Mailchump (and the Nation of Honduras)

Stop the press.

It’s only on my fifth newsletter I noticed a little box has been unticked all this time. A small, insignificant tickbox, timidly asking:

“...avoid spam filters?”

I feel like this box should be louder. Or just tick itself. But no, here I am, month number 5, leaving that shiny little box abandoned and unticked since I started. Brilliant. I was even sending my newsletter to my own junkbox. I just figured that was just the way it went... And that wasn’t my only snafu I became aware of this month.

Something authors can do to build their audience is newsletter swap. “You show my book, I show yours.” It works quite well, and well over half my newsletter has been built this way. Now part of this involves a tracking link, so you can make sure your books are being clicked and you’re not just being scammed by scumbags (or as we British call them “inconsiderate swine”).

Guess who has two thumbs and didn’t use the tracking links?

Yeah, this guy. (I’m pointing my thumbs at myself)

I just used the generic links, like an IDIOT. So, not wanting to look like an inconsiderate swine, I decided to email each author just to let them know I wasn’t freeloading. At first I wondered if I should just leave it, but I decided, nope, I’d want to know, so let’s do the decent thing and apologise.

Zero replies, in case you were wondering.

So after committing the newsletter etiquette equivalent of throwing the dessert spoon at the waiter, I turned my attention to the rest of the internet. Our super shiny version 2.0 is going live in a couple of days, and I’ve been fiddling around with google analytics.

Which brings me to Honduras.

I don’t know quite what has happened, or why, but somehow last month, the nation of Honduras officially became my biggest fan. Not that they adore me and erect monuments in my honour (they might), but in that Honduras has overtaken the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, India and Thailand to take the number one spot in my google analytics by country. Now, this isn’t a couple of people. This is 800 people. Last month I got a spike in traffic from facebook, apparently, and so many Hondurans have visited my website, they are now over 50% of my lifetime audience. So in honour of my (legion of) (adoring) fans, I wanted to say:

No sé por qué estás aquí, pero estoy muy contento de que estés.

Or in English, “I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m very glad you are.”

It’s always fascinating to see the global reach of the internet, and how my little stories have been read by a person in Singapore or Barbados. My website has been visited by over 67 different countries at the time of writing, which is likely more than I can ever hope to visit in my entire lifetime.

But who knows. If Honduras keeps this up, I might have to publish my books in Spanish.

Adiós amigos!