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ILONA ANDREWS

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A Bit of Housekeeping

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This is a quick admin note to let you know that we have changed our newsletter providers. Our Blog newsletter was previously handled by Mailchimp and will now be handled by MailerLite. This decision was made for business reasons, primarily because of the way Mailchimp calculates subscribers and their constant price hikes.

FYI, if you have your newsletter with Mailchimp:

Your monthly Mailchimp bill is based on the maximum number of email contacts you have across all your audiences during your billing period. You’re charged for unsubscribed/non-subscribed contacts, but not for those who are ‘cleaned.’
Also, duplicate email addresses appearing in different audiences within your account are charged.

Chimp Answers

So, we are switching newsletters.

What do I need to do?

Nothing at all. Everything should roll over automatically. The first new newsletter should go out on February 2nd, so this Friday.

It’s now Friday and I haven’t received the newsletter!

Please check your spam folder. Sometimes you might have to add our newsletter email address to your contacts.

Please wait 24 hours after the post. We have over 40,000 subscribers, which means it’s not possible to send an email to everyone instantly. The emails are staggered over a 24 hour period. It may take a little while to make its way to you.

If you still haven’t received the newsletter, please don’t panic. We will be watching this closely and will make sure that everything is going smoothly. Please give us at least a week to sort ourselves out.

Small Snippet Bribe: Clover

“I will help, too,” Clover said. “Whatever you need.”

“This will be dangerous. You don’t have to…” I started. She was barely 17 years old and I was about to out her into a whole lot of danger.

Clover raised her chin. A determined spark lit up her blue eyes. “Do either of you know how to run a household? Where to purchase supplies and at what prices, which traders are reputable, how to balance a budget?”

“No,” I said.

Reynald shook his head. His lips curved in a small smile.

“I know the prices, so we won’t get swindled. I know the right traders, I know medicine, I know etiquette, I know how to file the right forms with the government.”

She had a point.

“If you do this, Maggie will need to look like a lady. I’m proficient in hair, cosmetics, and attire. I can dress you to the latest fashion, so you will present the impression you want to the world. I will make sure that you aren’t wearing men’s boots.”

She pointed to my feet.

Men’s boots?

“You have a huge house and no idea how to take care of it. You can’t even dress yourself properly. You need help.”

I opened my mouth. She didn’t let me get the words out.

“Maggie will be the head of the household, Reynald will be the head of household guard, and I will be the household managing maid. I’ll be staying here. I won’t let my brothers die. And I owe Reynald a debt for saving us. I pay my debts.”

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  3. Can’t wait for Maggie it sounds so good! Thank y’all for the update and the snippet.

  4. Yay snippet! Thank you!

    I have a terrible time with email, but it’s because my address has been my address since they told me – in college – that I was going to need it. I’m down to almost 35,000 messages unread! So I can’t really blame it for being occasionally persnickety.

    • I want you to know this gave me eye twitches 😀 . If I have anything in my inbox unread I cannot end the day.

    • And I thought my hubby was unbelievable at over 2000. I’m one of those who clears out my inbox daily. Everything goes into files but I do have files that are decades old.

    • I don’t bother with filing my emails in separate category files anymore. I just leave them all in my Inbox or send them occasionally to Archives, depending which email address on which program it is.

      I do delete all the junk and spam emails when I notice them. And then empty the Trash bin when it gets too full. That helps

      With Thunderbird/Mozilla when I used that email program, I could also “compact” the Inbox occasionally. This compressed all the individual email files. That reduced the amount of storage space the email program needed and also sped it up noticeably.

      There are three things you may be able do to fix your email backlog quickly (and speed up your email program), depending on which program you use:

      1. If your Inbox menu has an option to “Mark All Read”, click it. Poof! You have now magically “read” all 35,000 backlogged unread emails. You will now only get a notification for unread emails when a new one actually shows up and you should be able to handle those going forward. This should also speed up your program, because most load unread emails more actively than the read ones.

      2. Ask your program to Sort the emails by Sender rather than Date. Starting at the top, identify the Senders you don’t care about (i.e junk mail). With most programs, you can hold down Ctrl and then click on multiple emails to deal with a bunch at once. After highlighting a dozen or two unwanted emails this way, hit Delete. The entire batch disappears at once without you ever having to open or read them. You can remove a couple hundred in a few minutes this way. Do some every day and you can weed out all the crap in a few days or weeks.

      (When finished a weeding session, just switch back to sorting by Date, and you will see your newest emails first again.)

      3. Depending on the program you use, you may have an option to “compact” the Inbox. That compresses the files. If you can do a wholesale “archive” of masses of emails, that would also help. This doesn’t get rid of any emails but does help speed up the program.

      Just some suggestions.

    • Hope you don’t mind the suggestion, but you could just mark everything as ‘read’. Most email programs will do this, I think.

      I’ve taken to just nuking things on a daily to weekly basis. Leaves me with a half dozen or so daily. So happy to not be running a business!

      • Heh. I’m happy to see my brethren gathering to offer solutions. Clearly I’m not the only one who needs a “read” inbox, it makes me feel less alone 😀

    • Ericka, You have me beat! I only have 9,000+ emails in my primary Gmail, but I have 4 email accounts, one of which is AOL that I have had for well over 30 years.

      Suggestion for managing your email (what I do when I have time), delete anything more than 2 years old, then search and delete any emails from businesses/non-profits you don’t want to respond to, finally, if unsubscribe from any newsletters (not this one!) that you are not interested in any more. Of course, with 35,000 emails, it will take a while. Good luck.

      Vicky

  6. Oh thanks for the bribe! I am so ready for Maggie. But no rush Im in the middle of a Hidden Legacy re listen.

  7. Huzzah for recognition for the household managers of the world! Well, and all the other worlds. 🙂

  9. Wonderful snippet! I also really like the cup and saucer with a place mat in the picture. The blues and gold are calling to me. Usually I start craving pink fabric or yarn at this time of year! Are you working on any new projects lately? Good luck with all your endeavors.

  10. Usually I need to subscribe to author newsletters to keep up to date, but I check this blog too often anyway, so I don’t need to xD

    • +1!

      Haha, I subscribed to the HA newsletter and sometimes get email notices late, but I don’t care since I check this site almost every day!

    • Every once in a while the newsletter will pop in between blog visits and I’ll see a new post so naturally have to go right to the blog.

      It’s a good backup for busy days.

  12. Interesting about the services, a really nice snippet, and …
    I WANT THE SERVICE THAT GETS ME FRIDAY’S EMAIL TODAY!!!!!!
    How do I sign up for it?

  13. I am so very, very excited for Maggie!! Thanks for the snippet. The newsletter information is also very helpful.

    • Also, I don’t know how it works where Maggie is, but in our world, if you need shitkickers, you need men’s boots. I can’t afford bespoke, and ready made women’s just aren’t that sturdy.

      • Right?!? The owner of our local hardware store was kind enough to start stocking women’s work boots after I told him I was looking. The store called me when they arrived. I went in, took a good look, and…thanked them profusely and told them I would need to special-order men’s size 6, which they didn’t normally carry. Apparently work boot manufacturers believe women don’t do real work.

      • Actually, you can now get stylish steel-toed sneakers so it’s possible there are women’s shitkickers now available. As it happens, I’m wearing a pair of steel-toed New Balance black sneakers with hot pink accents.

      • https://www.steel-toe-shoes.com/Search.html

        I’m a women’s size 12. it’s imperative for me to get women’s width for steel/composite toed boots because when I am wearing them I am walking on things like rebar mats and rutted earth. I did a happy dance when I actually found women’s boots on that site.

        I love my kicking butt composite toed boots because they have side zippers. this means that when it’s 10 degrees F and my fingers no longer work because I had my phone out to take pictures on a site I don’t have to have enough dexterity left to deal with laces. a nice good knot and the laces are just set where they are and the boot still comes off. I also like the composite toe because it meets all the crush box requirements and has the advantage of not being a giant piece of cold transferring metal next to my feet.

        It’s kind of funny because you read a book and sometimes the protagonist will start talking about the features of their clothing. apparently I also analyze my clothing as a real life thing and just linked this up! (I do it with my favorite field coat too)

        • I wear a women’s size 11. I wear mens socks because manufacturers of women’s socks can’t seem to make large size women’s socks so the heel is actually on my heel. They feel terrible if the heel is on the sole of the foot. So glad that I figured that out.

      • Men’s shoes are wider and don’t squish my toes so I buy boys or mens. Dont know how to dress properly indeed 😛

  21. I like the bribe! Thanks for your taking care of all this trouble, sorry you have to do all this kind of stuff too..

  22. YESSSS Maggggie! And Clover has won my heart in like two seconds.

    And makes sense to switch companies with such odd… pricing decisions.

  23. Migraine killing but still check blog. Yay snippet, now away from bright light phone. Thanks for reprieve.

  24. Thank you for the lovely snippet. Also, I am listening to Graphic Audio’s Sweep of the Heart, and it is so amazing.

    I can’t wait to read Maggie!

  25. Nice! and thank you also for the snippet, but mainly for the mailchimp info, I think we use it at the office, might look into switching too.
    🙂

  30. Bribe accepted. You get a week😉. Clover is awesome! I want a Clover to manage my household.

  33. You know that moment in a horror movie when everyone watching starts to yell at the person not to do the stupid thing? Don’t go into the basement! Don’t leave the house! Look behind you! Don’t look behind you!

    I feel like the entire BDH is yelling right now: “Take Clover, Maggie!”

  34. This just makes me want to read Maggie sooooo badly. It can’t come fast enough (though it must be said that the fact that it WILL come at all is amazing and the BDH thanks you immensely for it).

    • The newsletter seasonally sends updates about new releases, appearances, and big news- if you read the blog every day, you will know about all of them, but it functions as a reminder. You can also sign up to just receive the daily blog updates, separately 🙂 https://ilona-andrews.com/newsletter/

  38. Thank you for the Maggie snippet, you are overly kind.
    Also wishing you an uneventful change-over in email services.

  39. Thank you for telling us that it takes about 24 hours to email the 40,000 subscribers. I wondered why the email
    addressed to me arrived the day after it appeared in blog.

  47. Despite being told HA is slowing down the blog, there is still an amazingly generous amount of material each week.
    Thank you! Thank you!

  49. Bribery is always appreciated! Sorry you have to deal with the hassle of changing suppliers, but it’s good to have the heads up. 😁

  52. I received the first newsletter email from the new provider without issues. 🎉

    Are there plans to include the full blog post text in future editions? I noticed the newsletter I received only had the featured image/title/excerpt/link and was curious about the change.

    Love the excerpt! (For some reason, the name Clover makes me think of horses, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why).

  53. I received this via the new method! The only feedback is that it crops the text after the first few lines, so I needed to navigate to the blog (usually I don’t have to even for long emails like the serials). This might be convenient if a post gets locked after being previously opened (the full text won’t be available).

    In any case, thank you for the snippets!! I love Clover already and how competent she is!!!

    • Also seeing the cropping.
      However, MailChimp is awful, so good trade.

      Snippet trade accepted with glee.

      I want a Clover too.

    • I saw the cropping too. I just look at the header of the e-mail instead of the body. That way if I haven’t been out to the blog (which is rare), I know to go after looking at other e-mails.

  55. Glad we got the admin out of the way. Always look for the newsletter helps settle my Friday.

    New snippet – happy dance. 💃🏻 Thank you.

    • International anti-spam laws require email newsletters to include a mailing address and a mechanism for unsubscribing in each email. I’m guessing the NY address is the address of their agency.

  57. Thanks for the new snippet 🙂

    Wondering about the new newsletter though.
    Will it always only show a few lines and not the whole post?
    I always save the snippet ones in case you tidy up the homepage 🤭

  58. I got the new newsletter! The one big difference I’ve noticed is that the old newsletter would send the entire blog post with a link. This new one sends out a preview of the first part of the post with the link afterwards.

    I am often in places with low Internet and being able to read the blog posts offline has been immensely helpful in the past. I don’t know if it’s possible, but if there is an option to adjust the way the blog subscriptions work on the new service I know I would be very happy about it! (and of course completely understand if it isn’t possible and will adjust to the new system 🙂 )

  62. About MC – for future reference, just in case: we went through the same thing when they changed how “audiences” worked. We had several, but changed to one audience with contacts having “tags”. Each contact can have multiple tags, but only one contact exists. You can send email / track/ etc. to a subset of your audience by filtering (they call it a segment) for a specific tag.

    Love everything HA and hope to be able to see you in Daytona. Thank you so much for your continued generosity!

    • I finally got around to using tags recently so +1 to Nicky’s comment.

      Checking in with people who haven’t opened emails in a while (with a “Do you still want to receive our messages?” email) also helps identify contacts who can be archived (since archived contacts don’t count against the bill).

  64. Best of luck with the newsletter move; thanks for the snippet; and I had noticed that by the time I get an email and click through to the website other people have been commenting for many hours: so, do the same people always get the newsletter first, middle or last? How is it decided? (I’m curious.)

    • A lot of the Horde stalk the blog to see if there are new posts before we even get the e-mail.

    • Hi Debra,

      Most of the first-day comments are made by people who check the blog independently of the newsletter- they just know that posts are likely to come around 11 o’clock Texas time 🙂.
      And receiving the newsletter isn’t something decided as such- no one is beloved more than others! It’s all to do with servers and protocols and out of human’s hands 🙂

  65. Understandable that you switched from MailChimp! Thanks for the unexpected snippet, I loved it 🙂

  66. Yay for the Maggie snippet! I always wonder how people are able to fit in so easily when they travel to other worlds. Now we know. Her name is Clover.

  67. I’ve been thinking of switching as well. Mailchimp is constantly pushing “new features” most of which I am not interested in or don’t matter to me with my small audience. I have a small audience newsletter and don’t send it more than about once a month so some of the price hikes haven’t affected me yet. But I did see them and geez. I looked at MailerLite and good to know which service you chose. Thanks for the info.

    Thank you also for bribery snippet! 🙂 Much appreciated.

  70. I don’t know if that blue teacup and saucer are yours or stock footage, but what a glorious color to see on a rainy Thursday morning! BDH will survive the shakeout to the new host. Thank you for ongoing snippits of this and that, I enjoy them a lot.

  71. Ooooooo I can definitely be bribed hehehehe. Not that it was necessary. I believe I like the sound of Clover!

    Charged for people who aren’t getting the newsletter. Nope! They do not know how to run an ethical business, just a sloppy price gouging one. I wonder how many customers they lose to this stupidity.

  72. Thank you for Maggie snippet. Teehee on the mens boots comment by Clover. It’s nice to read about take charge people, I’ve recently been interacting with few in that age range that make me ponder our collective future.

    Always wondered about Mail Chimp but not enough to investigate until now. The terminology is new to me. Huh on the 2019 division.

  73. I get an email alerting me to blog posts, but I don’t think I get anything else. Is there a newsletter I’m missing?

  75. I don’t know if this helps at all, but I got the new newsletter with this post at 10:24am CET. That’s 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard.

    I’m going to miss having my newsletter arrive promptly at 6pm every day with all the posts in between that and the previous dispatch.

  83. Another reminder that being an author is a business with a corresponding hat for every decision that needs to be made. Your hat closet must be gigantic after all these years of experience!

  84. Ah, that explains why trying to click through from the email newsletteris suddenly throwing up tracker warnings.
    I’ll just use the email as a reminder to check the site, I guess.

  85. Oh, Clover is so much younger than I was imagining. I like all the characters already. Can’t wait for release day!

  88. when i tried to view in browser it block it because of something present imbedded within, maybe it suspects adware? I had to forcibly override. Maybe double check everything is copesthetic

    • Hey Steve, it may be your own security and firewalls, but things will be checked and ironed out by the weekend on House Andrews’ end 🙂

  89. Tiny request! For these snippets, could the universe be listed? I’m not familiar with all of House Andrews’ books, so I’m not sure what series some of the snippets belong to.

    • Where possible, they are usually identified in the tags- which are right under the article title 🙂.
      The current snippet is from a work in progress, which hasn’t been published or even given an official title- we’ve been calling it “Maggie”. 🙂

  92. Newsletter info: cool thanks for the info
    …..
    …

    OMG a SNIPPETT…..

    MAGGIE!! MAGGIE!! MAGGIE!!!

    THANK YOU SO MUCH

  93. Thanks for the snippet!

    Also, just dropping by to provide feedback that the email version of this, and the one about the Blue Houses went to my spam folder because Google thinks they have links to websites hosting malware. The sender’s name is also showing as
    “Ilona Andrews Inc”. Before it was only Ilona Andrews. Email address also changed slightly. A bit scared to add the new email for now.

    In the meantime, I will go here weekly for updates 🙂

    • Hi Lisa,
      Just wanted to reassure you that is indeed the official newsletter- Ilona Andrews Inc is the official company name for House Andrews and the new email is also a registered one 🙂
      The malaware notice only happened on gmail domain addresses, as this post contains the link to the HGTV house and gmail does not like 3rd party links.

      • Thank you! I will whitelist the new email now. Recently, all’s good. I received the emails now in my inbox.

  94. I love it! I can already see that I will identify with Clover more than with Maggie. It looks like fun.

  95. Oh. No. I thought it was scam mail because instead of it coming from Ilona Andrews it said Ilona Andrews INC. I also got one in the same week from “old” one I guess. Anyway, I erased them right away thinking that doesn’t fool me! Oops!

  96. Tried to open latest Email but my security won’t let me. Say’s “It contains links to websites hosting malware.” Has anyone else having that problem with new mail provider??

  97. I just came across an explanation of the new Gmail quirks on of the listservs I’m on. Shall I forward it to you?

    • Better yet, here’s what I think is the relevant material.

      Google looks at the processing instructions for DMARC (e.g. p=none) but it still uses a failure as a signal of possible spam.

      From the processing headers, it looks like Google is using ARC internally. ARC is a new (2019) experimental email spec which adds some headers allowing intermediate servers like mailing lists to add information about their own SPF, DKIM, and DMARC validation. One nice thing about ARC as compared to older solutions like wrapping up the message as a MIME message/rfc822 sub-part is that it doesn’t require any extra work on the part of the receiving mail user agent. It looks like Google also recommends using it for mailing lists, as does Mailman. See https://support.google.com/a/answer/81126#arc and https://docs.mailman3.org/projects/mailman/en/latest/src/mailman/handlers/docs/arc_sign.html for their own words on this.

  99. I’m coming late to this party, because I didn’t really start to think about it until I wasn’t sleeping last night. Thank you, because it was a refreshing change from not sleeping because I can’t fix anything that’s wrong with the world and it keeps me in a state of constant guilt/anxiety/ terror. ANYWAY. I never thought about it costing you money to send me an email! I don’t need them, because I regularly check the blog. Will it save you money if I unsubscribe?

  100. good luck with finding a new home for Maggie.
    we are waiting no matter which publishing house (or self publishing) it will happen.

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