You can use [[TinyLetter]] and [[Zapier]] to automatically email new blog posts to subscribers for free, up to a certain amount. ## Prerequisites - A public website with an RSS feed - A physical address you don't mind making public ## Set up TinyLetter Create a TinyLetter account and set up a new newsletter. ![[tinyletter-email.png]] [^backendology] Take note of the automatically generated "Send directly email address" that is obscured in yellow in the screenshot above. Sending emails to this address will start a draft of your newsletter. ## Set up Zapier Zapier is a task automation platform that integrates with many other apps to add complex logic to actions in any of them. Create a zap. ![[zapier-rss_to_email.png]] ### RSS by Zapier For the first app, choose "RSS by Zapier" and "New item in feed" as the triggering event. Enter the URL of your blog or website's RSS feed. For [[Hugo]] blogs, this is `https://domain.com/index.xml` [[Hugo#RSS|by default]]. Test the trigger and check that the RSS feed is found and displayed correctly. ### Email Next, choose an email app. Choosing Gmail (and letting Zapier connect to your Gmail account) lets you send emails from your Gmail account, but if you don't want to do that, you can also use Email by Zapier. Either way, select the app and go through the prompts to link it with Zapier (in the case of third-party email providers). When setting up the actual email, enter the "Send Directly" email address from TinyLetter in the `to:` field. The fields from your RSS fields should populate now that you've connected the RSS by Zapier app. Select the correct RSS field for each of these _email_ fields: - Subject: Title - Body Type: HTML - Body: `<h1>Title</h1>Raw description` or similar Then, test the action. ## In TinyLetter To check whether the zap worked in TinyLetter, go to Drafts. Within a minute or so, you should have a draft newsletter with the contents of your last blog post. To send it, review it and click Publish. ## In Email The test actions should have also sent you an email to let you know that a draft is waiting for you. You can reply to the email with an empty email as a confirmation, and TinyLetter will send the newsletter for you. If you want to automate this part of the process, you can set up a rule in your email provider to automatically respond to TinyLetter with an empty email. You can use conditions like the email address/domain or the subject (if you've given the newsletter subject a static part). [^backendology]: Ririe, J. (2018). _Newsletter for Hugo blog_. Retrieved in June 2021 from [Backendology](https://backendology.com/2018/08/31/hugo-newsletter/).