Your dashboard, explained

It’s your reader newsletter, written for you. We draft each issue in your own voice, from your own books, your Bookclicker swaps and your BookFunnel free downloads — then it lands in your inbox for you to approve. A finished newsletter instead of a blank page. See the full walkthrough →

That section is headed “My newsletter swap partners this week” — it’s a list of real, booked swaps with fellow authors, not our pick of books like yours. We deliberately don’t drop a booked swap for being off-genre — it’s a real commitment to another author and it still reaches your readers, honestly labelled as something different from your usual. Where we can, we list the closest-to-your-genre swaps first. If a swap ever looks wrong for a reason other than genre (a broken link, the wrong book, anything that reads as unsafe or off), use Report a swap that went wrong or reply to any Perfect Year email.

Every book link in your newsletter — your own book, a series-mate’s, or a swap partner’s — is wrapped in a short go.perfectyearhq.com link before it reaches your readers. Nothing changes for the reader: it sends them straight to the right Amazon store for wherever they live, exactly as a direct link would. It just lets Perfect Year quietly count how many clicks each link gets, the same way it already does for swap-partner links. No personal reader data (name, email, location) is stored in the link itself — it’s a short code that points to the real book behind the scenes. One extra note for swap partners: if a partner’s own link carries their own Amazon affiliate tag, that tag comes through untouched — we still quietly count that a reader clicked, but we never rewrite or replace the destination a partner gave us, so their own affiliate credit keeps applying to clicks from your newsletter.

We show up to 8 swap-partner books per letter, honestly labelled “My newsletter swap partners this week” — that heading only ever lists what’s actually in that issue, never a running total. If you’ve got more than 8 booked for a given week, the rest aren’t dropped — they roll into the following week’s letter, oldest booking first, so every swap you’ve committed to still ships. A swap booked for a specific date is always included in that week’s letter, even if it pushes the count past 8.

Yes. Once you have more than a few pen names, a search box and pin/group controls appear above the pen switcher in HQ. Type to filter, tap the pin icon to bring a favourite to the front, or group related pens together. This is saved on this device only — it won’t follow you to your phone or another browser.

If you write under more than one pen name, the Plan tab’s “Next up” panel shows just the first few items plus a “Show all” link, instead of stacking every pen’s items above the calendar grid. Nothing is missing — tap Show all to see the complete list.

Yes. Open the Loop tab — “Your pens” lets you pause or resume any single pen’s newsletter with one tap; it never touches any other pen’s approvals, swaps or voice. You can do the same thing by asking the Strategist chat in plain words (“Pause the newsletter for Lucy for now”) — it still asks for your confirmation first. The “Due this week” card on the same tab lists everything due across every pen name in one place, so you don’t need to check each pen separately. And if you approve more than one pen’s issue in the same action, a confirm step names how many issues are about to go out before anything is scheduled — tap Confirm to proceed, or back out.

On the pricing page, tapping a plan first opens a short page that offers an optional email address — “in case checkout doesn’t finish”. It’s not for our marketing list, just a one-time nudge if you get interrupted partway through. Leave it blank and tap Skip any time to land on the same Stripe checkout. Pressing Escape does the same thing — unless you’ve typed an email and ticked the consent box, in which case the first Escape just moves focus to Continue and shows a note (nothing is sent yet); press Escape again, or tap Skip, to go straight to checkout without saving it. Either way nothing is ever captured without your typed-and-ticked consent, and payment is never delayed or blocked. Stripe itself is always the secure checkout — this page never asks for card details.

Nothing — it’s free to switch on. There’s no charge and no add-on to buy. Turn it on for any pen name whenever you like.

Never. Every issue comes to your inbox to approve first — nothing is ever sent to your readers without your yes. You’re always the last word.

Three ways — whichever suits you:

1. We draft it straight into your own MailerLite, Kit or Mailchimp. Already on one of these? Connect it once and we draft each approved issue into your account, pinned to the readers you picked — ready for you to send. How to connect →

2. Copy the HTML into any mailer. On Substack or another tool? Copy the finished HTML straight into it.

3. No list yet? Start free with MailerLite. We’ll help you get going with a free MailerLite account so you have somewhere to send. Start free with MailerLite →

Signing & from-address: your letter is signed with the sender name you set in Your setup, and when you send through your connected email tool (MailerLite, Kit or Mailchimp) it goes from the sender email you set there — use one you’ve verified with that tool, since that’s the only kind it will send from. Today you approve every issue — nothing goes out on its own. When your pen sends through MailerLite you also choose which reader list your letter goes to: we pre-suggest the list from your account so you just confirm it, and you can pick a different one any time. Once a pen is set to send via MailerLite, has a verified sender email and a chosen reader list, Loop can send each issue you’ve approved straight to that list for you — but only after you approve it. You can always send it yourself or copy the HTML instead, and copy-HTML pens don’t need a reader list.

Yes — and it’s your choice how you want it. Loop can draft each issue straight into your own MailerLite, Kit or Mailchimp, ready for you to read and approve; or you can copy the finished HTML into any mailer yourself — that’s a first-class way to use Loop too, with nothing to set up. Whichever you pick, nothing is ever sent without your approval, and automatic sending stays off until you’re ready. Setting up a draft-into connection takes about ten minutes, once.

In your HQ, go to Your setup → Newsletter and pick Kit. Then give us a key so we can draft into your account: in Kit, open Settings → Developer and create a V4 API key, then paste it back into Perfect Year. You paste it once — it’s encrypted straight into our vault and we never see it again. Your status shows In progress, then Connected within a few minutes. Last, pick the one tag or segment of readers this pen’s letter should go to, and confirm your sending address in Kit (Settings → Email). That’s it — we’ll draft each issue for you to approve.

In your HQ, go to Your setup → Newsletter and pick Mailchimp. Then create a key so we can draft into your account: in Mailchimp, open Account & billing → Extras → API keys and create a key, then paste it back into Perfect Year. Your key ends with something like “-us18” — that just tells us which Mailchimp data-centre your account is on, nothing for you to do. You paste it once; it’s encrypted straight into our vault and we never see it again. Status shows In progress, then Connected within a few minutes. Last, choose your audience (your Mailchimp list) and then one segment inside it for this pen, and authenticate your sending domain in Mailchimp so it will send from your address.

It’s a short code your email tool makes for you — think of it as a one-time key that lets us drop finished drafts into your account. Kit: Settings → Developer → create a V4 API key. Mailchimp: Account & billing → Extras → API keys → create a key. Copy it, paste it into Your setup → Newsletter in your HQ, and you’re done — you only ever do this once per pen.

Yes. You paste your key once and it goes straight into our encrypted vault — we never see it again. It never appears in a link, in a log, or on your screen after you paste it. It only ever does one thing: put a draft into your account for you to approve. If a key ever stops working you’ll see a plain “Couldn’t connect” message with the reason and a box to paste a fresh one — never silence.

From a simple drop-down in Your setup — no IDs or codes to copy. Kit: pick one tag or segment. Mailchimp: pick your audience (your list), then one segment inside it. We only ever send to that one group you chose, and each pen name has its own. Before anything is scheduled we make the draft and prove it’s pinned to that exact group first.

Drafts work either way — but for a letter to actually go out, your email tool needs to trust your from-address. Kit: confirm your sending address under Settings → Email. Mailchimp: authenticate your sending domain — Mailchimp won’t send from a domain that isn’t authenticated, and your HQ shows which of your domains are ready. It’s a one-time step, and once it’s green you’re set.

Before we write a word, we ask you once per pen name to tell us what to never write — any other pen names, and any words or facts to keep out — or you can simply say “nothing to avoid”. Until that’s answered we hold off drafting on purpose: it protects your privacy and keeps your pen names separate. Answer it in Your setup and drafting starts.

Absolutely. Copy & paste the finished HTML into any mailer — Substack, campaign tools, anything — and it’s a first-class way to use Loop, with nothing to connect. And if you’d like us to draft straight into your tool one day, tell us which one — it helps us decide what to add next.

Yes — each pen name is fully separate. Its own voice, its own books, its own swaps and free downloads, its own newsletter. Switching it on for one pen never touches the others.

Yes. Each pen name has its own newsletter On/Off switch in Your setup, separate from every other pen. Leave it On (the default) and we draft that pen’s letters for you to approve as usual; switch it Off and we write and send nothing for that pen — no drafts, no issues. Turn it back On whenever you like — it’s your call, and one pen’s switch never affects the others.

Author Loop is switching on account by account, so not every author sees it yet. If a Loop tab shows in your HQ, open it and switch it on for the pen name you want — it’s free. If you don’t see that tab yet, your account isn’t on Author Loop yet — email perfectyear@perfectyearhq.com and we’ll tell you where you stand. Want the full picture first? See the Author Loop explained →

Bookclicker asks the seller to confirm that every promo actually went out. In your HQ, find the Swaps you owe card — anything still waiting on you sits under Needs a link from you.

Press I sent this and paste the public web link to the email you sent. Provided you have added us as an assistant on Bookclicker, our next daily run posts that link as your confirmation. That is the whole job.

It is worth doing: promos that stay unconfirmed count against your seller record and can end up gating your account. Included in your Perfect Year subscription. No add-on, no extra fee.

With the I sent this button on the Swaps you owe card in your HQ.

Promos we could not prove sit under Needs a link from you. They are grouped by the day and by the list that sent them, so one paste often covers several at once. If one promo in a group went out in a different email, use Different email for this one.

Paste the public web link to that email — its “view in browser” or archive page. Once your Bookclicker assistant access is in place, our next daily run posts it for you and the row moves to Sorted.

I sent this only appears on a promo that is due — past-due, or dated today. Next Tuesday’s email doesn’t need proving yet.

This is for proving your own send. If a partner let you down, that is a different form — see Report a swap that went wrong.

Almost every newsletter tool gives each email its own web page. The card tailors this to the tool you’re connected to, but here they all are:

MailerLite — Campaigns → open the sent campaign → Preview, and copy the web address of that preview page.

Kit — Broadcasts → open the sent broadcast → View in browser, and copy the address.

MailChimp — Campaigns → open the sent campaign → View email, and copy the address.

Substack — open the published post on your site and copy the address from the top of the browser.

Anything else — look for View in browser, View online, or your sent-campaign archive.

The link has to start with https://.

Yes. It isn’t a one-way door. Until we have sent it, the row offers Wrong link? Replace it, and the card says so: “We haven’t sent this to Bookclicker yet, so you can still change it. Once we have, the link we sent is the one Bookclicker has.”

We send proofs to Bookclicker on our next daily run. If yours has already gone, email perfectyear@perfectyearhq.com and we’ll sort it.

Some don’t — a private Substack, or a MailChimp with its archive switched off. You’re not stuck.

The form carries “Can’t find a web link for your email? Tell us and we’ll sort it” — that reaches perfectyear@perfectyearhq.com, and we can confirm it on Bookclicker another way.

The straight answer. It lets us see the promos on your Bookclicker account, accept and book the free swaps we line up for you, and post the confirmation that each one went out.

It is also what makes proof work. You can press I sent this without it and we will record your link — but actually posting that confirmation to Bookclicker needs the assistant access. Without it your link sits with us and Bookclicker never hears about it.

A paid slot always waits for your yes first. Money never runs through us. Bookclicker’s own record shows every action taken on your account, and removing the access takes one click. No password is ever shared.

How to grant it:

1. Log in to bookclicker.com
2. Click Account (top right), then Profile
3. On the right-hand side find Manage Virtual Assistants, below Change Password
4. Click Add Assistant, type Perfect, then click Perfect Year in the list
5. That’s it — it saves the moment you click. There is no Save button and no confirmation message: Perfect Year simply appears in its own box above. The one thing to avoid is the small x beside it, which removes the access again instantly.

It means we haven’t got a newsletter connection on your account yet. We use it to put your swap emails together as ready-to-send drafts inside your own email tool — without it there is nowhere for us to leave them, so you would be writing each one from scratch.

To fix it, connect your reader list in your HQ. It takes about a minute, and you can disconnect at any time.

If you run more than one pen name you may see “One of your lists is connected”. That’s normal — we hold one newsletter connection per account, not one per pen.

It means we haven’t asked you yet: shall we draft your swap emails for you?

Right now you write your own, which is a perfectly good way to run it — you stay in full control. We still track every promo you owe, and you can tell us when you’ve sent one. Say the word and we’ll write each booked promo in your voice instead and leave it as a draft in your own email tool — you read it, and you press send.

If you have never booked a swap and never switched this on, you’ll simply see “This unlocks when you start swapping” — nothing is wrong.

Open the My pen tab (top strip) and look for the How I work card. Two numbers live there, both yours to correct any time: your honest pace (words in a normal writing week) and your draft lead (how many days before a KDP upload you like the draft finished).

Your honest pace is what every pace warning and AT-RISK badge on your Production board measures against — if it is set too low, you will get alarms you do not need; too high, and real risk hides. It is not aspirational, just true. A pace-risk email links straight to this card.

Under Mission Control and the checklist there is a row called From this plan — straight to the tool. Three jobs on your checklist need a tool rather than a tick, and it hands you the right one for each so you are never hunting.

Make my mood & trope graphics → opens BookAdPack in a new tab. BookAdPack is a separate product — you sign in there and buy its credits there, and your Perfect Year subscription does not cover it. Line up my release-week swaps → is swap admin, which is included in your Perfect Year subscription: no add-on, no extra fee.

Your Launch Checklist — every phase walks a release through five phases: PRE, BUILD, HEAT, COUNTDOWN and BLITZ. Every task for every phase is on the page — nothing is folded away.

Your ticks save across devices, so you can start on your laptop and finish on your phone. Most steps also carry a Power Play that will do that step for you.

On your Launch tab, each pen name has a Reader magnets — free-book signups card. It lists your free-book landing pages for that pen and how many readers each one has captured into your list, with a link to each page.

It is done for you: we host the file, capture the email, and add the reader to that pen’s own list. If you haven’t got one yet, the card offers Create your free book yourself →.

Open Your books on any pen name and tap Find my books. We search Amazon for everything published under that pen name and show you the list with covers — you just tick the ones that are yours. It takes about a minute.

If we can’t match the name, paste your Amazon author page instead, or add a single book by its ASIN.

Yes — four things, always with your confirmation. In the chat (bottom-right) ask in plain words: add a note to a day ('Add a note on 12 September: cover reveal'), filter the calendar ('Show only releases and deadlines for September'), pause or resume a pen name's newsletter ('Pause the newsletter for Lucy for now'), or move a launch ('Move The Boathouse Promise to 2 October').

It never acts on its own. It replies with a card that says exactly what will happen and a Confirm button — tap Not now and nothing changes. Notes, filters and the newsletter switch take effect when you confirm. For a launch move it opens the Move tool on your Production board with the new date filled in, so you read what changes and what it costs, then tap Check & apply yourself — a locked launch stays locked. If it's missing a detail (which book, which date), it asks rather than guesses. Every confirmed action is recorded against your account.

Filters: under the month name on your Plan-tab calendar you'll find chips — tap Releases, Deadlines, Promo sends, Your notes and so on to show only those items; tap again to switch one off, or Clear filters. If you run more than one pen name, tap All pens together to see every pen on one grid (a chip appears for each pen, so you can narrow to one). Your choices are remembered.

The amber : a heads-up day. It appears when two sends are going to the same readers on one day (for example a promo newsletter and your Loop newsletter), or when two of your pen names release in the same week — your launch attention gets split. Tap the day and the reason is written at the top, so you can decide whether to move one. It only ever warns; it never moves anything for you.

What's next: look for the Next up line — on your Today screen just under your daily deck, and at the top of your calendar on the Plan tab. It names the very next dated thing for each pen name (a deadline, launch phase, release, promo send, Loop newsletter or one of your notes) and how many days away it is. If it says a writing stretch, nothing is dated yet.

Your own notes: on the Plan tab's calendar, tap any day, then + Add a note for this day. Type a few words (up to 300 characters) and save. If you run more than one pen name, tick All my pen names for personal days like holidays. Notes show on that day with a teal 'Your note' pill; tap remove to take one off. Only you see them.

Yes — open the Plan tab and scroll to Your calendar — every day, everything, just under your year at a glance. Use ‹ › to move months and tap any day to open it.

Each day lists what's planned and what happened: releases, draft/edit/upload deadlines, launch phases (build, heat-up, countdown, KDP files due), quarterly reviews, your weekly rhythm, promo newsletter send dates, Bookclicker swap confirmations and promo slots, preorders, detected promo reschedules, and your Loop newsletters and posts — both the ones already drafted and the next one we have planned. Everything is colour-coded by pen name; tap open → on an item to jump to the tab that owns it.

It only shows what's really in your plan and your connected accounts — a quiet day is a quiet day.

Open your HQ's Loop tab and scroll to Your setup → Your schedule. It shows when your next issue is drafted and when it goes out — in your own time zone. Until you choose, we suggest our usual rhythm (Saturdays 9:00 AM UTC).

To change it, use Pick your day and time: how often (weekly, every two weeks, or once a month), the day, the time, and your time zone — then tap Save my schedule. Your new dates appear within a few minutes. If you pick every-two-weeks, you also choose the date of your first issue so we know which week is yours.

Every issue still lands in your Loop inbox first — nothing goes out without your yes.

Your dashboard opens through the personal link in your welcome email — search your inbox for “Perfect Year” and click Open your Perfect Year HQ. Lost the link? Get a fresh one at perfectyearhq.com/recover.

Open Fix my setup (header). There you can add a new book to any pen, rename a book, set its series, target word count, and release date. Renaming one book never touches the others.

Fix my setup — the Add-a-new-book fields, right on the panel (demo account shown)

Add the book in Fix my setup (title, series, real release date) — it lands on your Production board. When the preorder page goes up on Amazon, paste the book’s ASIN on the Production board and click its stage to preorder — rank, sales and review tracking start that second, and the launch countdown runs to your release date. A one-month runway works fine; the plan fits your dates.

The Production board — click the stage chip, paste the ASIN when the preorder page is up (demo account shown)

Two ways: on the Plan calendar click Move on the launch’s month, or on the Production board use the Change release date field on the book itself. We re-fit the rest of your plan around the new date automatically. (If the launch is locked, unlock it first.)

Move control" width="1600" height="1000">

The Plan calendar — every release month has its Move control (demo account shown)

Lock it. On your Production board (or the launch’s month on the Plan calendar), click Lock this date. From then on nothing — a re-plan, the auto-scheduler, or a stray edit — can move it. Click Unlock when you want to change it. More on Lock It Down →

Lock this date lives on every book on the Production board (demo account shown)

Yes. Alongside Lock this date you’ll see Lock title (stops renames) and Lock schedule (holds your draft/edits/upload deadlines through a re-plan). And every task on your calendar has a small beside it — click it to pin that task so a rebuild can’t drop it.

The Money tab. Connect once with the one-click Perfect Year — KDP Sales Sync browser extension (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera, Firefox) or the Sync my KDP bookmark on Safari. Your real units, page reads and royalties then sync automatically every hour. No password is ever shared.

The Money tab — connect once and hourly sync takes over (demo account shown)

In order: (1) confirm your books, (2) connect your real KDP sales, (3) set up your reader magnet + landing page, (4) switch on Swap Admin by adding Perfect Year as an assistant inside Bookclicker (Account → Profile → Manage Virtual Assistants → Add Assistant), (5) open Demand Radar and press one Autopilot play before each release. The full first week is laid out here →

When Perfect Year updates a book’s title or release date on your dashboard, we send a quick one-click check so you can confirm the change is right before your dashboard treats it as live backlist. It’s safe to click — it only flags that book as confirmed, nothing is charged, deleted, or shared. Not your book? Just ignore the email — nothing changes unless you click. If you open the link again after you’ve already confirmed, the page just says “All confirmed ✓” — nothing more to do. If the link itself looks a little damaged (its book details didn’t come through cleanly), the page says so and offers a fresh link, or you can grab one any time from perfectyearhq.com/recover — or just reply to your email and we’ll sort it out. No harm done either way.

It’s your reminder to feed the Amazon algorithm roughly every 28 days with something new — a release, a box set, a translation or audio. Keep it green; going much past ~45 days without a release is the drop-off cliff. The ring lives on your Production tab.

Yes — every edit is snapshotted, so your plan has a version history you can restore from. Locking and unlocking are just as safe.

When Amazon hasn’t confirmed a publication date yet, we default to preorder. Real rank and sales appear once the daily scrape confirms the book is live. Nothing is wrong — it resolves on its own.

That code is the book’s Amazon ASIN, and we show it only while we can’t show a real title. Underneath it you’ll see a short line telling you exactly why — there are three cases:

“Looking up this book’s details…” — you’ve just added it and we’re reading the listing from Amazon. It usually names itself within about five minutes; nothing for you to do.

“This listing is no longer on Amazon” — the ASIN now returns nothing, so the book looks unpublished or delisted. Where our own records know what it used to be, we name it for you. If it’s a book you pulled down, click not mine to stop tracking it; if it should still be live, check the listing in KDP.

“…may not be one of yours” — our records say that ASIN belongs to a different author, so it was probably typed or pasted by mistake. Click not mine to remove it and add the right one.

We never invent a title to fill the gap: if we can’t confirm what a book is, we tell you instead of guessing. You’ll find all of this on the Your books chip beside each pen name (it’s also in Fix my setup).

Open Fix my setup and rename each book on its own — give every “Book Title TBC” slot a distinct name. Renaming one book never renames the others (we fixed the old bug where it did, and gave any duplicates distinct names so nothing was lost). Your title then shows correctly everywhere on the dashboard.

Every upcoming launch has a Move control on its month (and a Change release date field on the book itself). Two reasons it might be hidden: the book is already live (a published book can’t be moved), or you’ve locked that launch — unlock it first and Move comes back.

In the Money tab, open Your plan & billing and choose to cancel — it stops at the end of your paid period. If you can’t find it or need help, email perfectyear@perfectyearhq.com with your account email.

Yes. When your Perfect Year subscription charges successfully, you get a Perfect-Year-branded receipt email — the plan you’re on, the amount and date in your actual billing currency, the last 4 digits of the card when available (it reads “on file” when we can’t confirm them — that’s normal, not a sign anything went wrong), your invoice reference, and a link straight into your HQ billing page. It’s in addition to Stripe’s own receipt. Topping up your BookAdPack ad-pack credits gets a similar receipt: credits added, what you paid, your new balance, and a link to your wallet in HQ — that wallet belongs to BookAdPack (the same one bookadpack.com draws from); Perfect Year is showing it to you, not billing you separately for it.

Every email we send has a single “Unsubscribe or manage emails” link in the footer. Click it, then confirm on the page that opens — a real confirm step, not instant, so a stray click (or an email scanner) never unsubscribes you by mistake. This only stops emails; it does not cancel your Perfect Year subscription, which is a separate thing (see the question above).

Fix my setup → Add a pen. Its own plan, calendar and production board are built for it, and your Portfolio scorecard starts grading it alongside the others.

On the Plan tab, scroll to Rest & personal time and add the dates — a rest week, a holiday, or a busy stretch. Your plan protects that time and schedules launches and deadlines around it.

Yes. In the Money tab use Connect your other stores to bring in wide sales, so your income picture is the whole business, not just KDP.

Eight research tools with no lookup caps: Find Keywords, Who Ranks, Category Explorer, Author Spy, Book Tracker, Reverse-ASIN, Income Goal Planner and Description Formatter. Every result has a one-click CSV download. It’s on the Market tab.

Open the Loop tab and scroll to Your setup → Your look. Upload a logo (or paste a link), pick your five brand colours, and watch the live preview recolour as you go. In a hurry? Tap Import my look from my website and we’ll suggest them for you to approve — nothing saves until you press Save.

In Your setup → Free books & swaps, your free books appear automatically from your connected BookFunnel. Tap the one you’d like us to feature as your lead magnet — that’s it. You don’t type anything in.

No. Your swaps come straight from your connected Bookclicker, and your free books from BookFunnel. There’s nothing to fill in on the setup page — we read them from your accounts and handle it from there.

One thing does need you. Bookclicker asks the seller to confirm every promo actually went out. Where we can see the send, we confirm it for you. Where we can’t — because you sent from your own email tool — press I sent this on your Swaps you owe card and paste the web link to the email. That is the only swap job that stays yours.

No. Nothing on Your setup is public — it’s private to you. It’s only what we copy from when we draft your emails and posts. Nothing goes out until you approve it.

Yes. Each pen name has its own separate setup — its own logo, colours, voice and books. Use the pen picker at the top of Your setup to switch between them; whatever you’re editing only ever affects the pen you’ve selected.

In Your setup → Your voice, paste a few paragraphs you’ve written that sound like you — an old newsletter, a favourite scene. We learn from it so everything we draft is in your voice. We never publish this; it’s only ours to learn from.

In Your setup, each pen name has a sender name and a sender email. The sender name is how your letter is signed. The sender email is the from-address used when you choose to send through your connected email tool (MailerLite, Kit or Mailchimp) — so use an address you’ve verified with that tool, because each one will only send from a verified address. Each pen name has its own, and you can change them any time. You always approve each issue first — nothing goes out on its own. Once a pen is fully set up (a verified sender email and a chosen reader list), Loop can send each issue you approve straight to that list for you; otherwise you send it yourself or copy the HTML into your mailer.

In Your setup, once a pen name is connected to MailerLite and set to send there, you choose which reader list (in MailerLite these are called groups) your letters go to. These are the lists in your own MailerLite account — pick the one your readers are on, and that’s exactly where your letter goes. We pre-suggest the list you chose when you connected, so usually you just confirm it; you can choose a different one any time, and each pen name has its own. Nothing sends until you approve the issue. If your pen just makes the HTML for you to send yourself, you don’t need to set a reader list.

If you send your own newsletter instead of having us send it for you, open your HQ's Loop tab. Once an issue is approved and finished, its card says Your letter is ready with two buttons: Copy the finished letter and Download the letter.

Copy the finished letter puts the whole letter — including any swap promos we lined up for you — on your clipboard, ready to paste straight into your own mailer's editor. Download the letter saves it as an HTML file instead, if your mailer wants an upload.

Either way, nothing sends until you send it. We only prepare the letter; pressing send in your own mailer is the step that stays yours.

Yes. From Team & assistants (next to Help in your HQ), you create her a seat — editor (can approve, reject and reschedule within her scope) or viewer (read-only) — and, optionally, limit it to specific pen names. That creates a private link, just for her.

Copy it and send it to her yourself — text, Slack, WhatsApp, whatever — we never email it for you. You can revoke any seat instantly, any time, from the same tab. Seats are free while this feature is new.

This is separate from the Bookclicker “Manage Virtual Assistants” grant (see above) — that grant only lets Perfect Year automate your swap-booking on Bookclicker’s own side. It does not give a person access to your Perfect Year dashboard. A Team & assistants seat is the only way to give someone else access to your HQ, and it never requires sharing your own login or password.

Depends on the role you gave her seat. An editor seat can see and act on everything in her scope — approve, reject and reschedule items in your Loop queue — but never on pens outside the seat’s scope if you limited it. A viewer seat can see everything in her scope but can’t change anything — she gets a plain read-only banner so it’s clear at a glance.

Neither role ever sees your Money tab, billing, or the Team & assistants tab itself — those stay owner-only no matter what. Your sales, royalties, KDP units and page reads, ad spend and profit figures stay owner-only everywhere in HQ, not just behind the Money tab: where you see your royalty ring, income goal or Money at a glance on Today, an assistant sees a plain line saying those figures are visible to the account owner only. Two owner-only cards, Let us quote from this book and Your books, kept safe, show her an honest note instead of their controls. Either role can also see your Market intelligence (category power, demand radar, keywords), swap status and booked swaps, the query tracker, free-book signup numbers and promo suggestions, all limited to her own pen names the same way as everything else, so she never sees another pen's name or data. A few actions always stay yours alone whichever role she has: starting a new book build, uploading a manuscript, logging or updating an agent query, managing your Magnet Studio, confirming a swap and billing. Where she can't do something, she sees an honest note or the button simply isn't there. Revoke a seat any time and that link stops working immediately; it never says whether a link was ever real, so a bad guess and a genuinely revoked seat look identical from the outside — that’s deliberate, not a bug.

Not yet. Social posting is coming soon. Today the Author Loop writes and sends your reader newsletter (always with your yes first). When social posting switches on, you'll connect your accounts from the Loop tab, we'll write a post for each of your networks from each approved newsletter, and every post will wait for your yes before it goes anywhere. Nothing posts to your social media automatically, and we'll tell you before it switches on.

Pick the Page you want this pen's posts to go out under once social posting switches on — usually the Page for the pen name shown next to it. To change it later, tap Disconnect on that row in the Loop tab and connect again. Nothing posts anywhere until we switch posting on.

Once social posting switches on, each post’s picture will come from your BookAdPack ad pack if you have one — a cover, hook or tagline image, sized to fit whichever network the post is going to (square-ish for Instagram, wider for Facebook and LinkedIn, and so on). If you don’t have a BookAdPack pack, your book’s own cover is used instead, so a post almost never goes out without a picture. You’ll see the picture on each post in your Loop inbox before you approve it. Posting itself is still coming soon.

No. If you don’t have a BookAdPack pack, your posts use your book’s own cover instead — nothing is held up and no post goes out without a picture. Having a BookAdPack pack just gives your posts more images to draw from (different hooks, taglines and mood art) instead of the same cover every time, so they can look a bit stronger and more varied — but it’s entirely optional. Posting itself is still coming soon.

That’s Meta’s own label, not ours. Facebook and Instagram require a disclosure label on images made with AI, and BookAdPack images qualify, so Meta adds it automatically — it’s required and completely normal, not a sign anything went wrong with your post. It doesn’t hurt how far your post reaches, as far as we know — it’s simply Meta being upfront with readers about how the image was made.

A Professional Instagram account — Business or Creator, not a personal one — linked to your Facebook Page. That’s Instagram’s own requirement for any app posting on your behalf, ours included, not something Perfect Year adds. Every Instagram post also needs a real picture before it can be approved, which is why we always try to have one ready: your BookAdPack pack image, or your book cover if you don’t have a pack. On the rare occasion neither is available, that one post will wait — with a plain note instead of an Approve button — until a picture is; it never goes out blank, and none of your other posts are affected. You can’t yet choose or swap which picture is used — it’s chosen for you automatically.

Not yet. X isn’t available to connect for now, so its row in the Loop tab says ‘Not available yet’ instead of showing a Connect button. We’ll let you know if that changes.

On the My pen tab, next to + Add a book, click + Add several books. Paste one title per line (up to about 200) and press Add. You can also add a release date, target word count or series on the same line, like this: Title | 2027-03-01 | 70000 | Series name. Everything after the title is optional. You see a preview first: titles already on that pen are flagged and skipped, so you never get a duplicate. At the end you get a plain summary of what was added, skipped or failed, with a Retry button. The book boxes further down My pen are for renaming or correcting a book you already have, and they now say so.

That's fixed. Your Plan tab and your Calendar now show every release on your books, even several in the same month or on the same day, matching your Production board exactly. Nothing in your saved plan changed; this only fixes how it's shown. If an older plan note mentions a book that has since been removed or renamed, it's now greyed out with a 'may be outdated' flag.

It's a gentle heads-up when two launches on the SAME pen name land within 14 days of each other, because they compete for the same readers' attention. Different pen names are never compared against each other — a launch on one pen and a launch on another, even the same week, never triggers this. It never moves or blocks anything: you choose your dates. All close pairs now sit in one collapsed card; open it to see each pair, or press Dismiss to hide it until a new close pair appears.