Separate email accounts for personal and writing ? names?

[breathe]

Hi, I posted this on another writing forum and wanted FB here also..thanks.

Hi, wondering if you guys (with blogs or not , etc) keep your personal email and your "writing" email separate? For example, personal email might have family type contacts or whatever...
whereas whenever you email other writers or sites or whatever about writing...or if you join up here at these type of sites, or join up with "write on con" or "NaNo" ...or have a blog with writing stuff...do you use an alternate email address?

And if so or not...do you use gmail or hotmail? and do you use your own personal name or a "made up" like "likes2read" or whatever...

Thanks.

So, I guess I'm wondering

1) how many email accounts? One for personal/family? one for writing/submitting/contacting writers/blogging?
2) do you use gmail for each? easiest?

[Shipple]

Ok, so I personally do not keep them separate, but I could see a real case for keeping them separate.
For example:
-If you don't have a professional sounding email address, I'd start one just for writing. And, at least for queries, I'd definitely use my real name. Everything else is up to you, but if you are trying to make a name for yourself, I think it'd make sense to put your real name out there.
-If you have a very popular blog and get a lot of emails for it, you might want one just for writing.
-If you get a TON of emails (from whatever source) and want to make 100% positive that you're not going to miss the response to your query in the jumble, you might want a separate email.

And here's something interesting to know: my cousin became a fairly big YouTube phenomenon with her music. Originally she was on Facebook with her real name, but then I think she just started getting too many people who wanted to be friends with her b/c of her music, so she changed her Facebook name to something that's not her real name and, I would have to assume (although I haven't looked), created a FB with her real name for her fans. Oh, the trials of fame. Can't say I have to deal with that, although I keep hoping.

[Sanderling]

I just recently switched to two accounts to try to separate out my two personas according to my two main interests. It helps me to know what the emails are for, and make sure that important stuff doesn't get lost in the pile of Facebook notifications and blog comments and other stuff like that. (It was also supposed to help me keep on top of fan mail better, but I'm still kinda bad at that.) My husband has two, one for his freelance work (which uses his project's name) and one for personal use.

If you're not wanting to use a different name for some stuff (ie my husband with his project, or if you have a pen name for your writing), then another way to accomplish the separating of personas while still using a single account is to use a POP mail client like Outlook or Thunderbird and set up filtering options so emails get sorted into different folders as they come in according to the sender, subject line, etc.

[LurkingVirologist]

I've got three emails. My old school account that I still use (and will have access to for awhile), a hotmail account I use to register for things and therefore acts as a spam-catcher, and a 'professional' account on gmail that's based on my name, contains relevant contact information/credentials in the signature, and that I am scrupulous about not giving out to any websites not intimately related to my job. That's worked out quite well so far, and I'll probably use the professional account to query with.

[breathe]

LurkingVirologist:

Do you have family contact you via the professional account also ?

I think I might set up a
1) personal for family...so it has to be my name...but anyway...
2) writing related (contacting writers or whatever...would it be okay to comment on people's blogs with this email or is that gonna spam up the professional writing account?) ...I'd like to use my real name for that too, so that's tricky (figured i'd just use gmail for all 2 accounts).

And if I have a blog in future, i guess connect that to the writing/contacting account also....

[polymath]

I have a dozen e-mail addresses at present. Each for particular purposes. My privacy is very important to me. My public addresses I can change at will and never no mind. My personal and professional business account are my name. givenname dot lastname dot com. I'm thinking about segregating them. I own several domains, each for particular uses. One personal, one soon will be an umbrella assortment of business activities, one for writing. The domain names are unique, memorable, protected, and priceless.

[Sommer Leigh]

I keep everything on my one email. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the email I get, I can't imagine what would happen if I had to sign out and sign into a different one. I probably wouldn't.

My email is not my name because my name was already taken. When I get to the querry process, I might consider making a new email for that with something CLOSE to my name, but probably not. Right now it's tellgreatstories at yahoo. Tell Great Stories was the original name for my blog before I switched it over to Sommer Leigh a couple of years ago. I get a lot of email through my blog identity and I can't imagine trying to keep up with two different email accounts. Family and friends contact me through there too and it's never been an issue.

I think if you're going to contact industry professionals you should have a professional, or at least, not a silly sounding email name. Otherwise, it's up to you whether you want to keep them together or separate. If you're trying to hide your real identity and choose to write under a pen name, I can see a real benefit in having two separate email identities as well.

The other option is to have a "professional" email account that you forward to your regular email account. That way you get all your email in one place (if you are like me and can't be counted on to check more than one) and if you need to send an email from that persona, you can sign in then.

[trixie]

I have a work email, a friends gmail, and a writing gmail, and it's driving me nutty.

I've created a 3rd gmail for writing and friends alike, but I want to roll it all out when I have a new blog header/design.

If I had it all to do over again, I would've put more thought into my gmail account. On the other hand, I started gmail before I became "serious" about my writing, so I understand how I got to this point. But in the very near future, I will HulkSmash my gmails together, tie it to Goodreads, Twitter, and maybe even Facebook, and stop this silly switching back and forth between addresses. It's become easier since I got my iPhone, but it's still a pain.

[Mark.W.Carson]

Trixie... did you know you can sort of link the accounts? oddly, this works better on my android phone than it does on windows. I have both a personal and a writing account, and they are both under my gmail app. Changing between them is as simple as a dropdown menu.

My phone dings when either of them get email.

[MattLarkin]

Yes, I keep one personal email, and one professional one for my editing and writing work.

[breathe]

I don't know how you guys link accounts and things...

I think I'm going to keep it simple and have one for personal and one for writing contacts/writing blog (if I get blog in future).

I don't do FB or twitter and stuff anyway.

MattLarkin: Do you use that writing/editing email account also to attach to your blog? And if you comment on other writers/bloggers websites, would you punch that email name into that account?? Or is that causing one to look unprofessional or risk spam to have that account name address into others sites (i.e when commenting on others writing/blog/forum sites, you need to punch in your email address to comment).

[MattLarkin]

I don't know how you guys link accounts and things...

I think I'm going to keep it simple and have one for personal and one for writing contacts/writing blog (if I get blog in future).

I don't do FB or twitter and stuff anyway.

MattLarkin: Do you use that writing/editing email account also to attach to your blog? And if you comment on other writers/bloggers websites, would you punch that email name into that account?? Or is that causing one to look unprofessional or risk spam to have that account name address into others sites (i.e when commenting on others writing/blog/forum sites, you need to punch in your email address to comment).

The professional email account is the one you see on my website (I don't have a blog anymore, just a static website). I use that email for both my editing and writing.

If I'm commenting on other people's blogs, I use my personal email, mainly because that's the one associated with the accounts. Actually, I use my personal email most of the time; I only use the professional email because it looks more professional on a website.


I use a Mac, and both email accounts are set up to sync with Mail, a program kind of like Outlook. So, I see them all in one box, but if I reply, the reply comes from whichever account the original sender sent the message to.


It's a good idea to have an author FB page, if only so people searching for you can use it to find your website. You don't have to be super active on FB, but you probably at least want to have an account for when readers want to find more about you.

[breathe]

Hmm, things to think about I guess.
I'm only a new fish in the writing tank, so I'm not worried about being on FB and stuff like that. I'm way way way behind on technology and have no clue about them or access to them (every kind of technology and social media outlet from ipods to ipads to things) because I'm in tight finanical situation.

[lindsayB3462]

I have many emails, nearly one for every online purpose

I have the gaming one, book writing/ghostwriting one, blog or article writing, marketing, personal and even one set up just for my various social credit card processing medias. I do this only because it actually helps me stay organized and it is relatively easy because they are all on my own domain.

[Gerry22]

I have five different email accounts: my main personal account, a yahoo account for online shopping (so my inbox isn't inundated with junk mail), another yahoo account for my teaching work, a gmail addy for fitness stuff and a few other areas of interest, and another gmail account solely for writing correspondence. I've read that it's best to have your writing email address be your name (stephenking@gmail.com, for example). I didn't set mine up that way because people frequently misspell my name, but in retrospect I wish I had, as I think it looks more professional.