Mailchimp no more

Today I gave up on Mailchimp.

Last night I spent two hours trying to design a newsletter. This morning I spent three more. When I tried to send it some annoying red writing told me there was default text still in it. I looked until I was blue in the face but could find no default text. I gave up. I ascribe no fault to Mailchimp in this as I am useless with all these kind of things. It’s all ‘intuitive’ they say. Clearly, I have no intuition

In the time I have spent farting about with Mailchimp I could have written a novel. And I don’t think I would sell many copies of said novel by using Mailchimp, even if I could use Mailchimp. Newsletters are the Holy Grail of self-publishing now but I have a feeling that they are overrated. I also have a feeling that readers are sick of getting them and delete them. I was never that keen on sending spam anyway.

If readers want to check out my products there are links in the back of every book. I’m on Facebook and Twitter. I have this blog and I post two reviews a month or more on good old SF Crowsnest. My stories appear in magazines. As far as putting my name ‘out there’ goes, I figure that’s enough.

Furthermore, I will save money by just having the cheap/free plans on Instafreebie and Bookfunnel, the ones that don’t collect email addresses. These sites are good for putting out previews which may tempt someone to buy the book. My Instafreebie previews link is top right of this page in case you’re interested.