:56] Evan Gow: Essentially, you will see a list that has, you know, Evan is sending out his newsletter in two weeks. Uh, you know, Teddy is sending out his newsletter in three weeks. And then you would have genre tags. that say, you know, Evan writes sci fi and military and whatever, um, and then you'd have, you know, Teddy writes romance and cozy and whatever.

[00:22:21] Evan Gow: And so you can then filter down those lists of dates using tags on StorOrigin to find exactly Uh, what you're looking for other authors that are in your particular genre and then you would just go to the date that they're sending out a newsletter and request a swap with them and say, Hey, I'll, I'll promote my book.

[00:22:40] Evan Gow: You know, I'll promote your book in my newsletter on this date. You promote my book. in your newsletter in three weeks from now or whatever. Um, it's a very simple process. It takes all of about 30 seconds. It's just a form that you just put, you, you select, you select from the dropdowns and hit submit. It's like three fields.

[00:23:00] Teddy Smith: That's amazing. Are there any ways of making money from your newsletter as well? Like, obviously not just from selling your own books, but maybe through affiliate marketing or sponsorships or anything like that. Have you noticed that authors have started Using any of those tactics in the newsletters.

[00:23:17] Evan Gow: Yeah. So you can, you can, you can certainly monetize your newsletter, um, through other means for nonfiction authors where you build up an audience that is in that nonfiction realm. A lot of times you can make money from affiliates or from, um, or from like sort of sponsorships and stuff like that. That's not something that you would, that's a little bit more of a complicated process, cause that's more about like building relationships and all that stuff.

[00:23:48] Evan Gow: If you want to join an affiliate program like Amazon, you can also, um, monetize, you know, books via Amazon's affiliate. Uh, uh. Tags that you just add to links, uh, but I will say, uh, Amazon's Terms of Service in their affiliate program do not allow you to add an affiliate tag within an email, um, because they do not allow any of what they call offline, uh, sort of affiliate, Traffic.

[00:24:22] Evan Gow: So, so what you would do then is you would set up a page where, you know, like the various retailers are listed. And so when a reader clicks on that link, it takes them to your website or wherever you set up this page. And then from that page. is where you would then link to Amazon or whatever retailer and then you would append your affiliate tag coming from that page.

[00:24:48] Evan Gow: Now this is actually incredibly simple to do on StoryOrigin using the universal book links feature. So, the universal book links feature on StoryOrigin is exactly that. It's essentially A book cover and then the list of retailers for where that book is available for sale. So Amazon and Google Play, Barnes and Noble, Apple, et cetera.

[00:25:05] Evan Gow: Um, and then you can add your affiliate tag to your Amazon link. And so when a reader clicks to go to the various retailers where it, uh, goes to that universal book link page, and if they then click Amazon, it would then take them to Amazon and automatically apply your affiliate tag. swaps with other authors.

[00:25:25] Evan Gow: If you're sending If you're sending traffic to another author's universal book link on story origin via newsletter swap, you can apply your own affiliate tag. So when you're making those recommendations in your newsletter, and you're driving traffic to those other authors, universal book links on story origin, you can have it so that when, if those readers like click on Amazon, your affiliate tag would be applied.

[00:25:47] Teddy Smith: Hmm. That's, that's incredible. When you're setting up those newsletters. Do you have any tips for people for finding the right sort of partner to work with? Do you think it's just find other authors in your niche or have you got a way of like finding the right newsletters that would work for you? 

[00:26:04] Evan Gow: Um, it's generally mostly just find other people that are in your genre.

[00:26:09] Evan Gow: Um, a lot of authors at the beginning, they sort of feel like Well, how can I do this? I have zero people on my mailing list. Evan, we're talking about growing a mailing list, right? I have zero people on my mailing list. How many people do I need on a mailing list before I can do a newsletter swap with another author or join a group promotion?

[00:26:30] Evan Gow: And you can start with zero. So, I mean, you need to be planning to be sending out newsletters. But it's fine if your newsletter is only going to go to one person, right? Like you should at least have one person on your mailing list, which is your own email address, right? So you should have, you should have one.

[00:26:46] Evan Gow: Um, and, uh, and you can go ahead and get started requesting newsletter, newsletter swaps, or joining group promos, even if you've only got, again, like one person on your mailing list and that being yourself. And, uh, then just look for people that are in your genre. And a lot of authors are like, Trying to look for authors that have similar mailing list sizes add some which is Which I would say, like, don't necessarily hold back on requesting a newsletter swap with someone just because their list is, like, you know, let's say you've got a list of, you know, 500 people and this other author has a list of 1, 500 people, like, I would not hold back from requesting a newsletter swap with that other author just because their list is three times bigger, um, because a lot of authors, going back to what we were talking about earlier, where Don't There are two parts of your newsletter, one where you're building a relationship, the second where you're providing value to your readers.

[00:27:46] Evan Gow: Those authors that have, you know, 2, 000, 3, 000, 4, 000, 5, 000 people on their mailing list, at the end of the day, the way they provide value to their readers is by promoting other books that their readers might be interested in. They do the exact same thing where they're, they're like, I need a reason for my readers to open and click on my emails.

[00:28:07] Evan Gow: And so I need other books that I can share with my readers. And so even if they've got 5, 000 people on their mailing list, generally, they'll be happy to promote other books, uh, from other authors that their audience might like, because that gets their readers to keep opening and clicking on their emails.

[00:28:26] Evan Gow: Even if they're not really getting anything else out of that cross promotion, right? So even if they're not really getting any traffic from you, because your mailing list is really tiny or something, they will still be willing to accept. A newsletter swap with you if they think that your book is going to be something that gets, you know, gets their readers excited because that again, like just provides value to their audience.

[00:28:54] Evan Gow: So I wouldn't ever, you know, not every author has like that state has the exact same thought process. Processes around all this stuff. So I can never, I can't ever guarantee, like if you request a newsletter swap with someone on store origin, they're always going to accept 100%. Like that's not how it works.

[00:29:11] Evan Gow: Right. Everyone is in control of their own newsletters. They're in their own driver's seat when it comes to what newsletter swaps or group promos they want to join or accept or request, etc. Um, But that being said generally the community is fairly open um, and Not only because, like, it's, not only because it's self interested, but like, a lot of the community is also somewhat altruistic, where it's like, I, I started on Story Origin with zero subscribers, and now I have 4, 000 subscribers, and I did it by arranging newsletter swaps and by joining group promos through Story Origin, and It would be hypocritical of me to sort of have climbed this ladder and then to pulled it up after me.

[00:29:58] Evan Gow: Uh, and so a lot of times those authors, even if they've got 4, 000 people on their mailing list or whatever, they're usually willing to lend a hand, uh, uh, to someone who is just starting out because someone else did that for them. 

[00:30:11] Teddy Smith: And as you mentioned before, Lotofit is about Relationships you make and building up those potentials for getting reviewer crews in that advanced reviewer teams in future and things like that.

[00:30:20] Teddy Smith: So as long as you're sort of creating that partnership where you've got that, the same goals and the same match in mind, then maybe it could be a good thing to go for someone who's smaller, but still very targeted to your target audience. 

[00:30:34] Evan Gow: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, you know, if I'm a. If I'm a fantasy author with a list of 3, 000 people or something, and I find a romance author with a list of 3, 000 people, even though they've got the same list size as me, that doesn't necessarily make sense to do a newsletter swap because their audience is just not going to be interested in my book, right?

[00:30:56] Evan Gow: And so, yeah, I would, I would recommend, you know, sort of the, really the main filter is just like, do they write books similar to you? Are they going to have an audience that is interested in my book? Is going to like what you write and you know, your audience is going to like what they write, et cetera. Um, yeah, but it's a lot easier to arrange newsletter swaps and, and, and to target the right audiences than it is to run like Facebook ads.

[00:31:20] Evan Gow: And you have all this, like this dashboard with this, like, you know, here's all these different ways that we're like targeting things. And here's our like. Bidding strategy and all this stuff. Like this is why newsletter swaps and group promos and just cross promotion in general has taken off so much in the author community is like, yeah, it's free, right?

[00:31:42] Evan Gow: Like when you and I agreed to promote each other's books, we're not paying, no one's paying any money, anyone, right? Like we're not. We're not paying each other. Um, it's easy, right? All I have to do is like, take the link to your book and drop it into my newsletter, and then it's targeted, right? I know that if you are another sci-fi or fantasy author or whatever, uh, then, and we write in the same genre, then I know your audience is gonna like what I write.

[00:32:10] Evan Gow: And so if I request a newsletter swap with you, and like I know it's going to go to the right set of readers. And so that's, that, that can be, that targeting can be quite challenging sometimes on advertising platforms where you think like, Oh, these people would like what I write because they're interested in these things and it's like, Oh, no, these, these ads are getting very expensive because like, Very few of these people are actually interested in what I write.

[00:32:37] Evan Gow: Um, and so, yeah, it's, you know, newsletter swaps and cross promotion in general is, is really taken off in the author community. 

[00:32:45] Teddy Smith: Yeah. On, on Story Origin, do you know what the average size of the newsletters are there? 

[00:32:51] Evan Gow: Um, I could not give you, this is not something, I mean, I, I, I could, if I went into like my database and like did some, did some, did some queries and stuff, I could give you like some averages.

[00:33:03] Evan Gow: So, no, I don't know off the top of my head, but it's, it's, it's all over the place. I mean, there are people with You know, mailing lists of like zero people or, you know, one person when they're just getting started. And then there are people with mailing lists of like 12, 000 people on StoryOrigin.

[00:33:18] Evan Gow: So it really, it's, it's, it's, you know, across the spectrum. 

[00:33:23] Teddy Smith: So it's, it's like ideal for beginners and also for people who have got quite big lists who can really get out there. Yeah. 

[00:33:29] Evan Gow: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can, you can be at any stage, you know, from debut author to bestseller, uh, story origin is sort of, can grow with you up that, up that path.

[00:33:42] Teddy Smith: So how does Story Origin actually help authors manage their newsletters? And grow the lists and get the newsletters out to the subscribers. 

[00:33:51] Evan Gow: Yeah. So you would still use an email service provider like Merrill, MailerLite or something to design and send your newsletters. And then store origin you would use for creating the landing pages for your reader magnet or lead magnet or your cookie, whatever you want to call it, that free download that you're giving away when someone signs up to your mailing list.

[00:34:11] Evan Gow: So you can set up that. landing page for that free book or free short story on StoryOrigin and then you can arrange cross promos, newsletter swaps and group promos to drive traffic to that landing page you've built on StoryOrigin. Um, and so that is how you would grow your mailing list with StoryOrigin, is set up that reader magnet and then, and then arrange cross promotions for it.

[00:34:37] Evan Gow: And I know we're talking about newsletter growth part in particular, and so we were talking mostly about creating landing pages for reader magnets. But you can also create landing pages like I mentioned earlier, you can create universal book links. That's where you are driving traffic to your, the retailers where your book is available for sale.

[00:34:56] Evan Gow: You can create. landing pages for your ebook review copies where you're trying to get more reviewers. You can set up, uh, landing pages for audiobook promo codes where readers can request a promo code and with the expectation they'd leave a review of that audiobook. And so, uh, if you're, you're an author and you're just starting out, I would say The first thing you need to focus on is building that mailing list, but as your list grows over time you can branch into Okay, well now I want to now I want to get more reviews of my book So I'm gonna set up a review copy on storage and I'm gonna arrange cross promotions to drive traffic to that my review copy landing page Etc.

[00:35:35] Evan Gow: Um, so your there's no there's no there's no You can basically have any goal with your cross promotions on Storyboard. And so when you're arranging newsletter swaps or joining group promos, those cross promotions can be either to, uh, grow your mailing list, to build your review team, or to increase your sales.

[00:35:58] Evan Gow: Um, and so it's not only about necessarily building your mailing list, but if you are just getting started, That is where I would focus is just on the building the mailing list part for, for a decent chunk of time. 

[00:36:13] Teddy Smith: And if people are just starting out, do you recommend one of the particular email providers in particular, or do you think any of them can work?

[00:36:21] Evan Gow: I think, um, I generally recommend MailerLite. It's got a decently sized free tier, which is good for a lot of authors that are just starting out. Um, so that's what I would, that's what I would say I would start with. Um, there's lots of email service providers out there though. Um, and Story, Story Origin also integrates with nine different email service providers.

[00:36:43] Evan Gow: So when someone comes to your Reader Magnet landing page and requests that free Uh, you know, ebook of your, you know, short story or whatever you're giving out when someone signs up to your mailing list. StorOrigin will then take that contact info and automatically, uh, send it directly to your email service provider, whether that's Mailite or MailChimp or ActiveCampaign or ConvertKit or whatever.

[00:37:05] Evan Gow: Um, and so their, their name and email address will automatically be added to your mailing list. Uh, but if you're using an email service provider that StoryOrigin doesn't integrate with, uh, you can always download a CSV of the signups that you've gotten to your reader magnet on StoryOrigin and then just Upload those every once in a while, upload that CSV to your email service provider.

[00:37:31] Evan Gow: So, yeah, you can use any, any, you can use any email service provider in conjunction with StoryOrigin, it's just Uh, you, and you don't have to use that integration piece with it. 

[00:37:42] Teddy Smith: Great. I mean, there's been some really good tips there. I think, you know, the newsletter is the best place to make that connection with the authors.

[00:37:49] Teddy Smith: And I think, uh, storage and really helps you to, to start growing it and to, you know, build the newsletters that are going to be really excellent. So I really like the stuff that it does. Um, have you got any advice for people who are literally just starting out? Like how could they get the most out of story origin from the day one?

[00:38:06] Evan Gow: Yeah. So I would recommend if you're looking for where to get started, just go to, go to your story origin dashboard. There will be three text boxes on your, on the homepage of your dashboard. One will say, build your mailing list. The other will say, find reviewers. And the third one will say, say, increase sales.

[00:38:23] Evan Gow: Just hit that build, build your mailing list one. And you will get a checklist that says, go here, do this, go here, do this, go here, do this. And as you do those things, you'll get little check marks that say you've done them. Um, that's like the, that's like the fastest way to get set up. And then if you go to the tutorials tab on store origin, let's say, let's say you forget.

[00:38:43] Evan Gow: Everything that I talked about today. That's totally fine. Just go to storyoriginapp. com. Hit the tutorials tab in the top of the app bar and you'll find there's in depth, uh, guides and case studies from other authors and video tutorials. There's a whole bunch of resources there that will help you, uh, like if you're like, Oh, what did Evan say?

[00:39:03] Evan Gow: Like I should write for like my reader magnet thing. Oh, go to the zero to 1000, you know, mailing list. Like in depth guide and you'll get advice there of like, go here, do this. You know, I recommend writing like a prequel. Here's why, et cetera. 

[00:39:19] Teddy Smith: Yeah. So literally step by step. Does it tell you exactly what to do?

[00:39:21] Teddy Smith: It's perfect. Well, thanks so much. So if people want to get in touch, that's just storyorigin. com to storyoriginapp. 

[00:39:29] Evan Gow: com 

[00:39:29] Teddy Smith: Sorry, storyoriginapp. com. Great. And I'll just do that question again. So if people want to get in touch, just go to storyoriginapp. com and they can then see all the details for how to sign up and get all the.

[00:39:40] Teddy Smith: The things I need. 

[00:39:42] Evan Gow: Yep. And if they just scroll to the bottom of the homepage on storyoriginapp. com, you will at the end of just the homepage, you'll just see my face, my name, my email address. My inbox is always open to authors. Um, I'm always super transparent about who I am, what I'm doing, all that stuff.

[00:39:58] Evan Gow: Or if you hit the contact page on story origin. You'll also see my face, my name, my email address. So I'm, I'm very open with my, my inbox. Um, so yeah, anyone is always welcome to reach out. 

[00:40:10] Teddy Smith: Brilliant. Thank you very much. We'll put links to all that in the show notes. So if you want to just go and click on those, that'd be absolutely fine.

[00:40:14] Teddy Smith: Well, brilliant. Thank you, Evan. That's been really good overview of like exactly how to use newsletters. I got, I learned a lot myself. So I hope the newsletters, the readers, listeners, sorry, we'll get a lot from it too. So just one final question. Thanks so much 

[00:40:27] Evan Gow: for having me on. Oh, 

[00:40:29] Teddy Smith: that's right. Well, thanks a lot, Evan.

[00:40:33] Teddy Smith: I really got a lot from that. I learned loads about doing newsletters. And I think the news that the listeners, this will learn lots as well about storage and, and also just starting themselves. So thank you very much for coming on. 

[00:40:46] Evan Gow: Thanks for having me on. 

[00:40:48] Teddy Smith: That's been great. So it's just finally one, just one final question just before we head off.

[00:40:53] Teddy Smith: What's one book that you recommend that everyone should be reading at the moment? 

[00:40:58] Evan Gow: Oh, that's a, that's a good question. I love lit RPG. So, um, if you are interested in, like, if you really like, like, character stats and, like, like, characters, like, growing and, like, becoming more powerful and stuff like that, I recommend, uh, He Who Fights With Monsters.

[00:41:19] Teddy Smith: And who's that 

[00:41:21] Evan Gow: by? That one is by, uh, Sherdaloon is like the pen name and I, I, I think his, I think his actual name is Travis Deverell, but, uh, you might need to check me on that one. 

[00:41:34] Teddy Smith: Oh, cool. Well, we, we interviewed Dakota Kraut a few weeks ago, uh, and his episode's coming up. So I'm sure you. Oh, awesome. Yeah.

[00:41:41] Teddy Smith: I've, I've read his books as well. Yeah, they're really big at the moment. Um, and it's not something I know much about. So I'll have to do a bit more in depth diving into it because people keep recommending these books. So 

[00:41:53] Evan Gow: awesome. Yeah, I, I love them. 

[00:41:56] Teddy Smith: Well, thanks Evan. Uh, it's been great to chat to you and speak soon.

[00:41:58] Teddy Smith: Thank you so much for tuning into the publishing performance podcast. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world. Now, just before we wrap up, let me tell you about Publishingformance, the number one platform for authors who want to increase Amazon book sales, but I'm not really sure where to start.

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