Take the pain out of cross-promoting. IndyWriters will match newsletters with partners via a single link.
To gain API access, connect with Ben J. Clarke at LinkedIn.
If a writer sends a reader to another newsletter, IndyWriters will make sure she receives one in return.
It's platforms only
Not here. IndyWriters works a backend for newsletter platforms. If your platform is using us, you'll already have a cross-promotion link and a bunch of UI tools. If your platform isn't using us, bug them!
Fantastic. You'll need to reach out to Ben J. Clarke to get an API key. LinkedIn is the easiest way. In the meantime, check out the API docs.
Totally understandable, here are some FAQs:
Who will our writers be cross-promoting with? Every writer in the IndyWriters ecosystem can theoretically cross-promote with any other, regardless of which platforms they use. However, cross-promotion is restricted to newsletters that share an appropriate level of similarity.
How does IndyWriters ensure one-to-one cross-promotion? This is the tricky part. By allowing mutliple cross-promotions through a single link, ensuring that writers get one referral for every referral they generate is manageable at scale. Making sure it happens between similar newsletters is a difficult data science exercise. That data science is the core of what we do.
Is there any quality control on newsletters? I'm worried our writers will be partnered with bad actors. There is an abundance of quality control. All new newsletters are manually vetted before being allowed to receive readers, and all edits to approved newsletters trigger further vetting.
What if someone tries to game the system? By clicking their own links, for example? Like all online services, IndyWriters operates on the assumption that people will try to be naughty. As such, a range of measures are in place to guard against this kind of thing. IP addresses are logged, clicks are rate-limited, bot-detection is in place, and writers will receive information on where there new readers are coming from via UTM parameters.
Can we whitelabel these cross-promotions? Not completely. If you incorporate IndyWriters into your platform, then how obviously you declare it is beyond our control (and we're not the UI police!). When the list of cross-promotions is rendered to readers, however, that happens on our domain name. A link to your homepage will render each time.
Will this cost us anything?.. Can we charge for it? IndyWriters is free to use, and free for platforms to incorporate through the API. There are currently no monetization options - however, this is on the development roadmap.