How We Keep Our Barn Door Locked (and Let the Right People In)

Hello friends,

Let’s talk about something that most creators don’t like to think about: spam, scams, and unsolicited messages. I’m Kristan from Ink & Sail, and when I’m not creating art, filming videos, or planning our next adventure on the water, I also work in cybersecurity and think about how to keep our inboxes safe — so we can focus on the people who really matter: our customers and followers.

If you run a Shopify store (or any online business), you’ve probably noticed the occasional odd email asking if you ship to Timbuktu, or pretending they know you from somewhere you don’t. These are automated messages, often from bots or mass email campaigns. They’re not personal, and they’re not for you.

Here’s how we keep our communications safe, while still making it easy for real people to reach us:

Hide Your Email

We don’t display our email publicly on the site. Instead, we use a contact form for questions. This keeps bots and scrapers from collecting our email address while still letting you reach us easily.

Set Clear Expectations

On our contact page, we explain what we can help with. For example:
“For inquiries, please use this form. We focus on customer questions and do not respond to unsolicited business proposals.”
This keeps things polite and clear — both for humans and for bots.

Centralize Your Contact

All inquiries go through our contact form. We’ve removed raw emails from footers, social media bios, and other public places. On social media, our “Contact” buttons link to this form or our newsletter signup. This helps us focus on real conversations with real followers.

Lock Down Social Media

We’ve taken steps to keep our social accounts safe while still being reachable:

• Direct Messages are limited to followers or turned off where possible.
• Contact info is hidden in bios; instead, we link to our contact form.
• Comments are moderated when necessary, so we see the messages that matter most.

Don’t Engage Unsolicited Messages

Some people may try to get free advice or promote services we don’t use. We politely ignore these, and sometimes use a short template reply to set boundaries. This keeps our inbox focused on the people we actually want to hear from.

Focus on the Real Audience

By protecting our communication channels, we can spend more time creating art, videos, and projects that make our customers and followers happy. That’s what really matters.

We hope this gives other creators some ideas for keeping the right people connected and letting the rest fade into the background. Stay safe, stay focused, and keep creating!

— Kristan, Ink & Sail