This promotion from WordPress has been running on my dashboard for a while. The good news is, it doesn’t seem expensive. The bad news is, it doesn’ seem expensive. I suppose this is a good service for those who can really use it. Yet, for those of us who probably don’t need it, $3.50 a month looks quite different when I add that up to $42.00 per year.
If I’m James Patterson or John Grisham, then maybe having my entire media presence tied together makes sense. However, if I’m any of those people, I don’t really need everything tied together because nobody’s going to notice it or care about it one way or the other.
My first question to WordPress–if we were having a discussion about this–would be: “Will that $42.00 e-mail address sell more than $42.00 in books a year?”
I’ve done a lot of things that were supposed to portray me as a professional writer. My view is that most of them weren’t noticed by the people they were supposed to influence: publishers, movie studios, agents, bookstore, book distributors, and prospective readers. Needless to say, looking bad isn’t good, though looking good may not be as important as the people selling writers all these “makes you look good” services say it is.
It comes down to this: if you can afford to throw money at your book marketing, you don’t need to throw money at it. If you can’t afford it, it won’t help.
You’ve probably guessed that I’m not going to add a malcolm@malcolmsroundtable.com e-mail address to my life.
On the other hand, if you think I’m wrong about this, please send me $42.00 and I’ll give it a try.
Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of a lot of books that should be on your bookshelves.
Malcolm's Round Table 
In my experience, changing one’s email is a road to endless faffing, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I had to do it this year when my provider (talktalk, since you ask) left me without any email function for 15 days and would not answer any efforts of mine to communicate. Not. On. Email reverted to being an optional extra did it? In the middle of a pandemic? And while we’re talking providers, never have an email handle from someone who also supplies your broadband and email. Dis. Aster.
Nor ever get talked into (Amazon I mean you here) clearing cookies to ostensibly solve a problem with online ordering. It won’t – and you will be fielding and resetting lost preferences For. Ever.
Never let anything technological know you are in a hurry. And never believe The Technological Thing when it tells you this is going to save you time/money. It won’t.
Lass, ye paint a grim picture. We used to have our e-mail from the phone company and cable provider, but that was because there was no alternative. We’ve long sine dispensed with that. All this technology helps less than one might think.