Sending Your First Newsletter
Step-by-step
- Create an issue — Open Newsletter in the Desk, choose New issue, and give it a subject.
- Write or pre-fill the body — Pick a published post to pre-fill, or write in the editor. Press Preview to see the e-mail as members will.
- Choose the audience — Leave the label empty for every confirmed member, or pick a label such as early-access.
- Queue it — Press Send. The job runner sends in batches; the issue page shows sent, failed and pending counts until it finishes.
On this page
A newsletter in Inkwell is an issue: a subject, a body written in the same editor as a post, and the members it goes to. Sending is queued and batched, so a list of thousands goes out without blocking the Desk or tripping a mail provider's rate limit.
Writing an issue
Go to Newsletter and create an issue. Pick a saved post to pre-fill it, or write from scratch. Choose a label to send to a segment, or leave it empty for every confirmed member. Preview renders the e-mail with the site's name and an unsubscribe link in the footer.
How it goes out
Queue the issue and the job runner sends it in batches of fifty (configurable) through your SMTP server. Each delivery is recorded, so the issue shows sent, failed and pending counts while it runs. A failed address is retried once and then left for you to look at.
On this demo
SMTP points at an unreachable host on purpose, so you can queue an issue and watch the counts move, but no mail leaves the box. Everything else works. See members and labels for who receives it, and webhooks if you want another system told when an issue is sent.
