Announcing books to family
I have used the announce book feature a few different times, but nobody receives an email. I even sent a notification out to my other email address and never received it. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? I don’t want to make my books open to the public, but would like if my family could purchase them. Any thoughts? TIA!!
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Gooftgirl, I tried the announce book feature on myself to see what I would get. It arrived, but I didn’t realise that for a while as my e-mail app (MS Outlook) had flagged it as junk mail and moved it to the junk mail folder. My second attempt, after I had ‘educated’ outlook, worked fine. My book is not public, as it is just a trial print at this stage. .........Tony
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I think Tony’s right. I’ve used Announce to send emails to services like Yahoo Mail, GMail, Hotmail, etc. —and they all worked fine. But, depending on you and your email provider’s security settings, they might move these emails into the "spam" folder, which we unfortunately can’t do much about. All that your friends really need is the special link that’s found in the email announcement. So, if you happen to find the Annouce email you sent to yourself in your spam folder, just copy the link and email it to your friends directly.
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I just posted a new topic regarding the announcement link. I have discovered that some email interfaces don’t work with the "special link". My husband’s work email is through a application called groupwise made by Novell. Following the "special link", it was impossible to purchase a book from Blurb. My husband says that it almost never works to follow a hyperlink from an email in that (widely used) interface. I’m thinking it might be more fool proof to direct people to the Blurb bookstore, but wish it was possible to get them quickly to the right book!
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Hi macatay – A couple things to try. First, the "invitation" link is a fairly long one for security reasons (it helps those that have their books set to private stay private, while still being able to invite a select few to view it). Some email clients will cause a line break in the URL, which makes the link not work. Your husband could try to copy and paste the entire URL into his browser window and see if that works. Or, if your book is public (as I see yours is), you can simply copy and paste the "public" URL into a regular email and pass that around. To get to that URL, go to your Book Detail page (under My Books). Then, in the Privacy Settings section, click on "View how others will see your book." This takes you to the "public view" of your book – simply copy that URL and send it along to your friends and family. Your books public URL is:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/210281 Jack
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Thanks to Jack for the feedback about the invitation link. I had already noticed that the public URL is shorter, and referred my internet-shy friends and relatives to that link instead, specifying that they enter it into their browser instead of using the link from email. Blurb’s FAQ about marketing your book refers to your book’s "unique web address", but doesn’t specify what that is or how to find it. I am planning to have cards printed that I can pass out to let people know about the book. I will definitely use the "Public URL" rather than the invitation link on those cards. The Blurb interface does a good job of providing cautions for the would-be publisher who is eager to upload the book with suggestions regarding proof reading, etc. Maybe there needs to be a little more guidance about the steps necessary for announcing and marketing. After all, book sales are good for everyone!
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Great feedback, macatay. This (along with other ways for you to announce and promote your book) is something we will definitely be working on.
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