Day: May 17, 2019

Don’t link to your email list provider in your books

Lynn

I’m going to sound smug for a moment, because frankly, that’s how I’m feeling right about now.

From the beginning, I’ve done everything I can to make life easier on myself, and it’s paid off in several ways in the long run.

I make all my links in my books go back to my own author website, including the link for my newsletter sign up.

Link to one of my books? It goes to my website (a page just for that book).

Link to my newsletter sign up form? It goes to my website (a page just for the form for the newsletter sign up).

This is part laziness on my part and part forward thinking. I’m always imagining worst case scenarios, and the worst thing I can imagine happening with links is some service going under and me being stuck with the task of editing who knows how many books and having to upload new files to all the distributors.

So here’s my advice to you, especially if you have a lot of books or plan to write a lot of them!

Link to your own website pages, no matter what anyone else recommends you do, or how much they swear you’ll earn more or get more subscribers or whatever.

I mean, I guess if you don’t mind the work, and doing it in a hurry too when something happens that screws up three hundred links you’ve put all over the web or inside your books and promo materials, then do what you want, but I will never recommend anyone link to anything but pages under their own control.

The end.

:-)

Mailchimp changes—read Gaughran’s post

Lynn

So day before yesterday, I spent an hour or so trying to find info on the Mailchimp changes I’d just been notified about by email.

I’m on the free plan, because my lists are tiny. Like, really super tiny, because I don’t promote them except in my books and on my websites, and I don’t do list building. (I can barely keep up my writing, so yeah.) My lists are 100% organic and I like it that way. I despise marketing, and dealing with that stuff ratchets up my stress levels to the point that I’d just as soon get another job in accounting as deal with it. At least I like accounting work!

Anyway, I had a feeling someone would put together a good post on the Mailchimp changes, and sure enough, yesterday, David Gaughran did.

Go read it if you use Mailchimp and you’re questioning what the heck they’re doing.

As for me, the first thing I did after reading the email was scoff and then tell my daughter it was obvious Mailchimp was looking for a way to inflate the numbers that they use to charge people for services. Gaughran’s post does a good job of laying it all out, and definitely supports my own view on that.

I can see why Mailchimp did it, but I still think the changes they’re making are kinda stupid. I mean, most people are going to see right through their blather about audiences and retargeting and blah-blah and see the move for what it is—an effort to offer less, earn more, and get out of the “forever free” promises they made in the past.

In all honesty, I think what it shows me is that Mailchimp can’t be trusted.

I went last night and finished up the profile I’d started with Mailerlite and got my account approved. I haven’t decided to bail just yet, but I guess I’ll have to. I have two lists, one of which has 6 subscribers (not joking!) and I’m not going to a paid plan to service that list.

I deleted my unsubscribed and cleaned emails from my main list at Mailchimp and exported it as a csv file, as I do every so often for backup, and over the next week or two I’ll figure out what I’m going to do.

Gaughran and several people in the comments of his post talk about archiving these unsubscribes, but from my reading of the Mailchimp help pages, delete works best for me. I want to be sure people’s info is scrubbed if I’m not using it, and I’m not using unsubscribed emails for any reason.

It’s pretty clear from my reading that people have the right to ask for their info to be deleted at any time, so I chose to be proactive and delete now. If I’m reading all that stuff wrong, I’ll deal with it. This is what I’d want done with my info, so I’m doing that for others.

May 1–16 progress

Lynn

I wanted to do an update here at the middle of the month because I’m transitioning from writing one book to another and that is usually where I fall behind in a month. I’m trying hard not to let that happen this time, so I’m not allowing myself days off my miracle rule right now.

Eventually, if that rule keeps working for me, I’m going to do a whole post about nothing but the rule and why it’s working so well to keep me writing.

May 1–16: 31,628 words.

That’s an average of 1,976 words a day.

I’m finally getting close to my 2,000 words a day average I’ve been aiming for since I decided that’s what it would take to make me feel prolific.

I’m not going to take for granted that I’ve had some awesome breakthrough, because it’s unlikely, but I am going to try to take advantage of my momentum and keep writing! It really is the only way to keep things going in the direction I want. :-)