As you may know, I'm wildly passionate that every serious author builds his or her personal reader email list. I've even spoken on this topic with groups like the South Florida Mystery Writers of America. Your newsletter is the only marketing YOU control and easily the most powerful selling tool for authors. It can be challenging to get it perfect, though, and one of the biggest problems is finding the best way to set up and send those newsletters to your readers.
See if this sounds familiar...
Hosting my site and subscribing to MailerLite, MailChimp (etc) is EXPENSIVE. The more reader emails I gather, the more it costs me. It's like being penalized for growing. AND sometimes they try and STOP me from adding new emails at all or suspend my account!! What can I do?
HERE'S HOW TO TAKE 100% CONTROL OF YOUR EMAIL MARKETING
1. Get on your own server
If you host on GoDaddy or other popular hosts, you'll find they'll only let you send X-number of emails a day. This is what makes using services like MailChimp (etc) necessary. Unfortunately, those services might ALSO actively block you from adding emails gained through newsletter builder programs.
How are you supposed to grow effectively with everything working against you?
What every serious, in-it-for-the-long-haul author should do is host on their own server. Then, you can grow your list and season your IP until you can send thousands of emails in a day with no harmful side effects. When an email is sent, it is sent from an IP (internet protocol) address assigned to the website sending it. GoDaddy, et all use ONE IP for potentially thousands of websites, so they can’t let any one site send a ton of email for fear they’ll be blocked as a spammer by email services like AOL, Yahoo, Outlook, etc. If that IP is blocked, then NONE of the users on it can send emails effectively.
If you have your own IP, then you only need to worry about yourself.
You'd get your own IP and season it. This means you start small, sending batches of emails that won’t throw up red flags. Over time, the ISPs trust you, and then you can send as many as you like without being blocked. I send out over 300k a DAY, and my sending trust score is 97!
2. Getting on your own mailing program
Once you have your own hosting, you just have to get a mailing program that works like MailerLite and the rest of them, but that you don't have to pay for monthly orpay more and more as you grow.
There are two great mailing programs that work with Content Management systems (Wordpress and Joomla):
Mailpoet: https://www.mailpoet.com/
ACYMailing http://acymailing.com/acymailing.html
Each costs about $100 a year. I use ACYMailing to run AuthorsXP and my personal site.
HOW TO GET STARTED
As usual, doing things right requires some investment, but you'll save a lot of money over time (and grow faster and more effectively).
TO DO CHECKLIST:
- Transfer your current WordPress or Joomla site to a VPS/dedicated IP OR Redesign your site AS a WordPress or Joomla site if it isn’t already
- Installation of email program (AYCMailing or MailPoet)
- Setup of newsletter template you can use going forward to make sending newsletters easy
- Setup of signup box on your site where readers can sign up for your list
- Seasoning your IP by sending newsletters to smaller groups regularly and growing slowly
You get the techy person in your life (maybe you!) to do this, or I can do it for you. I've owned a web development firm for 20+ years.
If you don’t already have a self-hosted WordPress or Joomla-based site, we’d have to upgrade you to one of those (prices would vary based on the site size/complexity).
I’d also share with you tricks to be sure your IP is seasoned correctly and avoid issues. If you ever did get a little overzealous, I’d help you get back in business, too.
Once all that is done, you can sit back and GROW without having to worry about your newsletter again!
IN SHORT, THERE ARE TWO OPTIONS:
1. Install ACYMailing and see if it sends okay using your current host. If your list is small, you can start this way, and your hosts' restrictions on emails sent per day won't matter much.
COSTS: About $100 a year to keep the mailing program updated and a one-time setup of about $200. List growth possibly throttled by how many you can send per day based on your current web host rules.
2. Self Host. Hosting prices vary, but you can get your own VPS (virtual private server) for around $20 per month, giving you a TON of flexibility and the ability to send to your own email lists instead of using third-party mailing systems. Then, you can use ACYMailing. This hosting would probably be much faster and more secure than what you use now.
COSTS: About $100 a year to keep the mailing program updated and a one-time setup of about $400 (moving your site to the new server and setting everything up). Hosting around $20 per month. Unlimited list growth.
Everyone would need different amounts of help. Just contact me, and I can create a package just for you!
