Contacts & Lists

What are Contacts?

Contacts are the people who have signed up to receive emails from you. Each contact record includes:

• Email address
• Name (if provided)
• Subscription status
• Tags and lists
• Activity history

Viewing Contacts

1. Go to Email Studio → Contacts
2. Browse the contact list
3. Click any contact to see their full profile

Contact Profile

Each contact profile shows:

• Basic info — Email, name, location
• Tags — Labels attached to this contact
• Lists — Which lists they belong to
• Activity — Emails opened, links clicked
• Notes — Your private notes
• Subscription date — When they signed up

Each reader's page

In Email Studio, contacts are called Readers. Open any reader to see everything you know about them in one place:

• Details: email, first and last name, and every reader detail you set up (like a birthday or a phone number), including ones that are still empty. Select the pencil next to any detail to change it right there; press Enter to save or Escape to cancel.
• Pen name subscriptions: whether they get emails from each pen name. You can unsubscribe them from one pen name, or resubscribe them if they asked to come back. Addresses that bounced or marked an email as spam are handled under Unsubscribes and bounces.
• Lists, tags and sequences: change their lists and tags, or start them on a sequence that is turned on for one of their pen names.
• Notes and activity: your notes, plus a timeline of emails sent, opened and clicked, signup form entries, website visits, and sequence steps.

Teammates see a reader's page, but only someone with access to all your pen names can change it.

Your own reader views

On the Readers list, choose which columns to show with the columns button, including any reader detail. Filter by status, search, or a reader detail, then save the result as a view so you can come back to it.

Finding Contacts

Search and filter your contacts:

• Search by email — Find a specific person
• Search by name — If you know their name
• Filter by tag — Show only tagged contacts
• Filter by list — Show list members
• Filter by status — Active, unsubscribed, bounced

Email Lists

Lists group contacts for organizational purposes:

• Newsletter list — General subscribers
• VIP readers — Your super fans
• ARC team — Advance readers
• Genre-specific lists — Romance, thriller, etc.

Creating a List

1. Go to Email Studio → Lists
2. Click + New List
3. Enter a name and description
4. Click Create

Adding Contacts

Contacts can be added several ways:

Signup Forms

The most common way — readers sign up through forms on your website, landing pages, or book back matter links. These flow straight into your contact list.

Manual Entry

Add contacts one at a time:

1. Click + Add Contact
2. Enter email address
3. Add name (optional)
4. Assign to lists and tags
5. Click Save

Import

Import contacts from a CSV file, whether it has fifty readers or sixty thousand:

1. Export your subscribers as a CSV from your current email platform (or download our template)
2. Go to Contacts → Import
3. Choose the pen name the contacts belong to
4. Select your file and click Import Contacts

The file uploads, then imports in the background with a progress bar. Large lists take a few minutes. You can close the window: the import keeps going, and you get a notification when it finishes. Reopen the import window any time to check progress.

• Columns: the only required column is the email address. Common column names from other email platforms are recognised automatically: Email / Email Address, First name, Last name, Name, Status, Tags, Groups or Lists, and Phone. Other columns are ignored.
• Tags and lists are matched by name on the chosen pen name and created if they don't exist yet. Separate several with semicolons.
• Status can be subscribed, unsubscribed, pending, bounced, or complained. Rows without a status are imported as subscribed.
• Automations: importing doesn't start automations. Contacts are added to their tags and lists without entering any automation (such as a welcome sequence) those tags or lists would trigger. Tick Start automations for these contacts if you do want them to enter those automations.
• Duplicates: if an address appears more than once in the file, the rows are combined: tags and lists from every row are kept, and a later row's values replace earlier ones it fills in. Re-importing a file is safe: existing contacts are updated, not duplicated.
• Limits: up to 100 MB and 250,000 rows per file. Split anything bigger into several files.
• Your file: the file you upload is kept for at least 30 days after the import finishes, then cleaned up. The contacts you imported stay.
• Errors: a bad row (for example, an invalid address) is skipped and listed with its spreadsheet row number; it never stops the rest of the file. Download the error report from the results, fix those rows, and import them again.

Managing Contacts

Editing a Contact

1. Find and click the contact
2. Click Edit
3. Update fields
4. Save changes

Adding Tags

1. Open the contact profile
2. In the Tags section, click + Add Tag
3. Select or create a tag

Adding to Lists

1. Open the contact profile
2. In the Lists section, click + Add to List
3. Select the list

Contact Status

Spam Complaints and Hard Bounces

When a reader marks one of your emails as spam, or their address bounces for good, that reader is blocked on every pen name in your account, not just the pen name that sent the email. On the other pen names they were on, they show Complained or Bounced too, and the Suppressions page for each of those pen names says the block came from another pen name. Pen names they never joined list them under Also blocked on this pen name on that pen name's Unsubscribes and bounces page, with the pen name where it happened. None of your campaigns, automations, confirmation emails or test emails will reach them, even if they are added to a list or sign up again on a form later.

A plain unsubscribe is different: it only applies to the pen name the reader left. They stay subscribed to your other pen names.

Adding a reader back

If a reader asks to get your emails again, open Email Studio → Suppressions, pick the pen name they want, find their address and click Reactivate. This lifts the block, but only puts them back on that one pen name. Your other pen names keep them off (shown as suppressed by you) until you reactivate them there too, so nobody is ever added back to a pen name without you choosing it. Only reactivate a reader who asked to hear from you again.

List Hygiene

Keep your list healthy:

• Remove bounces — Invalid emails hurt deliverability
• Clean inactive contacts — People who never open emails
• Honor unsubscribes — Never re-add unsubscribed contacts
• Update bad addresses — If someone tells you they changed email

Privacy Considerations

Protect your subscribers' privacy:

• Never share or sell your email list
• Keep subscriber data secure
• Include an unsubscribe link in every email
• Comply with GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and other regulations
• Only collect information you need

Best Practices

• Use double opt-in — Confirm subscriptions to ensure quality
• Segment from the start — Ask interests during signup
• Keep lists updated — Regularly review and clean
• Add notes — Remember details about VIP readers
• Respect preferences — If someone says email less, tag them accordingly