Plugin Review: MyMail Newsletter

Well, my migration over to my website is complete! What a nightmare that was! However, it certainly wasn't because of the new newsletter plugin I installed. It was because it took me a lot of time to find a plugin that would do what I needed AND because of the other plugins that DIDN'T do the job...I was trying to fit my website to match their ridiculous structure. As I said...nightmare.

Part of the mess was the data I was trying to clean up, but if I had found MyMail Newsletter plugin before I messed with these other plugins, I wouldn't have had so much trouble!! I'm hoping that by sharing this review, you will save some time, too.

NOTE: I have a WordPress website that I host on a shared server with Pair.com hosting services. I have been using Pair since 2002 and they are, by far, THE BEST hosting service I have had the pleasure to work with. Their servers are hardly EVER down. I think in the 13 years I've been using them, my website has been down...twice? At least due to their server issues versus the times my site was down because of something I did. And when I did mess up, they were there to help. They have THE BEST customer service in the business. With all that being said, the information below won't apply to you if you use a WordPress.com public blog. You have to have WordPress the site application/platform installed on your own shared server to be able to use this information.

MyMail Newsletter - DA BOMB!!!

Buy their product HERE and I would HIGHLY recommend spending the small fee to get the plugin. It is SOOOOO worth it!!

Why do I like this plugin?

Arial's Author Toolbox

I've been doing a LOT of reading lately, but not fiction. This year (2015), I've been spending a lot of time honing my craft and doing my best to be a more efficient writer. In addition to that, I've been focusing on how to best market myself as an author.

Self-published authors - and actually most authors these days regardless of who publishes their books - have to devote a portion of their time to marketing. More and more publishers DON'T do marketing for their authors or the marketing is very broad (e.g., specials on a genre versus pushing a certain author).

So how does an author find the time to write AND market? THAT'S the big conundrum I've been putting nose-to-the-grindstone effort to find out. And guess what...you all will get to benefit from my efforts! UPDATED 2/9/16: I've just updated this post. See changes noted below. Also, though I've changed some pricing and removed other, please check pricing before you buy. They change all the time.

Summary of My Findings

There are two things an author should focus on:

1. Writing: You can't sell a product that isn't there. Never, never, never stop writing. Period. Don't be the author who puts out one book and says, "I'll see how the sales go on this one, and if it pays off, I'll write more." Stop writing right now if that's your philosophy because you will never make the sales to justify your writing. Readers won't invest in someone who's only written one book. They want to know you'll be around. AND if you write well, they'll want more and you need to be ready for that.
2. Mailing List: Bottom line - THE most important marketing effort you as an author can do is build your mailing list. Hands down, this should be the primary concern of anyone who owns a business...and we, as authors, own a business.

Honestly, that's pretty much it. It's that simple. And I, personally, think you should spend at least 75% of your time writing and 25% doing the things you need to do to build your mailing list. Be sure to check out my article series on this blog on this very topic. UPDATE: I will be publishing an article soon about some recent projects I've been doing that will help build your list faster than you thought possible.

Also, social media is not the best use of your time to generate sales. Use social media, and even ads, to direct people to your mailing list! THAT'S the best use of your money and time.

Arial's Author Toolbox

Sounds easier said than done? Not really! Not with the list of books I'm going to provide here. I HIGHLY recommend you get these books ASAP and read them all completely. Most of them are very quick reads while also being entertaining and they're VERY effective. Disclaimer: All the links below are affiliates, but if you don't want to use the links, just go to your favorite online book retailer and type in the titles yourself to search and buy them. The Scrivener link, though affiliate, will take you to the Literature & Latte site, the original distributors of the software, but you can get it at Amazon. (UPDATE 2/9/16 - Scrivener links removed. See update below.)

Without further adieu, here's Arial's Author Toolbox:

Indie Authors - Should You Publish Your Books to Audio??

I'm just gonna answer this question right off the bat: YES!

Now I'm gonna tell you...

• Why you SHOULD produce your books to audio.
• HOW to do it AND how to do it for FREE (or at least no money up front)
• When you should do it for free and when you should pay outright for the work.
• And why you shouldn't do it yourself (or how to determine if you should)

3 Dangerous Book Marketing Ideas which Drain Your Bank Account

Bookmarks...jewelry...spa items...promo items in general...

You can put your book cover or author name on anything nowadays and though these items do get a lot of attention (Who doesn't like free stuff, huh?) are they a worthy investment? Are you wasting your money on these items and not seeing a large return on sales?

Here are 3 Dangerous Book Marketing Ideas which Drain Your Bank Account...followed up by suggestions on how to better invest your money, get more attention for your books and still get the write-offs.

Ideas for Promoting a Series

As the author of the Bonded By Blood Vampire Chronicles, I've run into a few challenges with promoting the other books in my series after Book 1. The biggest challenge has been trying to get people to review the 2nd, 3rd or [insert #] book in my series when the reviewer hasn't read the previous books. Though the books in my series can be read as stand-alones, there is the over-arching storyline the reader might miss out on if they read the books out of order.

So how do you catch a reader up to the main storylines of the previous books without them having to read the books? The Synopsis!!

I know...I can hear you groaning now, but the full synopsis can be a great marketing tool! AND if you convert it to an eBook, you can send it to the reviewer with a nice cover image, your publishing and copyright information and buy links.

The Synopsis

Remember the synopsis is not the back of the book blurb. This will have the beginning, middle and end of your story. And when I mean end...I mean it needs to tell the reader how the book ends. This is most definitely the spoiler...but if you write it in a way that is intriguing, they'll want to read the wonderful details of the actual novel, which might encourage some sales. If not, they'll at least get the gist of the other books and won't be missing out when they read a book in the middle of the series.

If you're an author who has pitched the first books in your series, you may already have a synopsis, because that's probably what you submitted to the publisher. Dust that puppy off and get ready to work on a few rewrites!

However, if you're a self-published author, you probably do NOT have a synopsis for your books. As an ex-content editor for two publishers, I learned a few things about how to improve the synopsis and make it POP! As such, here are some tips and suggestions on writing or revising your summary:

Attn: Bloggers - Please Put a Search Feature on Your Site

Blogging Tip: Search Feature

This post is primarily for bloggers, but this can apply to authors, too, because they usually have their own websites and blogs as well.

I'm going to get to the point immediately: PLEASE PUT A SEARCH FEATURE ON YOUR WEBSITE or BLOG.

Why? Because the next question will be a mute point and make everyone's life easier.

Is Your Blog Easy To Navigate?

That question is SO relative, it's insane. Everyone is used to whatever websites they visit and if something isn't in the same place as the websites THEY visit, they're going to get frustrated and leave. So, you can do all the research you want to on what's commonly found on websites similar to yours--and you'd do yourself some service (and your visitors) if you did such research--but someone will inevitably have a hard time finding something on your website.

So what do you do as a fail safe for any visitor?

Include a SEARCH feature for your site. On WordPress, it should just be an easy drag-and-drop widget you can load into your sidebar. On Blogger, it's in the design section. Admittedly, I have one on this blog but it doesn't seem to be working as of late. Not sure why. I'll have to investigate, but it sounds like a Blogger.com issue, not an Arial issue.

As an author, when I've been featured on someone's blog - either a review, a cover reveal or a book tour - it is so difficult to refer people to the blog where I've been featured if all I have is the main address. Since I know many bloggers publish a lot of posts in one day, I can't expect them to put my post at the top where it's easy to find. And if I don't get the permalink for the feature, I have to go to the website and search for it...if there is a search feature. If I don't have a search feature, it's a lot more work on my end to go to Google and HOPE it shows up on the search.

If you don't have a search feature, you lose that extra traffic to your site...and isn't that part of why you're featuring an author? To drive traffic? Help yourself and do this one thing...PAH-LEEZ!

Social Media Information

PLEASE make your social media information easy to find, too. If you don't know how to create buttons for the various platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.), then you should be able to create a hyperlink easily enough. Put it on your CONTACT page or in your sidebar.

Okay, I'm done ranting.

That's my two pence...

Mailing List Plugin Review: MailPoet

I might add more to this later and give updates in my comments, but I've been playing around with the MailPoet plugin for about a week now and I have good and not-so-good things to say about it. In all fairness, I still have some comments/e-mails to the MailPoet support team and I'm waiting to hear back from them on some of my concerns, but here's my initial review of the plugin.

How To Get the Plugin

For those of you who have a WordPress website, you can find the plugin either by going to their plugin page on WordPress OR by going into the Plugins section on the admin side of your site and looking for "MailPoet". Personally, I think it's easier to install it from there.

My Initial Observations