How do authors manage contacts and reviewers?
- A CRM with status tracking: cold, warm, active, dormant.
- Quarterly check-in cadence for warm contacts.
- Launch-specific outreach pipeline: research, pitch, ship, remind, follow-up.
- Warm-list reply rate: 25-40% versus 5-15% for cold outreach.
- The CRM compounds value across launches.
Authors manage contacts and reviewers through a CRM with status tracking (cold, warm, active, dormant), a quarterly check-in cadence for warm contacts, and a launch-specific outreach pipeline (research, pitch, ship, remind, follow-up). The CRM scales the relationship; the outreach pipeline activates it per launch.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Contacts decay without maintenance. A reviewer who covered book one will not cover book three if you only talked to them at launches. Quarterly check-ins maintain warmth; launch-specific outreach activates it. Authors who do both have warm pipelines for every book; authors who do neither rebuild from scratch each time.
Chapter ii·What to include
- A CRM organizing contacts by status and category.
- A quarterly check-in cadence: send a personal note to warm contacts.
- A launch outreach pipeline with five stages.
- Personalization templates for each stage.
- A "next book" tag for repeat reviewers.
- A spend tracker if any contact comes from paid promotion.
Chapter iii·Example
A working YA author maintains 540 contacts in Notion with status updated quarterly. For each launch she pulls the 180 warm contacts (review history, MSWL match, prior engagement) and runs them through the five-stage outreach pipeline. Her warm-list review rate at launch: 38%. Book one to book four she has retained 70% of her reviewer network.
Chapter iv·Related questions
WriteLoom holds the author CRM and the launch outreach pipeline in one project — relationship state plus launch state, in one place.
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