A short podcast interview in which Shelley Hitz interviews Susan Neal, a member of Christian Book Academy who has published eight books (first published 2016). They discuss how the academy taught Susan marketing fundamentals—funnels, creating memorable URLs for free gifts, and regular email newsletters—which helped her grow an email list of over 2,000 subscribers and develop additional products and courses. The episode closes with Susan sharing her web resources (ChristianPublishers.net and her personal site).
Questions this episode answers
Eight.
2016.
2015 to 2017.
Over 2,000 subscribers ("over the past four years, I have over 2,000 people on my email subscriber list").
ChristianPublishers.net.
Chapters
Welcome, everyone. My name is Shelly Hitz.
And I'm CJ Hitz.
And today we're featuring a Christian Book Academy member, Susan Neal. Welcome, Susan.
Oh, thanks so much for having me, Shelly.
Yes, and Susan actually joined us years ago and, you know, has, you know, gone through so much and had so much success. How many books have you written and published now at this time?
Eight.
Eight books. So wow. So exciting. And eight book babies.
Yeah. So my first one was 2016 and I was in your academy. 2015 to 2017.
Yes. And you, I think you gave birth to two of those books during that time.
Yes, I did.
And you also just really learned some basics of marketing and things that you still use today, right?
Oh, absolutely. Got very grounded. You taught me well.
So share with us some of the things that you feel that have really helped you even just developing your platform online and some of the things that you learned while you were part of the academy.
So. So I learned about the funnel, you teach about the funnel. And you need to get all the people in and go down to all the different products. And back then and 2015, when I didn't have anything, 2016, I was starting to create my products. And now I have eight books and probably four other different types of products. I have decks, I have DVDs, et cetera. So you taught me about this fun funnel and how important it is for you to get and grow your email list. So if you have a thousand readers, you taught me if you have a thousand readers who buy all eight of your books, that's 8,000 sales. Okay. So it's really important for you to start.
Connecting with your readers. So you want to create a free gift. Gift. You want the gift to just be good enough that they're going to want to give you their email address. So quizzes are excellent, checklists are excellent. And I've even gone further and created like my own and I. You've done this as well, Shelly, for some of your free gifts, like planet day, right? Planetday.com isn't that one of your free gifts or. It used to be a free gift, now it's a course, right?
Yeah, well, it's actually, yeah, it's a, it's a training course that I've done for Christian Book Academy. But yeah, I've done many different courses and different things along the ways the way too. But do you offer some courses for free to build your email list at this point?
Well, I have, I have two free gifts where I got my own URL.
Okay.
So one of them is Gluten Intolerance Quiz. Because if you're on a podcast or a recording.
Yes.
You can remember gluten intolerance quiz yes.com a lot better than. Go to susanuniel.com gluten intolerance.
Intolerance quiz.
Yes.
And so I, I use the, the own, you know, URL. You. You taught me to do that as well. You get your. You buy a domain name for your free gift, so it's easy to remember. And then with your emails, you want to connect with them with those readers. So send out at least monthly, if not twice a month to your email subscriber list. Have videos in there, have beautiful branding, and you want to give them freebies in your emails. You always had freebies. Because. Because then I'm going to want to open your email again because you're teaching me and I'm training and I'm learning and I'm not having to pay a thing. So that is so important. And so now over the past four years, I have over 2,000 people on my email subscriber list and I continue to send them emails. And so that was something. That was a basics that was really important that you taught me. And then I expanded as well and I became a health and wellness coach and I became a writer coach and I developed a course, seven Steps to Reclaim youm Health. Because I am going to make more money to support my ministry when I am coaching a client or. Or when I am selling a course. Then $3 from my book. So you taught me well. Yes.
Well, we're so proud of you. So excited for all that God is doing in you and, you know, just all of the things that are still yet to come. But if people want to connect with you, you know. Susan is also the director of C sipa, which is Christian Indie Publishers association, right? Yes, yes. But she has lots of resources for writers, but also to help you with your health. Where can people find you?
So if you want to look at Christian Indie Publishing association, go to ChristianPublishers.net and scroll down the page and there's a free gift. And it's the top 10 media. It's the top 10 items you need to include in your media kit. That's for pitching to media. So that's Christian publishers.net and then if you'd like to find me, I am at Susan U. That's the letter u.neal neal.com awesome.
Well, thank you so much for sharing. We just are so glad that we connected all those years ago and just can't wait to see what's next for you.