Sunday, July 28, 2013

ROW80 Update 8 - Started a Mailing List

I had great plans for today, but I woke up two hours late.  I think I caught up on my sleep.  (BTW, I am really beginning to dislike peri-menopause.)

The progress I've made has been mostly on the swashbuckler novelette, which I've decided to publish under my own name, so I might as well give you the working title:

Feral Princess

It's a romantic adventure pastiche in the vein of Zorro and The Scarlet Pimpernel, which takes place in one of those little made up Eastern European countries, like Ruritania, Lichtenberg, or Valeria, in what seems to me to be the late 18th century.  (As it is a backward sort of place, it could be more recent.)

There's an outlaw hero running loose in the background, called Vespero (named after the Evening Star). In the meantime, the last descendant of the old tribal princes who used to rule the valley, Princess Magda, is under pressure to grow up, civilize herself and take a husband.

I suspect there will be more stories in this series -- all novelettes, though I expect to collect them into larger books too -- which I think I will call something like Adventures of the Evening Star, or something like that.

And, if you are intersted in being notified when I publish this story, you can sign up for my new mailing list.

(Okay, as the list is monthly, you'll probably find out quicker by following this blog, but still....)

A New Mailing List and Newsletter!

Folks have been bugging me to set up a mailing list to announce when new books have been published.   I finally decided to give it a try this very afternoon.  I am using MailChimp, which is recommended by a lot of writer friends.

I plan to publish a newsletter once a month, on the first of the month.  In it I will announce books I've recently published, books I expect to publish before the next newsletter, things that get published around the web, sales and prices changes.  I may also do a sum up of anything interesting from the blog.

Since this will be monthly, that means that you won't necessarily hear the very instant a new book appears -- if you are so eager you have to know as soon as possible, you have to subscribe to this blog.

Here's the link to the subscription page on Mail Chimp.

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter

I have added this link to the top of the sidebar, and will probably put a subscription form on a contact page some day.

I'll create a test run newsletter for August 1, which will list all of my current books, with links to various vendors.  If you're interested, sign up before then so we can see if the mail gets caught in your spam filter or anything.

See you in the funny papers.

6 comments:

cas webb said...

I use mailchimp too, I find it fantastic. Good luck with your new newsletter.

Unknown said...

The adventures of Vespero sound like fun!

I've heard good things about MailChimp too and it looks extremely straightforward and user-friendly.

All the best with your writing. :)

The Daring Novelist said...

Thanks, Cas and Lisa!

Kyra said...

the new series sounds fun!

I looked at mailchimp, and the problem is - and I suppose all mailing list services are like this - you have to provide a physical, meatspace address to put on the newsletters. There's no way in h3double hockey sticks I'm putting my home address on something that would get sent out to total strangers, and I can't afford to rent a mailbox. What do other people do about that?

The Daring Novelist said...

Kyra: that's what P.O. Boxes are for! They aren't that expensive, and really, for a female in this modern world, you really do need one.

Remember, if you register a domain name, you have to give an address for that too.

Think about it for future, at least.

Shan Jeniah Burton said...

OOH!

I love it any time a new idea takes off!

So happy for you - and I love the title Feral Princess.

The female lead for my Trueborn Weft series-in-progress is a shapeshifting Kaiess (The term for the inheriting princess on her world) and a seriously formidable Huntress.

For me, the problem with mailing lists is that I tend to forget I have email!

There are over 1200 messages stacked up in there right now, because I wrote 100K words for NaNo, and I am a wife and mom, and something had to give...

Anyway, I love your excitement. Write on!