It's Time to Cull the Herd

I'm annoyingly lax about cleaning out my email inboxes. Like everyone, I get a lot of messages that I can't blame on anyone but myself. I either subscribed to a company's list because I wanted to get whatever free thing it was offering (oh, you mean like authors offering reader magnets?) and then I didn't bother unsubscribing, or I found someone's social media posts interesting and figured their newsletter would be interesting, too; except it wasn't, but now I feel guilty unsubscribing.

Google provided me with an author-specific email address as part of my Blogger website, and I use it for everything writing/marketing/industry-related. But now it's gotten out of hand. 

I advise authors to subscribe to a promo site's newsletter before purchasing an ad with them, in order to get a feel for how the company presents books to readers, learn which genres are heavily featured, and in essence just to analyze the site's marketing. I followed my own advice, of course, and now I get daily, sometimes twice daily missives from each of them. I'm never going to purchase another promo from any; the main reason being that they don't work. And now, with eyes wide open, I'm noticing the increasing desperation in their messages and offerings. 

Don't you hate neediness? I hate neediness. I don't foist my neediness on anyone; I just stew in it, like any normal, well-adjusted, low self-esteem person should. I just received one from one of the animal-named sites (baboon, chimpanzee, orangutan, gibbon) that was stuffed with coupon codes; nine of them, in fact. "No one's buying promos from us at the regular price, so how about 50% off? Would that work for you?"

Well, no, because nobody's going to buy my book whether I spend twenty-five dollars or $12.50, and either way, I'm flushing my teeny stack of money down the toilet (and I can't afford a plumber, either). 

I also had purchased a six-month promotion from a site for what I considered a very reasonable fee-- $29.00. In addition to getting a "featured book listing" on the site itself, they've been posting about my book on X weekly. Great. Guess how many copies of my novel I sold via X. I do give them credit for at least trying, but now my six months is up and they're asking me to renew. Hmmm...I'm thinking, no. If I was in a position to donate money, I'd choose the humane society or some other charity that might actually accomplish something with my dollars. 

Then there are the industry newsletters. Most of them are pretty worthless; to me, I mean. Others may find value in them, but I'm not "polishing my query" to submit to literary agents (shudder) or submitting a poem to some poetry anthology that no one reads (and why would they?) To the best of my recollection, I initially subscribed to these mailings because they once featured or linked to something interesting. It must have been a one-off, because I do open their emails faithfully and scan them, but I'm never tempted to click on any of the articles within. So, most of those need to go, too.

There's another that lists upcoming novel contests, which inexplicably interested me at one time. It was a phase--a stupid phase, a useless phase--and I've since learned my lesson about book awards. Book awards are like literary agents; they only want LGBTQ+/BIPOC/OTHER ACRONYM writers, and I don't identify as any of those. Maybe they should state that upfront, but then they wouldn't collect all those entry fees. Time to unsubscribe.

Another category is the email with links to craft tips. For a beginning writer, those could be valuable, but I've read all those tips long ago; agreed with some, discarded others. And the big reason why these don't resonate with me is that I'm not writing anymore. Even if the tips are earth-shattering, fine time to tell me now! 

I love decluttering. I once told my husband that I love throwing things away, and he kind of gave me the side eye. It's one of my all-time favorite things to do. For a brief moment, a sense of peace falls over me. But I don't ever seem to do it until things become unbearable. As a procrastinator, I tend to think about tossing for a long while before I dive in. But now, between my three main email accounts, the clutter has gotten out of hand. 

There are certain subscriptions I'll keep, not necessarily because they're valuable, but because holding onto them is self-serving. I could well run another FreeBooksy ad sometime, and I want to see that newsletter with my novel on it. Previously, I was deleting FreeBooksy's messages unopened until I received an accusatory communication from them, basically asking, "Do you want these or not?" Geez, touchy! Now I mark them as "read" first before deleting them.

And there's a book blogger who's going to review Running From Herself (for free) sometime in October or November, and I frankly want to stay on her good side, so I also mark her email reviews as "read" first.

The Fussy Librarian's author newsletter and Voracious Readers Only Writing and Publishing Report (Google doesn't show me a signup link, but it's probably on the site's authors area) are probably the best of the lot. They both include links to various aspects of writing and marketing. Both are fairly comprehensive in the articles they link to, so those I'll hang onto.

The rest of you-- it's time to bid you a fond farewell. I won't say it's been fun; the opposite of fun, actually. But I'm ready for a nice, peaceful interlude.