I get a big kick out of writing newsletters. I think they’re a fun and powerful way to connect with your readers and supporters. But, that said, I have a love-hate relationship with the services I’ve used to connect them to my subscribers. Newsletter services can be hard to use and expensive.

Recently I was writing no fewer than three newsletters crafted in two different, widely-used services. Each newsletter posed opportunities and challenges. So, if you’re thinking of doing the newsletter thing, then pull up a chair. I have some suggestions that may save you time and money. This piece tries to answer questions you haven’t thought to ask, and you can also drop me a line.

First, let me say that I’d rather use a newsletter that Facebook or other social media. Even though Facebook and social media are or can be free. They come at a cost. The old saying is true: If you’re not paying for a product, you are the product. Also, you probably have heard horror stories of Facebook suddenly blocking or otherwise pulling the plug on you. Since I tend to write silly and sometimes irreverent humor, this is a concern. It happened to me once with a satirical post about Mexico staging a pre-emptive strike on Mar-a-Lago. I thought this was hilarious, but, apparently, some algorithm didn’t. I was blocked until I removed this post, which you can still see on my website.

It’s also true that your work may not be shared with all your followers unless you fork out money to “boost” your post. So, it’s a mystery who actually will see your posting. Bad news. And then there are drive-by social media trolls who tack snarky things on your work that may or not be erasable. But the worst for me is that your cool photos are sucked into the domain of Zuckerberg. Not good.

Had enough, yet? I hope so. Because for my money, a newsletter is the way to go. But, sigh, it’s not free.

Money — Up front and monthly costs were the #1 consideration when I started on my author newsletter, and I opted for MailChimp. I was with the Chimp for a long, long time, and when I started a humor-conference website, I still opted for my favorite monkey.

But, alas, initial costs are not everything, and there’s such a thing as false economy. I’ll give a quick rundown directly.

My third newsletter was one I took over when I stepped up to be the communications director for a land trust. Their newsletter was a going concern, and it has a very beautiful design. It “lives” in ConstantContact, a service I’d heard good things about but whose price structure made me hesitate for my own publications. All this said, Constant Contact was a challenge for me. This is in part because it had so many more tools. I spent some long hours mastering them, but it was well worth the effort.

And the money thing, well… I watched my bills creep upward with MailChimp. The reason–and it seemed like a good one at first–was that I appeared to be getting more and more subscribers. But after I had crossed a couple of thresholds I was paying enough for the Chimp to be a noticeable part of my monthly budget.

This would be fine if my list had been full of actual fans. But when I did a quick check of my metrics, I realized that many were bogus, Zombie-readers. My newsletter “open rate” was stuck in the cellar. And when I decided to do something about it, I added a link to my newsletter asking my subscribers to check in. The results were bracing. Very few “got back to me.”

Sometimes the hardest part of making an important change is to be honest with yourself. I knew I needed to shrink my bloated list, but pride held me back. My “Big Numbers” were impressive, or would have been had they been real…. So, reluctantly, I decided to parse the list. And the first step was to cull the obvious frauds. The Russian subscribers were suspect. How many Ruskies like a family-friendly comedy written by a guy in Northern California? Hmm…. I had to wonder, especially when they had usernames like Hvkonthkorgkngo_173748857@Imnotfake.ru.

Right.

But I immediately ran into a problem. Long story short. MailChimp makes it impossible or nearly impossible to parse and purge your lists, especially when compared to ConstantContact. I couldn’t “dial down” my list. This was a huge hassle, and really annoying.

So, spoiler alert, I switched to ConstantContact, and you should, too. You’ll get a good deal on a small-list startup account, and then you can curate it like crazy until it grows with real users. It also has a great easy-to-use features that let you build lists of active, actual readers that you can segment and reach out to more personally.

More on that in another post. I’ll also happily give you tips on how to publish a newsletter you can be proud of. Drop me a line if you can’t wait! And, if you’ve read this far, reading this, thanks for stopping by my website! I invite you join my insiders by signing up for my author newsletter here or my humor-conference newsletter at www.thinkingfunny.com.

Now the reason I started down this path of revisiting my newsletters was so that I could offer a “read” that would delight my subscribers and also to trim the spam signups and cut costs. I think that I’ve done that.

If you like friendly comedy in the spirit of Erma Bombeck, Patrick McManus, and Bill Bryson, then do sign up here to get progress reports on my writing, snippets of “legacy stuff,” photos, sneak-peeks of bits and pieces of current projects, and more. I also will be giving shout-outs to my fav authors, too.

You can opt out any time you like, and I won’t be over-sharing or spamming. Do let me know what you think by emailing me or using feedback links in the newsletter. I’m open to beta-readers, too. I’ve found that posting my material directly on the web does not work for me. I lose the exclusivity and intimacy of readers who actually want to see the sort of writing I create, and it complicates my ability to publish in traditional or even self-publishing venues. After years of blogging, I learned in a painful manner that most publishers don’t want material that is already widely and freely available on a blog. Unpublishing does not seem to solve the problem, either. So, newsletters rock.

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Thanks in advance for your interest and suggestions. I do appreciate my beta readers and casual fans. As you may have gathered, I have various projects going at any time, and inviting people “in” actually helps me write by creating some accountability buddies.

Finally. You’ll notice I have an questions about your favorite author and your website on my signup page. Some of this is to screen spam, but I also have another purpose. If you are a writer yourself, it’s OK to list your name as your favorite author and your website as your fav website. I’ll be looking for writers that I want to read, and I’ll give you shout outs in my newsletter!

Just remember that I am into kind-comedy. When I make fun of anyone, it’s myself. So, please, don’t punch down.

And keep writing!

Yours,

Robb Lightfoot

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