6 Ways to Screw Up a Customer Email

Do you have a customer email list? Send out a newsletter or career updates? A marketing list of people who want to know when your next book comes out?

If you don't have a mailing list, you need to work on that. Publishers love to see query letters that say "My mailing list is 3,000 verified subscribers." That should translate directly into sales.

But email lists are tricky in this day and age. Spammers have made things difficult for all of us. The rules keep changing, and more and more people use the "Report as spam" button to delete their emails. It happens to us every week.

Writers DO need to have mailing lists. But it's just as important to make sure you handle your mailing list properly.

Go here for a great post on how to send a proper follow up email to your fans.

Just do it, but do it right.

Clean up your computer!

No, I don't mean to run a cloth over the screen, although that might not be a bad idea either. The clean-up I'm talking about is on your hard drive. You're afraid to touch anything, for fear of messing it up?

No fear, PC Pitstop is here!

If you run Windows XP, run right over to Top 25 XP Super Tweaks and get your clean up checklist. Not just a checklist, they give you specific instructions on how to do each item.

Caution: If it's all Greek to you, and you don't have the faintest idea what any of that article is talking about, you would probably be better off hiring a 12-year-old to come over and do it for you. If you hire a 15-year-old, they probably won't need the checklist. They can do it from memory. *sigh*

Bottom line is, if we don't take care of our computer equipment, it will let us down when we most need it. Like when that dream agent says "If you email your first three chapters today, I'll seriously consider it."

15% Royalites on ebooks?

I think by now everyone knows that ebooks have a much higher royalty rate, because there is very little cost of production. But it seems that some publishers don't realize that we're not dumb.

Random House argues for 15% on e-books