## Advice from StoryOrigin

He had a lot of great advice on how he has used StoryOrigin to:
1. Save a ton of time and money.
2. Find and vet reviewers for both his audiobooks and ebooks.
3. Collect useful feedback from his beta readers.

And, if you want more of his advice, check out [Dale's YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/SelfPublishingwithDale) for more advice on self-publishing.

During the timeframe that it was free, his book got thousands of downloads. Eventually, those downloads turned into over 200 reviews on Amazon ("verified reviews" - since books were "purchased" on Amazon) and Goodreads. He's got a lot of other great advice and I've created some highlights from our conversation.

## Personal Journey

I'm a traditionally published author here in the Netherlands. I've written 15 suspense novels, and I was used to just writing a book and sending that to my publisher and they did the rest. But, when I started to self-publish the translations of those books, I suddenly needed to do everything myself from the cover design and formatting to the marketing.

I've been writing for about five or six years. I picked it up as something that I enjoyed in my spare time. I completely fell in love with it. It became a daily habit to the extent that I ended up quitting my job as a lawyer to have a go at writing full time.

## Conversations with Other Authors

I recently had a great conversation with Britney Bell about:
1. Building an audience from scratch - 6,000+ mailing list sign-ups from StoryOrigin alone!
2. Working with beta readers - combining StoryOrigin Beta Copies + Kindle Vella.
3. Boosting sales with cross-promos...

I really enjoyed my recent conversation with Madison Michael about mailing lists and how she's been able to grow her mailing lists into the thousands.

## The Power of Mailing Lists

After thousands of emails to my readers, I've seen just how powerful this type of book marketing can be. And while I see many authors struggle to figure out what to write to their readers…

"The mailing list is the most valuable piece of marketing that I have even though I'm really big into Amazon ads." Why? Unlike ads, you can use a mailing list to form direct relationships with readers to:
1. Build a pre-release review team...

... I thought of burning everything I'd created. I was that frustrated. I almost called it quits in February of 2021. Then I found a trial run of StoryOrigin and was hooked... I went from less than $30 a month in royalties to several hundred a month...

... I went from 1-2 sales/month to full-time author in less than six months... StoryOrigin has been one of the most important tools in my toolbox to build a full-time author career (almost) entirely through email marketing/newsletter growth.

## Newsletter Swaps

A newsletter swap is where I will share a link to your book in my newsletter and vice versa (you include my book in one of your newsletters)...

## Challenges of Book Marketing

Book marketing is a challenge for many writers. It’s the last thing many of us want to do after spending hundreds of hours writing and editing...

## Beta Copies

A beta copy is an early version of your book that you give out to readers with the expectation that they will give you feedback on the plot, setting, characters, etc...

One frequently overlooked asset of potential interest to authors is the Amazon Associates program, also called the Amazon Affiliate program.

## Guides for Authors

Check out this in-depth guide to building a review team including how to find reviewers, collect and vet review copy requests, and automate your review team management.

Check out this in-depth guide to building a mailing list and using it to find reviewers and increase sales. This guide also walks through reader magnets, welcome sequences, cross-promotions, and all of the tools you need to get started.

It's probably been a long road for you up until this point. Congratulations, you're ready to publish your book. Now, you just need to do it the right way and before you put any money into marketing.

We've all heard stories on the love-hate relationship writers have with marketing. However, they are responsible for promoting themselves and their "babies" to fulfill their writing potential (and bring home the bacon).

## Industry Insights

In the world of Startups, Dave McClure is a boss. He's invested in 5 unicorns (a moniker for startups worth over a billion dollars), something very few people have done. Besides being famous for investing, Dave McClure is also known for a presentation he did called “SaaS Metrics for Pirates.” SaaS is an acronym for Software-as-a-Service. (Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this!)