A Story of DMARC Woes

Over this last week, several troubling emails from the likes of Tami Labrecque  and David Gaughran about something called a DMARC policy have popped into my inbox.

These emails mentioned an impending doom lurking, due to hit us authors on February 1st.

The February 1st that exists next week!

Sigh. Sometimes, the business of being a writer gets in the way of, well, writing.

The calamity of the week is being brought to us by the likes of Google and Yahoo who are tightening down the rules for anyone who sends emails to a large group of people.

These new rules are intended to make it harder for emailers to spam and spoof their customers (Yay!). But to comply with the rules, we authors have to get our mailing systems into tip-top shape (Boo!).

The warning emails bandied about terms like DMARC and DKIM and SPF which sent me down the rabbit hole of What is a DMARC? and How do I get a DKIM? and But I already wear sunscreen every day!

Following Tammi’s advice, I checked my site to see if I did indeed have a problem.

FAIL?

FAIL??

The last time I failed a test was in P-Chem back in my undergrad days. And even then, my score set the high bar on the curve and I got an A anyway.

But after opening 27,000 tabs in a series of Chrome windows, I figured I was ready to wade in and mess with the guts of my website domains.

Until I found this message.

Ok, stop right there.

Does anyone else see the story structure inherent to this tale?

Act 1 – Setup: Writer (protagonist) wants to write books and share bookish content with her community.

But the guardians of the email services (antagonist) want to protect their customers from spammers and set a deadline for when the change happens (Inciting Incident).

So writer embarks on a quest to find the boons needed (DMARC Policy) to reassure the guardians all is well (Plot Point 1).

Act 2 – Confrontation: Writer researches how (and where) she might find a DMARC policy. She finds there are companies who will do this for a fee, but chooses to continue on her hero’s journey alone. She decides she doesn’t care what a DMARC is and moves on to finding one.

Her email delivery provider (Mailerlite) has one for her (!) but before they will give it to her, she must first update her DKIM (Midpoint).

When she takes her shiny new DKIM to the cave of DNS Settings, she finds she does not have the power to push the DKIM into the right slot (Plot Point 2 Disaster).

Act 3 – Resolution: Writer must decide if she wants to persist on her quest or return to the time when she was blissfully unaware of the DMARC Disaster (Dark Night of the Soul).

She decides to endure the challenge but realizes she prefers the Heroine’s Journey and is stronger when she leans on community. She reaches out to her hosting provider via their chatbot.

Working together, the technical service provider and she retrieve the slippery DKIM and insert it into the correct space.

Writer gives the technical service provider a 5 Star rating and gives herself permission to commence day drinking.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help

I’ve just finished a support chat with my hosting provider (Bluehost). Luckily, their automated system got me to the correct person. Said person—according to the chat—updated my DKIM record.

For timely help with these sorts of things, consider joining Tammi and David’s email lists!

It will take a day or so for the DNS server to validate, at which time I can apply a DMARC via the handy link my tech support person gave me.

Here’s the DMARC story cliffhanger: if none of you hear from me after February 1st, we will all know this story had a sad ending.

The End…

for now.

The header photo is a composite image. Base image by Elisa Ventur on Unsplash