As a new author, there are so many things to spend money on to get your books out there. Purchasing a domain name is probably not even on your radar yet. It’s something to do when you’re more established.
I’m here to let you know that the sooner you purchase your domain name, the most you’ll get out of it.
Considering that a domain name costs around $10/year (as long as you don’t buy a premium one), that small $10 can do quite a bit for you.
Lock in your pen name domain name
Whether you’re writing under your own name or a pen name, the name that you pick is now your brand. That means that people will search for it and associate you with it. That’s why making sure that you buy your domain name early in your author career is important. You don’t have to realize, three years down the line, that someone else is using the same name as you and has bought the domain name already, making it hard for you to get seen on search engines.
Take the time to research the pen name you’re going to be using as a new author and decide if you’re okay with the competition.
If you are, get the domain name! You also don’t want to realize that someone else bought it before you, and now you have to find something else.
Set up a custom email address
Once you’ve purchased a domain name that you like, you can set up a custom email address for yourself to use in your author business. This step doesn’t have to actually cost you anything.
When buying a domain name, if you pick the right company, you should be able to set up an email forward for free. That means that you can set up an email address like name@domainname.com and have it send to your personal email (like authorname@gmail.com).
With this forwarding method, you’ll be able to get emails in your main personal inbox that came from your custom email address, but note that you won’t be able to send emails from that address. You’ll only be able to receive emails.
So even though you’re not going to be sending emails from that address, it’s the one you can put as your contact email address in the back of your books and use to create your author accounts.
On top of having everything organized with that email address from the start, a custom email address also looks more professional when readers are getting in touch with you.
Use that custom email address to set up your mailing list
While some mailing list providers will allow you to use a free email address (like a Gmail or Yahoo email) when setting up your account, it’s not the optimal setup. In general, mailing list providers know that free email addresses have a tendency to be linked to higher spam, so you’ll likely be hit with your emails being sent to the spam folder more frequently.
If you use your custom email address to set up your mailing list account though, your chances of actually getting in the inbox of your subscribers is much higher.
Once you’ve set up your account to send from your custom email address, you can also make sure to authenticate your domain name to boost your deliverability even more. I’ll explain what that is and how to do it in a different tutorial.
But overall, using a custom email address for your mailing list will boost the chances of your emails not ending up in the spam folder no matter which mailing list provider you decide to go with.
Are you convinced and ready to buy your pen name? Read our “How to buy your author domain name” tutorial to get started.
Pin this tutorial!
Want to keep this tutorial handy? Pin it to your Pinterest account to have access to it at any time.
Leave a Reply