Confidential. 

If I catch anyone sharing this or copying strategies outlined here, you’ll be removed from the Wolf Pack network. (And don’t assume I’ll never know, it’s amazing how often I do find out.)

Wolf Pack Marketing Co-op TOS, Info,  FAQ, and User Agreement

Est. 2016

Wolf Pack Marketing Platform Terms of Service/Use

This is for ALL PNR, UF and Fantasy. Soft Sci Fi romance or action/adventure akin to Guardians of the Galaxy would be welcome as well. (We’re probably not the place for hard SF.)

Please! No shared pen names! This platform is for individual brands.

(Co-authors are okay.)

Please feature only YOUR projects. The co-op is for YOU and YOUR books, not all your friends or something to use as a favor. We sell services to non members to help cover our costs. Giving away access for free undermines our financials. Please don’t do that.

You must actually write your books. We are not a group for publishers of ghostwritten work.

This is a LONG TERM marketing initiative (we’ve been in operation since 2016). The value builds over time so you need to be in it to win it. You are a PNR/UF/SF writer down to your soul and you’re not leaving this genre no matter what. It’s in your heartbeat. This is the ideal author for the co-op. We’re not the place for authors who are following trends…the co-op won’t deliver what trend chasers are looking for.

The other value of this co-op is we use our pooled funds to try experiments. We’ve booked ads with professional FB ad agencies, testing them out as a group to see what the ROI is. We’ve done promos with Instafreebie, had a FB chat bot and are always trying something. Because, together, we have a decent amount of cash, we can use it to buy entre into marketing ops we would not otherwise be able to access.

Our discussions in the co-op group tend to be more advanced as well. We’re more innovative in the co-op than we are in the WPP….there’s more forward thinking.

What’s Included 

Newsletter Format

See the Author Portal for the most up to date Newsletter information.

 Creating the Newsletter

Creation of the newsletter will be outsourced which incurs admin costs. The costs are deducted from the co-op’s funds. There is a limit of 2 slots per author per month to avoid eating up dues with admin fees. 

The admin ensures we have someone on duty every week so the newsletter doesn’t fall apart due to lack of volunteers. And it makes it turn key and easy for us to access it.

The newsletter goes on hiatus at the end of the year due to holidays. Our last newsletter goes out mid-December and resumes after the New Year. Other down times (like vacations frex) are announced so you know to submit in advance.

Reader Acquisition Strategy

We’ll use a combination of ads, marketing to our own readers, special boxed sets, giveaways and leveraging events like the WP Runs and Freebie Fests to acquire readers.

Costs

Costs are covered by monthly contributions. 

The  monthly fee will go toward admin costs, fees (i.e. Mailchimp),  advertising and growing the platform. Current dues are $34 per author due on the 5th of each month. First time, new co-op members pay a flat, one time fee of $100 in addition to first month’s dues.

Dues are paid Jan-Dec. Non-payment of dues as agreed upon will result in removal from the co-op and members who wish to return must pay past due amounts to be readmitted.

Extenuating circumstances (prolonged illness, hardship etc… ) will be handled with a temporary suspension of membership and access to the co-op, but dues during that time will be waived. Members who wish to return after an illness or other hardship will need to pay the month’s current dues to be reinstated. 

However, members must proactively communicate up front. It doesn’t count if you ghost, ignore our emails and suddenly then want to come back. That behavior is not going to fly.

Members who are returning after a prolonged absence and who were previously in good standing will be charged the current month’s dues to reinstate their membership. They must fill out the new member application again as well.

We will fail if we don’t all mostly show up every month and contribute. So try not to skip months.

Please don’t ghost. We want to avoid people who just don’t pay and don’t tell us what’s going on until we chase them down. Keep in mind, we are a co-op which means no one except the admin gets paid and she doesn’t get paid enough to deal with people who refuse to communicate. If you want to drop out, drop out. No one will be upset. We just need to know so we can balance the books. Repeated instances of ghosting can be grounds for removal from the co-op and refusal of re-entry should someone wish to join the co-op again. Time is precious. Don’t waste ours or yours.

Standards/Code of Conduct

Book covers must be professional quality to be included in the newsletter. Please invest in great covers! 

Please no shared pen names or ghost written work. Co-authored work is fine.

We ask authors to gift books as newsletter subscriber incentives. So far, we do freebies upon sign up. Right now these are swapped out yearly and have a very high open and click rate… greater than 50%.

Freebies used to attract readers and grow the platform need to have a four star review minimum average.

Author conduct must not harm the group or the platform. Plagiarism, known copyright infringement, hostile behavior and business practices, not honoring publishing contracts, etc… are examples of situations where a member will be removed from the platform (including the WPP and WP group).

There are no refunds. 

Authors must maintain group confidentiality. Our processes and strategies are not to be shared outside our group. No one is giving this platform money for an author to use us as a blueprint elsewhere.

If you step up to do something for the platform and don’t regularly follow through that can put your access to the platform at risk. The rules are basic but essential: Be professional and do what you say you’re going to do.

Realities of the Math

Mailing lists are tough to grow on a large scale without an equally large financial investment. This platform allows us to collectively make a bigger investment than we can make on our own.

But we still aren’t at Bookbub investment levels. 

And we will eventually run into the math of for every new subscriber we lose some. If we aren’t consistent in growing our list, eventually the rate at which readers go stale can outpace our growth.

The way we compensate for this is by consistently showing up and doing the work to grow the platform. And marketing this platform to our readers on a regular basis, funneling in just as many readers as we funnel out into our individual platforms.

Financials

Michelle Fox runs the co-op and handles the funds we collect. Our first year, we used a third party to hold our funds until we knew the co-op was going to be a thing that would last. The escrow service cost us money though, so once the co-op made it to the one year mark, Michelle Fox took over the money management to reduce our costs. 

Michelle Fox takes no profit from the dues collected and charges no fees and assumes responsibility of any tax liability, including 1099s, for the admin and book buzz team.

Should the co-op disband, any remaining funds would be spent on marketing the co-op and maintaining the platform until it can be fully transitioned over to Michelle Fox. The WP platform remains even if the co-op doesn’t. 

Current co-op members at the time of dissolution will receive free promo in the NL for six months–so long as desired dates are available and if those promo venues remain in operation. Access to the FB page and other social media properties would be removed as soon as possible.

How, why or when would the co-op disband? If we no longer have the money to sustain the platform either because membership has dropped, or we have non payment of dues to the point where it cripples our ability to cover costs. Or if the group as a whole agrees to disband. Or if Michelle Fox can no longer run the platform due to illness, death or other extenuating circumstances.

How the Platform Feeds Yours

  1. If you use FB pixels, we’ll install your code on our landing page so you can benefit from that audience. Just send it to Ronda. 
  2. Use the free book opportunities to meet new readers. (Remember if you’re the free book upon sign up, you get all those new eyeballs looking at you. If you’re that weekly freebie, you get all those readers paying attention to you.)
  3. Use the platform for giveaways that funnel people into your platform (newsletter, FB, twitter, your own storefront).
  4. Make sure you put your books in the newsletter. (Put the co-op on your advertising to-do list each month. Have a sale. Promote a backlist title. Unlike other newsletters, we don’t require free or 99c pricing. You can list a book at $3.99 or higher.)
  5. You’ll have access to the WP FB page which can be used for advertising your books (so long as FB doesn’t glitch–we have had issues there at times.). The FB audience for ads has been as big as 100,000+ readers who all like to click on our books… the conversion is awesome so far. They are a prequalified audience that converts well.  We have been shifting our efforts to grow that audience as it’s so profitable.
  6. You’ll have access to the Twitter* account and Instagram and any other WP social media properties. When there is no ability to grant direct access, there will be a way to submit content. (*Currently Twitter isn’t our focus. We have it, it’s there but it doesn’t do much. Your energy is better focused on the FB pages.)
  7. Send out swag… signed cover flats are cheap frex. Readers love it and it makes you and the co-op stand out in a crowded market. We have a roster of something like 2000 reader mailing addresses. You can go as big or small as you want with a direct mail campaign… that needs to look like swag but there’s a lot of promo we can do with swag.

The Biggest Mistake Authors Make with the Co-op

The biggest mistake we see is authors don’t use the platform. They sign up and pay, but don’t submit books or do a giveaway. Plan to sit down once a month and book a spot for something. 

Here’s a sample promo schedule for the co-op platform:

  1. Your next cross promo, submit that book to the co-op newsletter, post on FB (which autoposts on Twitter for you so make your post Twitter friendly). So, basically, use the co-op as your ‘promo stack’. (Note: Wolf Pack Runs always have a spot in the NL, you don’t need to submit your book from those.)
  2. Make sure you submit your newest release for a feature NL slot (and remember, we take ANY price. You can promo a full price book and YES people do click and buy.)
  3. Have a giveaway to funnel people from the Co-op into your platform. Harvest the readers we’re collecting and make them your newest fans.
  4. Have a sale on a back list title and sub to the NL. (Be sure to stack it with other promo!)
  5. Submit a book to the First in Freebie newsletter.
  6. Submit your permafreebies to the NL, one per week, and schedule posts for them on the FB page.
  7. Have another giveaway to funnel people from the co-op into your platform.
  8. Push your newest release.
  9. Do a short free run and submit it to the NL and/or the chatbot.
  10. Offer something new or exclusive to chatbot subscribers. Have a giveaway. Give out a new freebie. (Be sure to launch a new freebie with the bot, it’s good for a chunk of downloads.)
  11. Boost a post on the FB page. 
  12. Be one of our birthday books or part of the freebies we give new subscribers. I fill in any gaps with my books all the time and it definitely makes a difference in brand awareness and helps build up a readership…it’s just kind of slow motion and results manifest over time, definitely not flashy but effective.
  13. Run ads using the FB page audiences.
  14. Have the Book Buzz team share info on your book all over FB. (This will give you some nice incremental sales ime.) Then next month, if you don’t have a new release, have them share your freebie etc…

And so on. Keep rotating your books in and out of the platform. We don’t want repeats super close together so keep an eye on that…space it out. Try not to repeat anything for 6+ months. Don’t send us the same book over and over and over and over….you’ll get a message from Michelle Fox saying don’t do that.

The co-op requires more than just paying your dues every month, you have to work it to see any ROI. Don’t just fork over money and then not use the platform…that’s a great way to see NO RESULTS. Have a plan, work the plan.

There are absolutely members here who use the co-op to not only cover dues but turn a profit every month. We have built up the capacity to where you can get great ROI from the co-op… it’s worth it for you to figure out how to interface with the WP platform.