Hey awesome people of The Open Mic Nation!

Long time no see!

This Summer was a bit slow (development-wise).

There are many reasons for that, but the most valid one is me being crazy busy with client work.

Which is a good thing.

I love money.

I see no shame in making money and it actually helps me feel confident and support my family.

And when I know I can support my family it makes me happy.

That’s why I always dive into work head first with every opportunity I get.

Since I’ve decided to treat The Open Mic more like an experiment I now have that much-needed peace of mind that helps me focus on work and tailor my services to the needs of my clients.

I was also feeling uninspired and decided that a change of scenery could help.

And it sure did!

We tried to spend every single weekend outside (running, swimming, beach volleyball, canoeing, trip to Bruce Peninsula, Niagara Falls and many other fun things).

As a result I didn’t spend much time here and decided to focus on the re-design of my personal website (it’s almost ready, check it out) and preparing for the second season of our talk show.

Picking up the Pace

But today I’d like to pick up the development pace with an announcement of a new little feature.

It was actually here for quite some time now, but I never had the chance to actually announce it.

From this point on every single author of The Open Mic can start growing their mailing list with the help of The Open Mic.

You can now add a signup form at the bottom of your post so that people could join your mailing list if they like your Open Mic stories.

The said form will be connected to your Mailchimp account.

Here’s how it works:

1. Fill out this form.
2. Wait till I process your request.

That’s it. 🙂

It normally takes me around 24-48 hours to process all the requests (depending on my workload).

Please note that you’ll need to have a Mailchimp account which has a pretty solid free plan.

You can register here.

Why Would I Bother with Mailing Lists?

We’re all here because we love writing and sharing our knowledge.

Yet, mailing lists feel like something from the world of marketing and bombarding everyone with spam to get more traffic to one’s website, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, it is true.

Mailing lists have quite a bad rep in many industries because people have been using them wrong.

But when done right, they can be quite useful for networking, gathering the opinion of your colleagues or asking for help.

The golden rule is: when someone joins your mailing list, they’re giving you the privilege (not the right) of sending them emails. Please, treat these people like royalty.

Cool things you can do with your mailing list:

• Create exclusive content not to be found elsewhere (this is exactly what I’ll be doing with my own mailing list when I re-launch it at some point this Fall. You can subscribe here, by the way ;))
• Run polls and ask for opinion of your colleagues;
• Ask for help or advice;
• Launch new initiatives (Did you know that The Open Mic was first shared as an idea with the awesome people of my mailing list?);
• Help other translators to learn and grow (which makes our profession stronger);
• Sell something or make announcements (but make sure first that whatever is that you’re selling has an actual value and people asked for it);

How NOT to use your mailing list:

• Drive traffic to your website (those who’re curious will always find their way to your website, don’t force people to click);
• Share same content you share everywhere (Remember: we’re talking about the most sacred place on Earth – someone’s inbox. Make sure that opening your emails will be worth it);
• Bombard your subscribers with too many goddamn emails! (once a week is more than enough, try doing it outside of office hours too);

Check out This Free Webinar

My favorite Canadian, Paul Jarvis, has a pretty awesome Mailchimp course (in case you want to take your newsletter game to a whole new level).

You can also check out this free webinar that Paul hosted a week ago with some great, no-nonsense advice on using mailing lists.

powered by crowdcast

You’ll definitely find something useful in this webinar (I know I did).

If you’d like to ask Paul questions you can also register for another webinar that will take place on September 15.

Thank You for Reading and Sharing

As always, sharing is caring!

Don’t forget to share this with your friends and colleagues.

If you’re an active author and you’re interested in growing your mailing list, fill out this short form and let me do the rest.

Thank you so much for reading!

P.S.: This is how the signup form looks like in action: