Traditional Publishing
Self-Publishing
Share

Help

Tip: Use fewer keywords to narrow your results

What to do if you're not receiving your InstantAlert (Daily Alert) emails

You should first check to see if your InstantAlerts are still switched on. To check this, go to https://www.firstwriter.com/subscriber/instantalerts/index.cgi

If they are still switched on, but you're not receiving any, it may simply be that we haven't sent out any alerts matching your preferences recently. Try changing your settings so that you are set to receive all kinds of alerts: all databases; all types of material; all subject areas; all markets; and all countries. If you then start to receive alerts you know that this was the case and you can put your preferences back as they were.

Please note that we generally only send alerts on weekdays, and that during holiday periods there may be a reduced service.

If you set your preferences to receive all alerts, but after a week you still haven't received any, it probably means that your email service provider is blocking our InstantAlerts without telling you. Most service providers take steps to block SPAM email (otherwise you would probably receive dozens of SPAM emails every day), but unfortunately they sometimes mistake our InstantAlert emails for SPAM, and block them too. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to prevent this. Your options are either to wait and see if your email service provider stops doing this (it is often temporary to a greater or lesser degree), or to change your firstwriter.com account to a different email address (see "Changing your email address", below).

If you find that your InstantAlerts are switched off, but you didn't switch them off yourself, it is probably the case that we have suspended your InstantAlert service (we email you if we do this, but you may not receive the email).

InstantAlerts are suspended if our server receives a response back when we send you a Daily Alert email. This could be a mailbox over quota message; a mailbox unavailable message; a delivery failed message; or an automatic response you have set up, such as a vacation, out-of-office, or "thank you" message. It will also happen if you reply to an InstantAlert email, so make sure you avoid doing this!

If you have enabled an automatic response on your email address you will need to either turn this off or elect a different email address for use with your firstwriter.com account (see "Changing your email address", below), then reactivate your InstantAlerts (see "Reactivating your InstantAlerts", below).

If your mailbox is over quota, or experiencing other problems, you will need to first remedy these problems, then reactivate your InstantAlerts (see "Reactivating your InstantAlerts", below).

If you don't think any of the above apply, then your email provider has probably started rejecting emails sent from our InstantAlert address. This happens now and then with various email providers, and is generally temporary to a greater or lesser degree. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing how long the situation will last. You may wish to complain to your email provider about this.

The first thing you should do in this situation is reactivate your InstantAlerts (see "Reactivating your InstantAlerts", below). If the problem persists, you will need to either wait and try again later, or consider using a different email address to receive InstantAlerts (see "Changing your email address", below).

Changing your email address

To have your InstantAlerts sent to a different address you will need to change the username on your firstwriter.com account to the email address you would like to use. To do this, log into your account at http://www.firstwriter.com/subscriber and click the button to change your login details. Follow the instructions for changing your username, and make sure the email you send comes from your new address.

Reactivating your InstantAlerts

You can reactivate your InstantAlerts at any time. To do this, log into your account at http://www.firstwriter.com/subscriber and click the button to configure your InstantAlert preferences. If your InstantAlerts have been stopped you will see that you are currently set to receive no InstantAlerts. Change the configuration, ticking the boxes you would like to receive information about, and then click the "Apply and Save Changes" button at the end.

Important: Your changes will not take effect until you click the "Apply and Save Changes" button!

Ultimately, please remember that InstantAlert emails are a free optional extra and are not the main way of accessing the information provided by the subscription. The normal way of accessing the information you pay for is through the website. While InstantAlerts may be a useful convenience, we cannot guarantee that you will be able to receive them and we would advise against relying on them exclusively.

Need more help? Contact us

Share