In today’s Journal
* Topic: One Alternative to TinyLetter
* Mentorships and More
* Of Interest
Topic: One Alternative to TinyLetter
I’ve been looking around at other newsletter services. I’ve found several “up there” with MailChimp with all the marketing and email-collection tools, etc. But I haven’t found even one that compares directly with the no-BS, no-frills TinyLetter.
Then a thought occurred: Most email programs enable you to create “groups” (or whatever name your email program calls them). The idea is, you can gather contacts that are interested in a particular topic into one group.
For example, you might have a group for those interested in Writing or in Ebooks (releases) or members of your Family to whom you often send the same email.
If you form groups, instead of going through your contacts and adding email addresses each time you write an email that you want to share with several contacts, you can write the email, then simply enter the name of the group in the To field, and hit Send. The email will go to everyone in the group.
For example, if I created a group called Journal, I could add each of you to that group and then sidestep the more formal newsletter enabler (currently MailerLite) altogether.
Those who prefer to receive their news via RSS could even still subscribe to the RSS feed (https://hestanbrough.com/feed).
There is only one drawback: To receive the email in their inbox, new subscribers would have to email me directly. Then I would add their email address to the group and we’d be off and running.
Finally, to ensure security for all subscribers, I’d also recommend putting your own email address in the To field of any emails you send to a group, and putting the name of the group in the BCC field. All group members would receive the email, but none of them would be able to see any of the other email addresses.
I think using a group might even avoid the possibility of a “spam” accusation, but I don’t know for sure. Overall, this might be something to think about. If anyone has more extensive experience with this, please leave a comment on the site.
Mentorships and More
To pay forward to other writers what I’ve learned, I’m happy to offer this free instructional Journal.
For those who want more directed learning, a little over a month ago I started offering a limited number of very low-cost mentorships at only $25 per month. At the moment, I can’t accept anymore Mentorship students, but I’ve added another option.
Now, while you’re waiting for a Mentorhip spot to open up or if you feel you don’t need a full Mentorship, you can get an Extended Q & A with me for $15 per month. Both options are now available on the Mentorships and Extended Q & A page.
I redesigned the page and even added a Donate button to the bottom of the page for those who want to pay one month at a time rather than subscribing.
Check it out, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
See “5 Similarities Between Your Hero and Villain” at https://killzoneblog.com/2022/09/5-similarities-between-your-hero-and-villain.html. Just in case this speaks to you.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 540 words
Writing of The Jury (novel, tentative title)
Day 1…… 2488 words. Total words to date…… 2488
Day 2…… 0789 words. Total words to date…… 3277
Total fiction words for September……… 3277
Total fiction words for the year………… 69708
Total nonfiction words for September… 3650
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 131880
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 201588
Calendar Year 2022 Novels to Date…………………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 0
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 67
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: Along with discussing various aspects of the writing craft, I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. WITD is “the only way” to write, but it is by far the easiest, most liberating, and most fun.
Harvey,
Thanks for some useful information!
Gmail might provide an answer for some folks. The Contacts function in Gmail is quite flexible, and powerful. Every contact you create is saved in a folder called Contacts. You can create labels for different groups. My Vietnam unit’s nonprofit association has a gmail account and we send email ‘blasts’ to our members. Sadly, we usually do that let people know someone has died. Gmail allows you to send a single email to as many as 500 addresses . Since we have email addresses for more than 500 guys, we created an overflow group. We simply copy and paste the same message into a new email and send it to the overflow group. We’ve created labels for other groups such our board of directors and wives/children etc of our members. As I said, all the email addresses are in the main contacts folder, but a single person can be in any of the individual groups. Someone might be in 2 or 3 or 4 of them. And you can also save snail mail addresses and telephone numbers for individuals.
Like you, I haven’t figured out the criteria for being labeled spam. Internet providers seem to have different criteria. And it is ever changing.
There are other things you can do with Gmail, but I haven’t explored much of it. They give you a lot for free, though I’m sure they are collecting lots of data.
Bob
Thanks, Bob. I think Yahoo Mail has the same or similar capability, and I’ve heard some other providers do too.