By Anna McCluskey on September 1st, 2023.
I majored in theatre in college, which doesn’t seem on the surface that it would be all that useful. I do not, after all, work in theatre now — I’m an author, like you.
But the life lessons I learned in theatre classes have been invaluable, and one of those is confidence on stage. And make no mistake about it — everything you do for your readers is a performance. We even refer to our readers as our “audience.”
Your subscription page can be looked at as an audition, which doesn’t need to be nearly as scary as it sounds.
I used to be utterly terrified of auditions. Looking back, it’s kind of funny — I was fine once I got the role, but auditioning was the scariest thing.
And I was not alone in this.
Day one of my Acting 2: Auditions course was filled with jittery sophomores who would absolutely have rather been learning anything else.
But something my professor said on that first day has stuck with me, even though I haven’t been to an audition in over a decade.
He asked us why we were afraid of auditions and the answers were almost entirely the same…
We were afraid of being judged.
And then he told us, with the air of someone who has heard exactly that same thing on the first day of Acting 2: Auditions for years and years, that nobody watching the audition was there to judge us.
We scoffed. That’s the entire point of an audition, right? You’re standing alone on a stage in front of a small group of people sitting in an otherwise empty auditorium, just waiting for you to fail!
No. That’s not what’s happening in an audition, and it’s not what’s happening when someone sees your subscription page. Those people out there, the ones who have clicked your link in your
newsletter, on social media, in your back matter? The ones who are studying your banner image, scrutinizing your tiers, and scanning your bio?
They want you to succeed!
They’re expecting you to be excellent. That’s why they clicked. Nobody calls in someone for an audition expecting them to crash and burn. What a waste of time that would be! They’re there because they saw your resume or your headshot and they think you might be perfect for their show.
And nobody is clicking on your subscription link because they think you’re a dud. They’re there because they’ve seen something interesting, read something amazing, and they want more!
So, remember, as you’re building your subscription, you’re not talking to strangers who don’t want to be there. You’re addressing readers who want to see you do something wonderful. They are expecting it to be as delightful as what they’ve already seen. They already know you. And they’ve clicked because they want to see more.
About the Author
Anna McCluskey is an urban fantasy and paranormal comedy author who hails from rural Oregon, where she lives with her husband and far too many pets and plants. When she is not writing, you can find her hiking, gardening, or fermenting things in her garage. She is on the SFA All-Star Team and the Event Manager for the Subscriptions for Authors Summit. You can learn more about Anna and check out her books here: https://www.annamccluskey.com