In early May 2024, I discovered that the Contact page on my blog was not working properly at all. To my chagrin, since 2017 the messages of at least 17 people who tried to contact me through my blog failed to make a connection (GASP)! Why? The page on my blog where readers can write a direct message to me was broken. Why did I not know? Who should I blame?
I discovered via my web master a category on WordPress dashboard titled Ninja Forms—> Submissions that I had not checked before. Doing so now enabled me to contact each person listed since I had names and email addresses for those who inquired. The queries and requests ran the gamut:
- A reader notified me about his review of Mennonite Daughter on Books-A-Million. (Otherwise, how would I know?)
- The director of distribution for Choice Books wanted to know the name of my publisher.
- A roommate from college years wished to re-connect.
- Some wanted to know how to receive my blog posts. (Happy to help although my Welcome page extends an invitation!)
- A former student reminded me of his encounter with My Fair Lady, via Pygmalion. This is what he said:
- You were my English teacher in 12th grade at Lancaster Mennonite School. I remember reading Pygmalion as a class. I was the narrator and changed all the swear words to other more acceptable expressions. Anyway, it was fun and educational. ‘enree ‘iggins was too full of himself., and of course, I have never done that as a college physics prof.
Facebook page, 2024
Another example: More Bad to Glad:
Writers never, ever like to overlook offers to guest post on other writers’ blogs as my message to author/journalist Karen Dustman explains:
Here’s my email to Karen Dustman May 14, 2024 after reading her inquiry way back in 2019.
Hello, Karen,
Just this week I got the snafu on my blog’s contact page resolved, so I am addressing your query to me via https://marianbeaman.com in 2019 when my first memoir, Mennonite Daughter: The Story of a Plain Girl, was published. https://www.amazon.com/Mennonite-Daughter-Story-Plain-Girl/dp/1733585206/
Since then, I have also published a sequel: My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir, (2023) also with excellent reviews:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Checkered-Life-Marriage-Memoir/dp/1733585222/
You have a beautiful website and I enjoyed seeing the books you have featured. If you are still interested in an author interview, I can be reached at marianbeaman@comcast.net
With kind regards,
Marian Beaman
Her immediate reply back on May 15:
Hi Marian,
Thanks for reaching out, and how fun to know my query from 2019 finally connected with you! Congratulations on your second memoir last year, too.
As I’m sure you probably saw, I try to encourage would-be memoir writers, and provide tips and inspirational examples (like you!) of people who’ve completed their memoir. So, my big focus is always on what you learned by doing your memoirs.
I’d love to do a short profile of you for my memoir writers’ newsletter. If it’s okay, I’ll just send you a series of short questions — and I promise I’ll proof a draft of the article with you before it goes out. Let me know if that works for you!
Best,
Karen
Karen sent me a list of questions immediately, and I got busy with a reply back to her.
Karen Dustman – author, journalist, historian
Here is what readers saw on Karen’s website:
Yes, I did sell some more books thanks to Karen, but more importantly, I met someone new in the writing world and widened my circle of friendships.
Find my blog and books here
Tell us your own “bad to glad” story. Thank you!
Good morning, Marian!
I’m glad you found the problem, and I’m glad you were able to connect or reconnect with the people who contacted you. Congratulations on your interview! (I’ll go check it out now.)
Thanks for checking out the interview. Karen posed probing questions.
Yes, I found a solution to the problem, but I still find the whole scenario embarrassing, Merril! :-/
You’re welcome, Marian. We’ve all had things like that happen.🙂
Thanks for the comforting words!
You’re welcome, Marian!
Oh, Marian. What a shock to learn that requests from all the way back to 2019 remained unanswered. I’m so glad you figured that out, though, or you would have missed out on so many great reactions and opportunities for much longer. I know my contact page works, because I receive about three spam emails through it, every day! 🙂 Happy (re)connecting with new and old followers!
Liesbet, I would hate getting a bunch of spam emails through my contact page every day. It’s bad enough to contend with junk on my personal account. Yes, I’m glad I would reconnect with followers, possible only if their email addresses did not change.
I hope you are enjoying cooler weather in New England. 😀
I’m glad you have resolved those contact issues, Marian. I had something similar through Messenger, when I wasn’t being notified of some people messanging me because they were not on my friends’ list. Social Media can be frustrating sometimes.
Yes, I understand your frustration: About your Facebook Messenger snafu, probably changing your setting to “public” from “private” would make a difference. You probably figured it out by now. Thanks for commenting, Fatima. 😀
I wonder if that was my problem in making comments on your blog for awhile. I’m happy to learn about Karen Dustman too in the field of memoir.
Today I’m sniffling, not over these things but a bad cold …. (first one in quite a while). You’d think the heat would bake it out of me. Actually we had a day of respite from the heat yesterday. Anyway, nice to connect here!
I don’t think so. Commenting on my blog is entirely separate from trying to contact me within my blog. You have my email address, so you would probably not send a message through “Contacts.” The readers I described here did not have access to my personal email address.
Oh, I hope cold disappears. Nothing worse than a summer cold although it may be allergies. 😀
Marian, like everyone else, I’m glad you discovered the problem and were able to resolve it. Especially glad you met Karen. I had an incident years ago where I hadn’t realized someone was trying to contact me through Facebook. She’d left a message, but I hadn’t seen it for weeks. Finally, I contacted her and told her I hadn’t seen her first message. I didn’t want her to think I was ignoring her. It turned out that her company was looking for writers. Would I be interested in auditioning to write historical nonfiction books for kids? I said sure. Long story short, I have written several books for this company. So I went from bad to glad! 😊
It sounds like your inquirer was understanding like Karen. And you got to reap the benefits. “Several books” sounds like an amazing win. Thanks for chiming in, L. Marie! 😀
“Bad to glad” could be the most economical way to describe a lot of memoirs! Glad you overcame a technical glitch and found a new friend and helped the rest of us find another memoir expert. Huzzah!
Karen’s actions prove her worth as a friend along with her considerable writing talents. Memoir, journalism and history are all in her bag of tricks. She is a delight; thanks for noticing, Shirley! 😀
Marian, thanks for writing about your frustrations and how you resolved them. So glad you were still able to make those contacts!
The resolution seems so far away when you’re faced with frustration. I wish I could always keep in mind that things usually work out in the end. If only I could be more patient. Ha! 😀
I love to hear of a problem that has been happily resolved!
I’m glad you can rejoice with me. I have had some flubs even worse than this. I just read the wonderful story of your salvaging a choice piece from the cutting room floor. Yay! 😀
This is an excellent reminder to check our links, which I need to do. I like how you summed this up, Marian. A few sales are nice, but the real payoff is making a new writing friend.
I’m happy if your can circumvent problems on your site and learn from my oversight.
Yes, Karen in a true blue kind of friend. I plan to share this post and comments with her soon. 😀
Marian — I’m glad you could troubleshoot the issue, resolve it, and subsequently contact those who tried to contact you. Here’s to glad outcomes!
Yes, good news all around. Thanks for the cheer, Laurie! 😀
Marian, what a hassle, but I’m glad to know you were able to make some good contacts despite the snafu.
Linda, you are not daunted by challenges either, as I recall from a recent problem with your own newsletter service. It keeps us humble. Huh? 😀
I’m glad you got things fixed BUT what a shock to learn how you’d ignored people, when you’re not a person who ignores people. I’d be heartbroken. Technology is great when it works for you, not against you.
Indeed, you know that I would never, ever ignore people, especially those wanting to be acknowledged–or wanting to BUY BOOKS! Thanks for commiserating, Ally Bean! 😀
I’m so pleased you got the issue sorted out. Someone wanted to buy a set of my Amanda books and she contacted me on my Authur page on Facebook. I didn’t see it until a year later! She still wanted them.
Darlene, I’m glad you had a great outcome too and went from feeling bad to glad.
Happy travels! 😀
What a story! I can only imagine your frustration on that day you learned the Contact Me link wasn’t functioning. And that’s wonderful you chose to contact them even when years had passed. I can’t say for sure what I would have done. There’s a good chance I would have written it off as part of a learning curve. And best of all, you received some great exposure for those efforts. Yay! What a satisfying ending.
Obviously, I felt embarrassment rather than bravery at first. In fact, I felt disgusted at myself for not checking earlier. After all, if I have a “Contact” link, wouldn’t readers who don’t know my email address try to contact me at some point. Oy Vey!
Some didn’t reply back, but I heard from others, including Karen Dustman, a gem! 😀
That’s just really cool, Marian. I’m glad it worked out.
I’ve just read Karen Dustman’s review & Q&A Marian much enjoyed. What a thing to realise that there were overlooked opportunities but good on you for responding nevertheless. I remember once writing to you … I don’t recall all that well, but it seemed I was blocked from accessing your post. On another occasion I wanted to notify you about something that didn’t look entirely kosher. O well. Even as I’m about to hit the comment button I’m unsure my comment will go through!
You’re HERE! Thanks for the kind words also. I just now checked over my list of “lost” commenters from my contact page and you are not among them. That’s a good thing. As for the other time you seemed blocked from commenting, sometimes changing to a different browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.) does the trick for some odd reason.
Thanks for taking the time to read Karen’s post and the Q & A between us. I appreciate that so much, Susan! 😀
Hi,
By unexpected ways a door was opened and it remained opened until the both of you had connected.
I call that God’s way of doing things in His timing.
I am happy for you.
Shalom shalom
Thank God for open doors and you for caring enough to say so. I appreciate you too, Pat! 😀
Congrats on finding a great connection going from bad to glad. There is just too much to handle in this technology, no surprise you weren’t aware of the contact form. And look what surprises you have found there! <3
Thank you for being so understanding, Debby. I decided to share my blunder for several reasons. First of all, it’s a cautionary tale about minding one’s p’s and q’s on a blog platform. Also, I have to admit, it’s a good story. ;-D
I agree on both counts! <3
Hi Marian, its great that you got the email issue from your contact page sorted out. I had a blogger contact me a few years after I invited her to be a guest for Treasuring Poetry. I was happy to have her despite the time lapse.
PS I couldn’t see anywhere to share or comment on the interview post. I enjoyed it and you are right about timelines. It took me six years to get my latest collection of short stories ready to publish.
You are a kind-hearted soul, so of course you would understand in spite of the time lapse. Not every one else would be so obliging. Thanks for weighing in, Robbie!
About the article on Karen’s website, I think she used the newsletter format for publishing this, which didn’t provide for comments. 😀
Okay, I didn’t even know there was a newspaper format 💕. I just stick with what I know when it comes to blogging.
It’s working swell for you; don’t change a thing!
Oh the mysteries of WordPress settings! I’m glad you figured it out and were able to read the messages your readers had left years before. I love the comment from your former student 😉 I’m heading over to your interview now!
Thank you for taking the time on a national holiday to read and comment, even checking out the interview.
Ah, yes, the comment from a former student. Without the retrieval, I would never know that this student became a physic professor. Amazing! 😀
I’m glad you figured this out, Marian. How sweet to make contact even after a long pause. I’ve been struggling with a website intruder for too long. My local server is now getting help from the master server, so I hope to get this sorted out soon. Who knows what treasures I might discover?
Elaine, I’m glad you can call in reinforcements; local server and master server sound like pretty sturdy help. You and I are digital immigrants, not digital natives as the saying goes. That’s one reason we should be gentle with ourselves when it comes to technology. Hope you find treasures.
Thanks for stopping by today! 😀