My newsletter is live and you get a free eBook of short stories for signing up.

OMG! I’ve set up my author newsletter, and it ate my brain!

All the things I read about the process made it seem easy easy. Get an emailer like Mailerlite. Combine that with InstaFreebie, and it will be a piece of cake to get some folks signed up to your newsletter. I even have a nice Gmail set up to use to communicate with folks reading my newsletter.

Then I tried to set it up, and my brain hurt.

Have you seen my brain?

Now, for a 50-something gal who spent most of her life in the theatre, I’m fairly tech savvy. The rare times I’ve gotten a virus on my computer, I’ve fixed it myself. I’ve even swapped out a hard drive on my computer before. I’ve taught myself to use programs over the years like Paint Shop Pro and Frontpage. Over the years, I’ve learned tons from Brian, who is a computer whiz.

So, I’m fairly techy, especially for a woman my age.

Then I run into something like setting up my Mailerlite, and I feel like a noob again. I have a website through WordPress and I have a Gmail, but Mailerlite wants an email from my domain. Poopyheads!

I end up having to upgrade my WordPress blog, which is fine. I probably needed to upgrade it at this point anyway. It’s been a free account for years, but it will be much easier to point people towards JulianneQJohnson.com than it was for Julianneqjohnson.wordpress.com. I simply wasn’t counting on that bill today, but it’s only 18 bucks, so why am I even complaining?

Next step was to go over to Zoho where I could set up an email attached to my domain. That involved some changing of the webpage’s DNS. I managed it, though I still don’t really even understand what DNS is. I guess I don’t need to understand it. the Zoho is free for a little user like me, so that is super cool.

The best things in life are free, after all.  Okay, so my cute bike was not free, but all the awesome rides I’ve taken are.

Then I have to verify everything with Mailerlite, which was fairly easy. Then I waited for my account to be reviewed and cleared for takeoff.

All in all, I ended up with not one, but 2 new emails, an updated fancy blog address with my own domain name, a Mailerlite account, and a slight headache. But I did it!

The fun part of my day was writing the content for my introduction email. It has some upcoming events, a book rec, and a freebie short story. It is now live, and has Magic and Mayhem, a free eBook with 5 short stories as an incentive for signing up for the newsletter.

The KS campaign for my novel Wyrd House is now over. I’m waiting, waiting, waiting to hear if it got selected, as well as preparing for launch if it has not.

To join my fancy new newsletter and get your free copy of Magic and Mayhem: Click Here!

You should get a confirmation email, and then Newsletter #1 with links to download Magic and Mayhem and a free short story.  If anyone has any trouble signing up or getting their content, let me know.  I signed up myself and did a test run, so I hope everything is working properly.