Email addresses! When was the last time you thought much about yours? Or more pertinently – when was the last time you changed yours? I suspect not for a long time. Email addresses are a bit like bank accounts – you set one up when you’re young and then stick with it for life.
Most of the authors I work with use Gmail, Hotmail or similar for their personal email accounts. Which is absolutely fine – these are perfectly acceptable when you’re emailing friends and family. Or even your agent.
However, when it comes to business – or more accurately, your writing career - there are a few reasons I suggest setting up a custom email address.
Let’s get stuck in shall we?
What is a custom email address?
First of all, let me explain what a custom email address actually is. It’s an email address that’s linked to a domain name you own.
So for example, if your website was yourauthorname.com, a custom email address would be something like ‘hello@yourauthorname.com’ or ‘yourname@yourauthorname.com’.
If you already have a website set up, you might have been offered a custom email address as part of your hosting package.
You might even have set one up through your hosting provider – which is great.
However many authors I work with haven’t got a custom email address, even though they have a custom domain name for their website.
Why custom email addresses matter
Here are just a few reasons to ditch the freebie email:
1. It shows you're serious
Whether you’re emailing a literary agent, a journalist, or a reader, your email address is often the first impression you make. A custom address signals that you’re running a professional operation, not dabbling in a hobby.
It just looks more professional to have a proper email address that’s linked to your website.
I bang on about this a lot, but I really believe authors need to treat their writing like a career. Like a proper job.
So yes, we’re freelance and quite often we work part-time, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a real job.
And real jobs use real, professional email addresses.
You wouldn’t buy a product from a company using a Yahoo email address, and – more pertinently – you probably wouldn’t want to be represented by a literary agent who used one either.
It’s a mark of professionalism, having a business email address.
And from a manifestation point of view (if you’re at all into this kind of thinking – apologies if not!) setting up a business email address for your work as an author is a way of telling the universe that you take it seriously and that you’re in it for the long-haul.
I think this is an incredibly important message to tell yourself and the rest of the world.
2. It builds brand consistency
Every interaction with your audience is a chance to reinforce your author name and website. A matching email and domain help you look polished and consistent.
3. It builds trust
People are increasingly wary of scammy-looking email addresses. A custom one just feels more credible - and makes your newsletters more likely to land in inboxes, not spam folders.
4. It keeps things organised
Using one email address for everything - Amazon receipts, newsletter signups, book club invites - gets chaotic fast. A dedicated author email helps you keep your professional correspondence streamlined and separate.
I have three email accounts – one for my author career, one for friends and family (and online shopping - hehe) and one for my web design business.
It’s important to me that these are segregated, so that I can go on holiday, for example, and switch off my web design email account, but still be able to keep in touch with friends or whatever other life admin I want to deal with on my personal account.
It’s also useful at weekends, when you just want a break from work but you’re still, um, doing online shopping.
And of course, when it comes to writing, if you have an official author email, you can use that account to chat to readers if you want to, without giving away your personal address.
Not convinced by these arguments? Then hopefully my last will persuade you.
If you want to send author newsletters, then you need to have a custom email address.
Want to find out more about how to get started with your author newsletter? Check out my free video training….
In the 30-minute video I cover the following topics:
· Why email trumps social media
· What software to use to build your mailing list
· How to get sign ups to your mailing list
· How to get even more sign ups (!)
· What to put in your author newsletter
· Technical and legal considerations
You basically can't send newsletters from any free email addresses such as Hotmail, Yahoo etc.
If you try to do this, your newsletter will most likely end up in people's spam folders, wasting all your time and hard work!
Squarespace Campaigns, which I highly recommend (more about why I use it now Mailchimp for my author newsletters here) doesn’t allow you to use any free email addresses as the address from which your author newsletters will come.
So if you want to use Campaigns and send out amazing, targeted and beautiful newsletters to your readers, that get opened and clicked on and do all the things you want them to do, you will basically have to set up a custom email address.
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How to get a custom email address
So now we’ve got that covered, how do you get a custom email address?
Let’s talk first of all about authors with Squarespace websites, because they are my tribe and this is a Squarespace specialist blog.
You are in luck! Squarespace (the brilliant service that it is) has an integration with Google Workspace which is super clever and easy to set up.
And you can control it all through your Squarespace account.
Find out more about Squarespace’s integration with Google Workspace →
As with most things in life, this is not free!
However, for £7 per month you get a custom email address plus a Google Drive (which is basically cloud storage – like Dropbox or iCloud) plus a calendar linked to the email address too.
Even better news – if you upgrade to the Business plan of Squarespace, you’ll get this email account for free for the first year.
The Business plan of Squarespace comes with some other nifty features – such as the ability to add a pop-up newsletter sign up box to your site, and an announcement bar as well.
The announcement bar is the strip at the top of your website - I have one on this website – the green bit at the top! It’s really useful for drawing attention to news or other things you might want to highlight.
And we all know how annoying pop-ups are (those little windows that ‘pop-up’ over the content of your website) but they are a really powerful tool in getting more subscribers to your newsletter, so this is another nice feature to have on your author website.
The Business plan costs an extra £5 per month, so the difference between just paying for the email vs upgrading your plan and getting the extra bits plus the free email address means I think it's worth it.
Which Squarespace plan is best for authors? →
What if you don’t have a Squarespace website?
In this case – don’t worry, you can still set up a custom email address pretty easily.
All you need to do is contact whoever provides your website domain and hosting.
This might be someone like 123 reg or GoDaddy – there are tons of providers out there.
They will be able to sort this for you, so simply get in touch with them using their support contact details, tell them you’d like to set up a custom email address on your domain, and they’ll walk you through the steps.
If you’d like someone to walk you step-by-step through setting up your author newsletter, then the DIY Author Newsletter Course is for you! →
Save 10% off your first year’s Squarespace subscription using code CHARLOTTE10
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