Naima B. Robert – Building an Email List as an Author Na’ima B. Robert & Tumkeen Muslimah Author Summit 2022
AI: Summary ©
The Muslim andivist Summit 2022 workshop is about building a name for oneself as an author, selling more books, and connecting with people. The workshop is about creating a strong LinkedIn and email address for future communication, building a social media network, and creating a strong network for leads. The importance of writing as a motivational message and creating value for people is emphasized, and the speakers suggest various lead magnet options and creating a community for people to share. The importance of serving people at large festival events and building relationships with them is emphasized, and the speakers offer free training courses and a free class for new business owners.
AI: Summary ©
So now let's
wait a couple of seconds for us to
check that it's live, but I think that
it already is. So if it is, welcome.
Assalamu
alaikum, everyone. Welcome to this session in the
Muslim and Writers Summit 2022.
This is going to be a knowledge sharing
session, otherwise known as a workshop.
So
I'm going to be sharing,
how to build with a platform.
So
we're teaching. We're not doing a lot of
talking and chatting, although we are gonna do
some talking and chatting in this session. I've
got my co host, Tamkeen, here, masha'Allah,
who's very familiar with this material, And we're
gonna be sharing notes, like swapping notes on
things that I share in the, in the
workshop. But, basically,
if you
are
or something that you want to publish
and you would like more book sales.
If you would like more readers,
to know about your work, you'd like more
people to know about your work, then this
workshop is for you. Alright? And this is
one of the workshops that I share with
the Amplify Mastermind,
which is our group of authors, Muslim authors,
who
write in all sorts of different genres,
and they get support from myself and my
team to edit, to publish, to promote, to
launch, and sell, and distribute their books, inshallah.
So with that being said, Assalamu Alaikum Tamkeen.
Are you ready?
Yes. I am.
Yay. Alright. Let me just get the right
thing up for us here. We need our
slides. Yes. We are using slides today.
And I'll just share the screen on that
and, Bismillah, let's go.
So let me move this out of the
way if I can.
I don't know if you may add. I
think I think everyone should save this video
too to go back to to refer because
I think it's so gold golden in his
advice. So
I'm literally there on YouTube.
They can access it as many times as
they like.
So this
this workshop is about author list building. Okay?
We're gonna talk about the terms that I
use, you know, what is list building. I've
mentioned already that this is perfect for you,
whether you are a children's author or writing
for teens or adults, whether you're writing fiction
or nonfiction,
poetry or anthology,
you if you're an author, then this is
information that you need especially in today's world.
Okay.
The way that books work nowadays is that
they
an author requires a platform. And as Tim
Grahl says, an author platform is a direct
connection to your audience
that allows you to predictably
and reliably, inshallah,
sell books. Okay. So that's when we say
author platform,
it's basically a connection to your audience. Okay.
A direct connection to your audience.
Now,
people will probably be surprised to to kind
of realize that up until fairly recently,
most authors did not have direct connection to
their readers.
Right? Before social media,
authors
would maybe go on tour and they would
meet their author, you know, meet their,
meet the people who who had read their
books, you know, if they come out for
a reading or something like that. But a
direct connection,
unless
the the the fan was somebody who was
kinda like writing them letters and that type
of thing,
they didn't know who these fans were. They
would not have a way of accessing these
fans, and they certainly couldn't communicate with them
on a regular basis
until the advent of logging
of email and of social media. Right? So
Right. Right.
Things have changed.
Yeah. They've changed, and they've changed in favor
of the author where there's a lot more
tools,
to be connected to your to your,
to your reader and to to know even
feedback from them. Let's what's working with them,
what's not. And so I think it's a
great time to be an author.
Yeah. Yeah. No. Definitely, it is. And this
this is also something to remember for all
of you who are thinking, well, you know,
I'm not self published. I have a publisher.
So do I really need a direct connection
with my audience? Well, you're gonna answer that
question in this session Insha'Allah.
Alright. So what this workshop is about is
about how to build your name, build a
name for yourself as an author,
how to build a market for your books,
how to go about selling more books and
touching more lives and getting more opportunities
to connect and share your message. And the
great thing about this platform is that if
you take the time and you make the
effort to build a platform,
you actually become more attractive to publishers.
So this isn't for you only if you're
interested in self publishing, but even if you
are your aim is to be traditionally published,
if you have an author platform,
you're just that much more attractive to publishers.
And I'm keen we've talked about this many
times before, and I I would riddle the
audience to see if you can say in
the comments why you think that might be.
And Tamkeen is gonna tell you the answer.
Why does an author platform make an author
more attractive to publishers?
Well, it it makes us more accessible. Right?
It makes us more accessible to the publishers.
It makes us more accessible to,
to everyone out there. And then also it
shows how much,
what you're bringing in. Right? If we listened
yesterday to Nezia Maxwell from,
from Daybreak Press, when she was saying she
would have some golden advice there,
that when she was saying that, you know,
even as someone who's traditional publisher,
they see how much you can bring. Right?
And they can see how much you are,
how many people follow you, how many people
are you have as your potential readers or
buyers that you could say.
Exactly. So you just you just a more
attractive investment.
Sorry to say it that way, guys. But
with publishers, really, bottom line, that's what it
comes down to. If they take you on,
it's because they believe that they can sell
your book. Right? Otherwise, they don't typically take
you on. And a part of that is,
do you have an audience of your own?
Do you have potentially
readers that they haven't yet accessed? That's another
thing as well, you know, and especially especially
for, you know, anybody from the Muslim community
who is writing a book that may have
some appeal
for Muslim families, Muslim moms, dads, children, whoever.
The publisher may not necessarily have a huge
you know, have access to a huge Muslim
market,
but they if they see that you already
have some kind of audience, you already have
some kind of, you know,
respect and trust within the Muslim community, then
that's for them, a way for them to
go into a new market. So that's something
else as well.
Alright. So
first up, we're gonna talk about my favorite
darling, which is email.
And I just want to say at this
point
I have been talking about this since 2018
I believe
but the number of people
service providers,
creatives,
social media influencers, if you want to call
them that, who do not have a mailing
list
is still too high.
People still think
that it's about the Gram,
that it's about not Facebook anymore because Facebook
is better.
Right. But people still think it's about vanity
metrics. Right, Tamkeen? People still are getting asked
about numbers of followers, number of likes, number
of shares. Right. And
really,
some key come on. Just take take away
this.
Talk to them about this. Yes. Guilty. Guilty.
Guilty. Us putting effort into just building our
online platforms. Because that's what people do. And
I bet when people heard author platform, they
thought we were gonna talk about building your
social media. Right? Right. Right. What's what's your
perspective on that?
Well, as you famously quoted someone else that's
saying, you don't build a home on, on
on borrowed land. Right? And so Instagram, the
followers don't belong to you. They belong to
Instagram. And so once your account closes, and
this unfortunately has happened too many times recently
where accounts get closed and or they get,
you know, they get taken or somebody hacked
into them, it's gone. Your followers are gone.
Everything is gone. And so your email list
is yours still, and that is that is
priceless. Especially speaking from someone who thought that
Instagram presence and Facebook presence was all the
the rage. It wasn't. Because when when the
book was coming out,
as a published author, you know, if I
didn't have that email, there was there was
nothing. I had nothing of the they to
respond to. Whereas if for those who had
my email,
they got the information right away. I had
the a close connection with them, a direct
connection with them. So it's it's your property,
basically.
Yeah. And I'm
very, very happy that, you know, I I
was somebody kind of pulled my coat early
in the early days of coming online, not
early early, not when I was on Facebook,
not even when I came on to Instagram,
but when I started going into digital marketing
and thinking about having an online course and
that type of thing, that's when I learned
the importance of email and building my mailing
list and
through all the work that we've been doing
even summits like this you know my courses
you know webinars and all that kind of
thing the list has grown to over 20,000
mashallah but that's literally in the last few
years
If I had known about email when I
first came onto facebook we'd be looking at
different numbers altogether but alhamdulillah
better late than never what people need to
understand is that it's never too late to
start building your list and email is still
Still the gold
so unlike social media
blogging or YouTube
even, the email is really your only direct
line of communication because everything else relies on
the algorithm.
The algorithm is what selects what people see
on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube,
Google, which means your blog as well. You
know, you're at the mercy of the algorithm
and of SEO, right, search engine optimization. And
if you're not really that savvy on those
things or just the algorithm doesn't like your
content for whatever reason,
you cannot reach all the people who have
said that they like your stuff. I'm sure
you guys are aware of this. You post
stuff. Maybe you've got 10,000 followers, 5,000 followers,
but you're only getting, like, 5, 10 likes,
a 100 likes. And you're like, hold on
a minute.
100 people a 1000 people 5,000 people said
that they follow me and they like me
how come so few people are seeing my
stuff?
That my dear friends is the algorithm.
So
as I say here having large followings on
social media platforms literally is worthless unless you
are establishing
your line of communication
with your potential readers. That's really what social
media platform should be used for to bring
people into your home. And I'll talk about
that a little bit more later. But the
email,
getting their email address
is them giving you permission to communicate directly
with them and build a much stronger relationship
of value and trust with your audience.
And for sure, it's one of the most
overlooked areas, and it's the most vital. Right?
So don't make that mistake, guys. Joaquin, anything
to offer on that? No. Just gonna say
it's like a long term investment into your,
yourself as an author. Like, you want to
be taken seriously and you wanna be considered
an author and sell like an author,
then then you have to,
the email is the way to go. Whereas
what happened to Instagram and I like, you
know, we post things, but they're gone by
tomorrow, by 24 hours, not even sometimes. It's
gone. And it's not a long term investment.
It's like a quick it's like a quick,
like, thing. So, yeah, quick fix. So Yeah.
Definitely.
I'm good now. Okay. Let's go. Let's keep
it moving.
Yeah.
Can I go to the next one? Can
I will it let me go?
Oh. Oh, okay.
Maybe not. Let's see if it will let
me go down. Okay.
So
people may be wondering. Okay. Fine. Fine. Fine.
We hear you. Maybe email is important. Okay.
Maybe we should be looking at gathering emails,
but, you know how are we supposed to
do that right?
They may say I'm not selling my book
yet I don't have any services to offer
how can I
get people's emails?
Okay. So just before I share this next
piece,
I just want to ask everybody who's watching
this
how you
registered for this summit?
If you're like most people, you saw an
ad somewhere
on Instagram, Facebook, maybe you got an email,
you clicked on a link, and then you
went to a page.
And on that page,
all the information about the summit was presented
and there was a space for you to
sign up.
When you were signing up you gave us
your name and your email address, and you
clicked submit.
Now just a secret. What happens after that,
in case you don't know, your email
is entered onto a list.
In this case, it's entered onto the summit
list. And now you are on my mailing
list. In the Europe we tick the gdrp
box to allow communication
and now that you are on my list
you've registered for the summit,
but now I have your email and I
have permission to communicate directly with you. So
as long as you open my emails, you
and I could stay in touch. Right? And
just as you email me and I sorry.
Just as I email you, you can email
me. Okay? Now
how did I get you to give me
your email address? Well, I offered you something.
Right? I had a magnet. I had a
way to draw you towards
my list.
And in this case, it was the summit.
But lead magnets,
come in many different shapes and sizes. Okay?
So let's say, let's get our language right.
A lead magnet is an irresistible bribe
like a summit
offering a specific chunk of value to a
prospect in exchange for their contact information.
The goal of the lead magnet is to
maximize the number of targeted leads that you
are getting for an offer. Okay? So we
don't just say to people, like I have
seen happening before,
join my mailing list, right,
or send me your email or give me
your email, and I'll send you cool stuff.
That doesn't really work anymore
nobody's really interested in signing up for people's
mailing lists because most of us are on
too many mailing lists Right, Tamkeen? What are
your thoughts on this? Right. Right. So just
like how you would not sign on to
those things, you know, how we just swipe
past it when we go to a website.
We will people will swipe past ours.
And so if if you're not reacting to
it, I think the other way with the
same thing with people. They're not gonna react
to it as well. So what does work
is something that is great, and it doesn't
feel like a bribe. It feels more like
I'm getting something for my email. So I'm
signing on to a newsletter that has all
of your great information
Or I like the motivational Monday,
emails that Naima sends, and they really inspire
me. So I'm giving her my email address
so that she comes to my door, basically,
with with something that of value to me
too. Yep. And the the thing is that
I would never have
invited people to sign up to get inspirational
emails. Like, that for me, guys, I'm sorry,
that's not a lead magnet
because who wants more email? Does anyone?
I I don't. I definitely don't want more
email. Right? Right. But maybe
I want access to a summit. Maybe I
want, an ebook that is on offer. Right?
Maybe I want a free training course or
maybe I want the webinar. That that is
what is is is actually a fact Insider
scoop. Yeah. Right. The insider news, insider scoop
type thing. Right. Exactly. And what what's really
happening with, for example, my Monday motivation emails
is that is me nurturing and basically
giving you a gift for having taken the
first offer, which was a gift at the
end of the day. Right?
So the the the the motivational emails, those
are really just to say thank you,
and to continue to provide value to the
people who are on the list so that
they are happy to hear from you. Right?
But we're gonna talk about this more because
this is the whole
the whole premise of this is being of
benefit.
Right? So even as authors
being of benefit to the people on whose
list we are. Right? So I'm gonna stop
the share for a second because for some
reason it is not moving the way that
I want it to and I'm not happy
with it. So I'm gonna tell it just
just take a chill pill for a second
and then we're gonna come back inshallah.
Sure. So lead magnets,
as I said, so many different kinds of
lead magnets. And the first one that we're
gonna go into is the downloadables.
Okay?
Now downloadables,
again, I mentioned one of them. That's like
an ebook. Okay? But as authors,
that could be many things.
We always get our clients to, for example,
offer
a free a sneak peek at their chapter.
Yeah.
To if they have a book that's coming
out, then we get them to offer people
the chance to be one of the first
to read it. So a sneak peek, a
sneak chapter, you know maybe an extra chapter
that's not in the book something something you
know something extra
that is that is not available anywhere else
Okay. Ebooks, guides,
checklists,
notes, even stationery, these can all work very
well. And And for children that I'm looking,
have you used any of these, when you're
building your list? I have an ebook. I
have an ebook out. And,
yes, it's it it worked more beautifully than
other things. I've tried different things, but the
ebook has definitely resonated best with people. And
it also gave people a sample
to before they invest in you as a
writer, as a poet, to have that ebook
is like, okay. I like her stuff. She
resonates with me, and they can further invest
into that. I was gonna add for children's
book authors, a great downloadable would be, like,
a coloring page, PDF,
activity book stuff, and and those are great
for children's books. And, I know that resonates
with me as a reader
with my children.
Definitely. 100%.
So, basically, you're looking at, you know, who's
my audience
or my books, and how can I serve
them?
What do they want from me? What do
I have to offer them? How can I
serve them? You know? So for example,
my market is writers.
So this is an example of another writer.
This is not one of mine.
I don't think it's one of mine. Could
be. Hold on. Maybe it is. We definitely
did one of these. But this is
another writer's website
where they have a challenge going on. And
when people sign up for a challenge, obviously,
that is a lead magnet. But in this
case, they have a pop up on the
site which offers you a 10 step guide
to becoming a writer.
Alright. So obviously you can see you enter
your email address. You say send me the
guide. That was the magnet. And so now
you're on that person's mailing list. Alright.
So that's downloadables.
So take a moment to think about
your
market or your potential market,
your people. Yeah. If you don't like the
word market, it's fine.
Your people, your tribe, you know,
your potential readers. Yeah. Your readers. Is there
anything,
Exactly. Right. Is there anything that could
is there anything that you could create that
would be of benefit to them? Okay, that
would help them, that would be useful,
right, that they can easily download, you can
save it as a PDF and they can
just download that, Have a think.
Another thing that I've used to with great
success is email series. Right? And this could
be serialized stories. It could be a video
series, a training series.
I've used audio series as well, an email
course. All of these are fantastic
magnets,
because it's real value. Right? We're not here
sending people nonsense.
We're not here sending people stuff to clog
up their email. You want to take time
to create something that is truly valuable,
you know, that will
give them benefit. Like you said, about with,
you know, with a coloring book for children's
authors
or even like,
you know, in the case of the downloadables,
a guide to the, you know, top 10
new, you know, Muslim children's books that have
come out or how to find
Muslim children's books in the library or how
to ask for your library to order more
Muslim children's books. These are ways that you
can guide your people
with things that they may be struggling with.
Tamkeen, have you tried any of these of
the email series?
You know what? No. I have not. And,
I had think that I used to believe
that it was a longer
investment in in time and energy
to to do that. But I think that,
if you
if you plan it out wisely, it could
be done very successfully. And I I've I've
lacked in this one, and this is where
I always get stuck,
but I'm taking notes too.
That's all good. These are all examples because,
Jeff Goins
was one of the first people that I
learned a lot of this stuff from. And
you if you go on any writer's website,
you and and anyone who's
offering a service or a product guys. Now
that you've seen this, you can't unsee
it. You will start to see this everywhere.
There's either a pop up or there's a
box. You can see here Jeff Goins has
got a free guide on growing your blog
audience. K. He's offering you that. Umakia
is offering updates. You can see she's got,
competition information,
content, new books,
hinting as the
a first chapter of Behind the Picket Fences,
which is which was her book. So you
can see that this is something that people
do. Right? And whenever you go online now,
keep an eye out for it. And if
you like any of the ideas that you
see feel free to just * them. You
know? If
you like something that I've done you think
oh that was really cool. Yeah. I I
could do something similar to that do it
I took it from someone else I'm keen
I'm sure I copied somebody else you know
because these ideas are more or less like
public property, really. Just don't plagiarize.
That's what I would say. Yes.
Now this challenge is is a super cool
one. And one of our clients, Isra, talked
about this a night or 2 ago because
she had a decluttering challenge in prep in
preparation for Ramadan.
Again, a challenge
is something that people sign up for. It
could be a reading challenge. It could be
a writing challenge. It could be a lifestyle
challenge whether it's you know, like, we've got
our 10 minutes a day writing challenge in
Ramadan. You know, we've got people who do,
like, you know, a walk a walk a
mile a day challenge for 7 days,
you know, a gratitude challenge. We've done those
before as well.
Loads of different challenges out there, and those
are really great if you want to build
a community because typically
when and if you this is great for
authors
who as I said who offer product or
specialty services.
So authors who have some kind of service
right they have a coaching business or they
have a consulting business or they have courses
or something like this and they also have
a book
getting people to action
on what you're teaching in your book, like
taking action right away and seeing results in
the challenge can be a really great way
to bring them into your community,
introduce them to your work.
You can sell the book off of that,
but hopefully they will also sign up for
any booking or consulting or support that you
offer. So that's like a 5 star tip
that, that you guys can take if you
are one of those people who offers, you
know, products and specialty services. Yeah. I wanna
add also that you have to think outside
the box. So for someone like me who
doesn't have,
another,
another business or another work related thing, I
have to look outside the box. So if
my memoir, for example, has is about 5,
6, 10 different topics,
what I can do to kinda introduce people
to the topics that are being discussed in
my book and bring that attention in while
also creating a challenge for it.
Yeah. Exactly. I love that. And again,
that is thinking outside the box, and we
like that. We like that a lot.
And and and really when it comes to
lead magnets, you know, that thinking outside the
box that you mentioned is actually really important
because you want to bring something that
hasn't been done and seen a 100 times
before, you know, that not everyone is doing,
you know, bring something exciting. Like exciting things,
new things, you know what we like.
So, you know, coming up with something like
that is a really, really good idea, and
it's exciting for you as well. And it
helps you communicate with
you with your right? And allows you to
build that deeper connection with them, Insha'Allah.
Right. Alright. What else have we got here?
We've got,
this is another challenge. We were inspired by
the challenge, and this was a 500 word
a day challenge.
It's 500 words for 31 days, and I
think we've based our
5 challenge on this
by another writer.
See here,
a flash fiction challenge, which you sign up
and get a prompt for every day. She
may have a community behind it where people
who are part in the challenge
can meet and talk and swap notes and
stuff like that.
NaNoWriMo
is a great challenge that people sign up
for. I think we did the Muslim version,
something like that. We did have a Ramadan.
Right? We did have the Ramadan. We did
some writers.
Yes. Yes, we did. That was inspired by
the one that I shared earlier. Masha'Allah.
Cool. All right. So another way to build
your list, and we've kind of talked about
this already actually is building a community
so not only can you build a community
behind a challenge that you are running or
something like that, but also
building and tapping into book clubs,
interest groups, review or study circles that you
are that you are bringing together. Right.
You know,
basically,
I loved what this particular author did, Nomi,
because when her new book came out, she
decided to make a grand gesture to create
a big buzz about her book. And she
decided to visit a 100 book clubs across
the country to discuss her book with readers.
And those club those book club visits were
physical and virtual
via Skype.
And at the end of her campaign she
had been hosted by a 138
book clubs,
68 via Skype. Now you can imagine the
impact of that if people had to sign
up for something like that. You know, all
the people that she's now met who have
seen her, heard her, had her read from
her book, had her talk about the book
itself,
you know, through these 138
book clubs, I have no idea how many
new fans
she built and how many new readers
she welcomed into, into her world. So, you
know, I think that that's a really, really
I I really found that a very inspiring
example,
of that. Have you had a chance to
be
invited into anyone's,
like, communities, Tamekin, as an author in order
to talk about your book, etcetera?
I I haven't been able to be invited
yet, as a speaker, but my book has
been,
like, people have reached out to me to
have their book the book in their classrooms
and to discuss in their schools and stuff.
So
alhamdulillah. I love that. Love that. Love that.
Just on a yeah. So this is going
into this next thing now, and we kind
of touched on this before.
A fantastic way to build your list
if you are somebody who has something to
share
either related to the book's topic
or
the process of creating the book.
I'm gonna say that again because training can
be offered
either on the topic of the book itself.
So if we take for example
Farah Duaileh's book on infertility okay on coping
with infertility
She can totally offer master classes on the
topic, webinars on the topic, and run workshops
on the topic. And even if these are
all free,
people
sign up for those trainings which means that
she is building
a list of people who
are interested in the topic of infertility
and her book is about infertility so it
makes complete sense.
Now if you you have a book on
a particular topic and you for example
your book is about body image
Right. Maybe you don't wanna teach about body
image. Maybe it's a memoir. Right? Maybe you're
sharing your story. However, I say to my
clients,
if you've got the time and you've got
the passion
why don't you bring together a masterclass with
someone else who can speak on this or
even put together some kind of seminar series
or do, you know, host
podcast or create a summit
where you bring in other people to speak
on the topic of body image
on the platform of you as somebody who
wrote a book about body image. Does that
make sense, Tamke? What do you think of
that as an idea? Yeah. I think that's
a wonderful idea. And so many times people
do it, and we just we don't even
know that we're part of that,
other platform building stuff. We're just like, wow.
She's offering that service for a free master
class.
So how many did I how many master
classes did I,
did I attend of yours before I actually,
joined one of your coaching program? I think
it was, like, a 100 or something. Every
free master class for Nightmare Robert, I'm like,
check. I'm putting my name in because I'm
gonna learn something.
I'm there. Yeah. So and it's a great
way to connect. And I think it's a
great way people don't realize that for as
a reader that you can connect
with those people who you wanna learn from,
but you're kinda like maybe your cash is
tight. Maybe you're just not sure yet about
the investment or time in place. Yeah. So
I think those are great resources.
Exactly. Exactly.
I've got an example of Zakia, our favorite
here again. So you can see she's running
a creative writing prompt masterclass.
This, my dear friend, is a lead magnet.
It's a list builder. Okay. So when you
sign up for that free class,
whoever you're signing up for, masha'Allah, you're helping
them build their list. List. Don't be one
of those people who just signs up for
other people's lists. Start building your own. Okay?
So that's what I have to say to
everybody.
Okay?
So just for the newbies who may not
be clear as to how this works right
remember the page that you came to in
order to sign up for the summit?
That
would have been
the landing page. Alright. That's the page where
all the information about
the the the freebie is.
Whatever that freebie is. Right? Whether it's a
download,
whether it's a challenge,
whether it's a free class, whether it's a
summit, it will be on one page.
All the information about that activity or that
product, right, that downloadable.
You are going to then put your details
in there. Right?
So when you're creating your own, you need
a landing page. Okay. Which means that you
need an email host.
Tom Keane, typically, this is one of those
areas that really flummoxes a lot of our
clients because they came in to write a
book, and they never thought they'd have to
do any tech.
Give us the scoop.
Well, I have Google on one window and
YouTube on one window for myself all the
time when it comes to these things that
I don't understand. So when Naomi Robert first
told me about a lead magnet, I've nodded
my head a lot. I said, sure. I
know what that means. And I then I
googled it. And sure enough, you will find,
go to videos, how to videos,
people who will walk you, talk you through
everything. And, and they're really useful. I mean,
I the whole self publishing process for myself
as well. We used to have 2 windows
open, me and my daughter all the time,
and we would just search it up, and
there was ways of of navigating it. So
it's absolutely accessible, all the information.
Yeah. It's very, very doable. And don't get
intimidated,
okay, by the tech or any of that.
That's the key. We don't get intimidated. Give
yourself grace. Give yourself the time to kind
of work through it and Right. You'll get
there. So that's why I want to say
that. So
the
what you then eventually share after you've created
the landing page and you have the email
set up if you want more details of
this you'll need to get in touch we
have like a whole course on this right?
However
when you've created a landing page and it's
all set up
that landing page has a link
and that
is the link that you share when you
want people to download your thing whatever your
thing is. So you put it on your
website.
If you do any guest posts or guest
blogs on anyone else's platform
you invite people
to get your free thing.
You can have pop ups on your blog
or your website. Pop ups are less popular
now than they used to be, but they're
still a thing. Right?
I think there's a lot of pop up
pop up blockers now,
are very, very common. Back in the day,
they weren't so much. But still, they're still
there. They still work. On Facebook,
you can put a direct link. Tell people
what it is, what your free thing is.
Invite them to take it. Yeah. Give it
give it to them. Like, offer it to
them. Here you go, guys. I've got a
free link to my chapter. I've got a
free, a preview of my book. I'm doing
a master class next weekend.
I have a virtual retreat. I have a
Facebook group where we're doing a challenge. Whatever
the case may be, that link that you
share is the link to your landing page.
You can put that on Facebook in a
direct link. You can put it in Twitter
in a direct link. You can also add
it to your YouTube description and as a
as a as a card on your videos.
On Instagram, you'll need to put the link
in the bio
but in instagram stories you can put a
direct link
and anytime you do interviews
podcast episodes always
direct people to that link.
Don't tell them follow me on Facebook, follow
me on Instagram. That's the stuff I hate
because that doesn't help you. You want them
to start consuming your content and you wanna
bring them into the party, into your house
as soon as you can. Kim Keen, what
do you say about this? Yes. And then
which is something I like in it, but
I'm gonna definitely be working on is once
they're at the party,
offer them things like drink and food and
entertainment because
because once they're at the house and if
the house is all empty and deserted,
and you got nothing going on in there,
the party's got it gets very dry. And
so
meaning that analogy meaning that,
be continuously
supporting your email list.
I love the way you said that. I
think that's really useful to people.
Keep supporting
your email list. Right? So say you have
20 people on your mailing list. Right? You
put out an offer. You're just starting out.
You managed to get 25 people to sign
up. Now when you hear me or other
people talking about, oh, 20,000 k you know,
20 k made in English and style, they
oh, 25 people. That's nothing. I remember Amy
Porterfield, though, sharing this perspective.
When was the last time you had 25
people in your house?
For most of us, well, maybe not most
of us, but for many of us, it
was quite a while ago, especially 25 people
who are strangers,
who are not family, you know, not necessarily
even friends.
So 25 people, they're worth looking after because
they have
expressed confidence in you
that being on being in your party is
not going to be a waste of their
time.
They're going to benefit from it and they
may even enjoy the experience right so they're
kind of giving you
grace and giving you the benefits of the
doubt.
So best thing to do is in your
head
this is exactly what Tamkeen is talking about
because I think it came up in one
of our coaching sessions where I said it's
like
it's like Facebook, Instagram and social media is
like Glastonbury.
Right? It's like some big festival somewhere. Think
about the biggest festival in your town or
your city.
It's a festival happening.
Everyone's there.
Right? Everyone's there. Everyone who's anyone is there.
They're doing their thing.
You now,
if you try to
speak to the people at the festival, right,
and tell them about your thing and give
them the experience that you want them to
have
in that festival.
You're not going to be able to reach
most of the people because there's so many
distractions. There's so many other things for them
to be doing. There's so many other stalls
for them to be visiting.
It's it's a lot. You're competing with a
lot.
But what if you could get
a portion of the people from that festival
to come home to a party at your
house
where you're going to do things your way.
You're gonna feed them the food that you
want to feed them. The decor is what
you want it to be and you're gonna
give them the experience that you want them
to have. Now will you be able to
attract everyone from that big festival to your
house party?
No.
But that's not the point. The point is
that the people who want the experience that
you're offering, they will come to your house
and come to your house party.
So now as Tamkeen said, when people have
opted into your mailing list, your job is
now to look after them, is to nurture
them, is to continue to build that trust,
okay, to continue to make it worth their
while
to be on your list. Now
I know I'm talking like a marketer here
because you know I am a marketer but
there is there is there is a why
to all of this
As authors,
especially as Muslim authors, most of us came
into this game because we had something to
share.
We wanted to serve. We wanted to be
of benefit to the people. Right? Right.
So
one of the main ways that we are
hoping to share and to serve is through
our book. Right? That's why we took the
time to write the book because we thought
that it was worth our while to write
the book.
But if we expect that to be the
only way that we serve,
we
lessen our impact because we haven't built trust
with people beforehand.
We haven't been serving people beforehand. Right? We
haven't been building
relationships and networks and respect and trust
and relate, you know, kind of a relationship.
We've not been building a relationship.
So it's like
people that you don't know, you're not in
a relationship. You know, maybe you're, like, nodding
acquaintance,
and all of a sudden, you've got a
book for 9.99 or 15.99
or £20 or £25, and you're like, here
you go. Take this. And they're like, you
know, I I don't even know you. Like,
like, why would I buy your book? Hello?
Whereas
if these are people we have a relationship
with who have been getting benefit from us,
who now they they know a little bit
about who we are, what we stand for.
They like who we are, what we stand
for. You know, they've benefited from us. Mhmm.
Whether it's a free class, whether it's a
challenge, whether it was a a free ebook
or whatever,
in their heads,
you are a valuable person.
You say valuable things.
So when you have a book now,
it's like
no brainer of course I'm buying that book.
I've been on the sisters list for 6
months for a year and I've changed.
I've benefited. I've learned. I've been inspired, whatever
your thing is.
So, of course, I'm going to get even
more of that by getting the book. Right.
That make sense, Joaquin?
Yeah. It absolutely makes sense. And it also
tells the reader that this person is not
just invested in selling me a book, but
this person has invested me in me as
a reader. So it's almost like and then
I've seen readers who are invested in your
success as well as a writer. So when
your book does come out, they're like, sis,
how can I help you? How can I
support you? And then they're sending your information
now to their people. And so it's it's
a great relationship to build and based on
trust, and and it's based on something sincere.
You know, it's not someone you want to
make a deep rooted, sincere connection with your
reader because they'll stick with you then. You
don't want the readers who are looking for
the free thing and then they leave right
after. You want them to stay stay for
the party.
I promise you, you'll have fun.
100%.
100%.
So
I think the final question, guys, really, is
what method will you use?
That's what you need to think for yourself.
Which method will you use to build your
list?
I I I do not mince my words
about this, and I make no bones about
this.
If you have a product or a service
to to offer
and you are online,
your online presence
should be building
something
that is going to be of benefit to
you offering your product or service. Right?
So many people get sucked into using social
media just as a way to just express
or show things or just have a presence.
Your presence needs to be building something for
you.
That time that you invest in creating posts
and, you know,
curating your pictures and curating your feed and
curating your feed and that kind of thing.
It shouldn't just be for the sake of
the gram, just to look good. It should
be helping you to build
what you need for your bigger impact.
That's my word on that for everyone.
Yeah.
You know, Tamkeen, thank you so much for
co hosting with me. Do you want to
add to anything before we let these good
people go?
Yeah. I just was gonna add say that,
you know, work with intention. Whether you're a
writer and whether you're marketing yourself, always have
this intention in yourself that what is it
that you are trying to achieve. If you
just want the likes and shares, then that
then this then then social media is great
for you. But if you want to be
an authentic writer, an authentic author, you want
to be taken seriously, then take yourself seriously
and put in the time and effort to
invest in that email list. And,
you know, make as well
in that end. You'll you'll feel more authentic
connection than that inshallah.
100%.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
And if you guys are interested in more
of these types of trainings, then the first
thing you need to do definitely is to
join the Muslim and Writers Academy, which is
then opened up. We've opened up the doors
for free.
So we have trainings like this in there.
And if you want a higher level of
support and networking, then you can always join
us in the Amplify,
academy or the amplify mastermind, which is for
authors who want to build their author careers.
In sha Allah. Links will be in the
description.
If not, send me a d m and
let me know. Just say amplify or academy,
whichever one suits you inshallah.
Make sure you follow sis Tamkeen on all
the platforms. And if you have not yet
subscribed to the channel, do so now.
Like this video,
share it with somebody else who needs to
hear this and we'll see you in the
next session.