~ Initial Shock ~

It can be a shock for many when they start publishing articles online, especially when using either an article submission service or article submission software.

You submit your article, and suddenly you are flooded with emails, firstly to actually subscribe to the various mailing lists to which your articles are published, and secondly when as often as not, you start receiving hundreds, if not thousands of emails from other authors on topics you have no interest in.

~ Why submit to mailing lists? ~

Some people do actually read them, others feed the content onto their sites using various automatic methods. I actually opt to receive digests, and sometimes use the search functions in Gmail to find articles on a particular subject. It can be faster than using a tool or an article directory, especially if you use Gmail as your email client for article submissions.

There may even be some search engine benefit, but it is hard to determine the weighting applied. I have however had a "Google Alert" from an article listed in a Yahoo group in the past, so they do look at the content once in a while.

~ Initial Setup ~

I wouldn't think of using a primary email address, but you should use an email address you can check frequently for emails. Quite often you can receive notifications of your articles being used on particular websites. I strongly recommend Gmail for this purpose as it gives a lot of flexibility.

~ Step by Step ~

The following is based upon using the Article Marketer service, but applies to using most submission processes.

When you publish your first article using Article Marketer, you will initially receive a flood of emails requesting you to subscribe to mailing lists. These will be from both Yahoo and Topica mailing lists.

Article Marketer give you a "window" of 24 hrs to complete this signup process, before they start submitting your articles to these mailing lists. It is in your best interests to join every mailing list. This will maximise your article exposure, and also prevent emails bouncing in the future (Article Marketer will attempt to send your articles to lists you haven't subscribed to).

~ Yahoo Groups ~

It takes around 30 seconds to sign up to each one, thus the whole process can be completed in 20 minutes. Sometimes the mangled word "Captcha" can catch you out, but it is a painless process.

You should carefull select your mailing options. If you don't want to receive lots of emails, select the appropriate option for every mailing list.

On Yahoo the options available are as follows:-

• Individual emails - Receive individual messages.
• Daily digest - Receive a daily compilation of many emails in one message.
• Special notices - Receive only important email notices from the group moderator.
• No email - I'll read messages on the web site.

Also ensure you select the same email address for every list.

~ Topica ~

For Topica, the mailing list options are not so obvious.

Chris Ellington, the owner of Article Marketer recently came to my rescue with the following great tip. (great customer service)

Here's how you can get digests or stop those emails altogether:

* Point your web browser at: http://lists.topica.com/my

* You'll be asked to log in with your user name and password.

* Make sure the "My Lists" tab is selected.

* Change the "Delivery Method" drop down list to your preference.

If you have forgotton your password, it is easy to get a new one resent, though sometimes it can end up in your bulk/spam folder.

~ Un-Sub-scrib-ing ~ (note I don't want to un-sub-scribe, thus the formatting)

If you want maximum exposure for your articles, un-sub-scrib-ing is a very poor option. You shouldn't do it. Manage your mailing lists with the excellent tools provided, but don't use the un-sub-scribe options.

If you do seriously wish to leave a mailing list, there are 2 very clear options.

1. There is normally a link in the bottom of every email that you click to unsubscribe
2. There is normally a special email address, seperate from the email address used to send messages, that you can send an email to.
3. You can log into your account on Topica, Yahoo and Google and change your subscription options easily. (whilst this article doesn't focus on Google, this applies to Google mailing lists too)

If you really need to correspond with an author, make sure your email goes to their email address and not that of the mailing list.

Learn to manage your mailing list subscriptions before they manage you.

Andy Beard

Andy Beard has worked in Sales, Marketing and Localization for the last 15 years, primarily in the computer games industry. His blog Exploring Niche Websites gives insights into creating profitable websites on the internet.

He distributes most of his articles using Article Marketer and finds their service to be of exceptional quality and great value.