One of the most exciting facets of managing your new author website is getting to send email from your very own domain. Instead of relying on gmail, hotmail, or AOL, you can have your own custom email address with a subdomain.
Not only is this far more professional, but it is recommended if you want to connect your new website with your email marketing efforts. For example, wonderfulauthor@gmail.com certainly doesn’t have the same personal touch as jason@wonderfulauthor.com.
However, one of the trickier things about email is finding a good mail client. True, you can log-in to administer your email through the webmail system, but it is usually preferable to use a 3rd party mail system to manage your email.
So how do you know which to choose? There are tons of options out there! Not all mail clients are created equal, but some are far more popular than others. Here is a short list of possibilities to help make the process easier for you:
Mail Client Possibilities
Mac Mail
This is the most widely-used mail clients for Apple or iPhone users. Mac Mail ships with both the iPhone and most Apple products, so no downloading is necessary. In my experience if you have a Mac and you want to use a 3rd party mail client don’t even read the rest of the section. This is what to use. It is a free application that comes built-in and installed on most Apple products. Doesn’t get much simpler.
Outlook
The Windows counterpart to Mac Mail, Outlook has gone through many iterations over the years, and different versions will work with different operating systems at different levels. Nowadays you can sync your mobile device with Outlook.com, which is a cloud-based app that stores and manages your email and is quite good. You can still use the newest version of Outlook if you would like, which is the 2013 version (as of 2015). One disadvantage of Outlook is that it is not free.
Thunderbird
This is open-source email software for both Mac and Windows that is simple to set-up and has some very nice features. You can also install the Lightning add-on to go along with this application that has some nice add-ons including task management and scheduling of appointments. Thunderbird is created by the same company that is behind the Firefox browser. This will become apparent when you install the software as it uses the same tabbed browsing system in email as the aforementioned browser. Overall Thunderbird is a nice email client and tends to be pretty easy to learn.
PostBox
If you love gmail this is the best way to integrate the gmail system into a workable mail client. PostBox also integrates well with the file-storage system DropBox and has a lot of fun features. The system for organizing email is also very nice, and though it isn’t free software, it is a really good alternative to Outlook if you use Windows, though it is really built for Macs.
But What if I Like Webmail?
There is nothing inherently wrong with the Webmail system. In fact, many of our clients log-into webmail every day and use RoundCube or one of the other built-in Mail-readers that come with Webmail. However, we recommend configuring your email with a 3rd part mail client as it will allow you to more easily manage your contacts, emails, and store this information locally.
Now check out Part II of this series: setting up your new e-mail client.