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Transcription:

Andrea: Hi, everyone! Welcome to the Self-Publish Strong podcast. I’m your host, Andrea Pearson. I’m joined by my husband.

Nolan: I am Nolan.

Andrea: Today is – we’re still recording a bunch of episodes ahead of time before we’re going to release them. But, today is February 5, I think?

Nolan: Sixth.

Andrea: February 6, 2018. Do you have any updates for this week?

Nolan: Work stuff that is not applicable.

Andrea: Work stuff that is not applicable. My updates are I finally started dictating the rest of The Temple of Fire, which is the third book in my Koven Chronicles series. It’s an urban fantasy series that I started, I don’t know, about a year ago and released the first book in December because the first book was part of a box set for a while. Anyway, I’m very excited about it. It’s been one of our best selling series so far, even though it’s only been out for just over a month. I’ve got the first two books out and I’m excited to get back to writing. I’ve been spending a lot of time focusing on nonfiction lately, and my body is aching for stories to be told.

Nolan: Oh, my.

Andrea: By the way, I have to tell you something funny, and our listeners might appreciate this. My mom was lamenting to a friend today that my books are so scary and she said, “I don’t know how Andrea tolerates it. They’re so scary.” I was like, “Mom, I’m the one who writes them. I know how it’s going to end up. They’re not scary to me.” Anyway, she’s been reading a lot of my books lately, trying to get caught up while she and my dad volunteer at the prison. They can’t take tablets or phones to the prison, so she brings print books instead, and it’s been fun for her, and I say that in a loose way – fun.

All right, so the motivational quote for today is by Dave Ramsey and it says, “You are the captain of your ship. Steer it.” I’ve been thinking a little bit about that. Ships move around with the water. The water takes them where the water wants it to go. Whether you are taking control or not, and, basically, you have to take control, you have to give your ship and your business purpose and direction. So take your career into your own hands. Tell your career where you want it to go, rather than being caught off guard by where you end up. Do you have any thoughts about it?

Nolan: The movie we’re going to review has a boat in it.

Andrea: It definitely does. It has a bunch of airplanes in it, too. The quote can be said about airplanes as well.

All right, so, our marketing and self-publishing tip for today. I’m actually going to talk about automation sequences. I’ll just give you the basics about them right now and then we’ll delve into each email over the next few episodes. So, an automation sequence is also called a drip campaign, an auto responder, a welcome sequence. Basically, what the purpose of it is, well, it’s what subscribers are sent when they sign up for your list. So, for the most part, they’re triggered, or it’s when you import them or add them. The majority of newsletter services provide automation and MailChimp’s is free and it’s powerful and I absolutely love it. I’ve never had any problems with it. I definitely recommend using MailChimp, but I do know that other services are just as good, especially ConvertKit and AWeber. I know – let’s see, what is it called? – MailerLite has been working on their automation to get it more