Newsletter Email Setup Guide

This site includes an email newsletter signup form that sends notifications when new blog posts are published.

Quick Setup with Buttondown (Recommended)

1. Sign up for Buttondown: Go to https://buttondown.email and create a free account
   • Free tier includes: 1,000 subscribers, unlimited emails

2. Get your username: After signing up, your username will be in your account URL (e.g., buttondown.email/yourusername)

3. Update the form: Edit _includes/newsletter.html and replace YOUR_BUTTONDOWN_USERNAME with your actual Buttondown username in two places:
   • Line 8: action="https://buttondown.email/api/emails/embed-subscribe/YOUR_BUTTONDOWN_USERNAME"
   • Line 11: onsubmit="window.open('https://buttondown.email/YOUR_BUTTONDOWN_USERNAME', 'popupwindow')"
4. Set up RSS-to-Email:
   • In Buttondown dashboard, go to Settings → RSS
   • Add your RSS feed URL: https://huntercolson.dev/feed.xml (or https://huntercolson1.github.io/ultrathink/feed.xml for GitHub Pages)
   • Configure email frequency (immediate, daily digest, weekly digest)
   • Buttondown will automatically check your RSS feed and send emails when new posts are published

Alternative: Mailchimp

If you prefer Mailchimp:

1. Sign up at https://mailchimp.com
2. Create an audience/list
3. Get your form action URL from Mailchimp’s embed code
4. Replace the form in _includes/newsletter.html with Mailchimp’s form code
5. Use Mailchimp’s RSS-to-Email feature or Zapier to connect your RSS feed

Alternative: GitHub Actions (Advanced)

You can set up a GitHub Action that:

• Monitors your RSS feed
• Sends emails via SendGrid, Mailgun, or similar service
• Requires API keys and more setup

Testing

After setup:

1. Test the signup form on your homepage
2. Publish a test blog post
3. Verify subscribers receive the email notification

Current Implementation

The newsletter signup form is displayed on:

• Homepage (index.html) - after the hero section

You can add it to other pages by including:

<!-- Newsletter Signup Component -->
<div class="newsletter-signup">
  <div class="newsletter-signup__content">
    <h3 class="newsletter-signup__title">Get notified of new posts</h3>
    <p class="newsletter-signup__description">Subscribe to get an email when I publish a new blog post.</p>
    <form 
      class="newsletter-signup__form" 
      action="https://buttondown.email/api/emails/embed-subscribe/YOUR_BUTTONDOWN_USERNAME" 
      method="post" 
      target="popupwindow" 
      onsubmit="window.open('https://buttondown.email/YOUR_BUTTONDOWN_USERNAME', 'popupwindow')"
    >
      <label for="newsletter-email" class="u-sr-only">Email address</label>
      <input 
        type="email" 
        id="newsletter-email" 
        name="email" 
        class="newsletter-signup__input" 
        placeholder="your@email.com" 
        required
        aria-label="Email address"
      />
      <input type="hidden" value="1" name="embed"/>
      <button type="submit" class="c-btn c-btn--solid newsletter-signup__button">Subscribe</button>
    </form>
    <p class="newsletter-signup__privacy">No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.</p>
  </div>
</div>