Hi all!

As promised, this post will be about the pros and cons of setting up an email list.

Firstly, what is an email list?

An email list is a list of people who have subscribed to you. They can receive emails, promotions, announcements etc. You can send an email daily (though I wouldn't recommend it), weekly or monthly to keep your subscribers interested in what's going on.

Possible subjects to add in your emails to subscribers:

- Book announcements.

- Snippets of any current projects.

- Links to latest blog posts.

- Links to social media.

- Progress updates.

- Cover reveal.

- Short stories.

- Writing tips.

- Pictures of anything related to your writing.

So, let's get started on the pros.

You can reach your target audience easily

Once you have their email, they will get updates about latest books and promotions. Since these people signed up to your list, they are more likely to buy your books in the future. Plus, you don't have to track them down, they come to you!

It's an easy marketing strategy

It doesn't take much effort to draft an email and send it out compared to buying ads or getting people to review your book. You choose how often you email, and what is in it.

It's a great way to communicate with subscribers

Some subscribers will email you back and ask questions which you can talk about in your next email, you can easily build a rapport with your subscribers this way and build a connection.

You can easily recruit a launch team

A launch team is a group of people who get an early copy of your book to review before it comes out. They can also help you promote it on social media and blogs. The best part of having an email list is that some of your subscribers would be happy to receive an early copy of your book to review.

You can track how many people open your emails

This is great because you can then see which emails are getting higher open rates and tweak your future emails accordingly.

Now, the cons.

You'll need a P.O. Box if you don't want your personal address on your emails

Due to anti-spam laws in many countries you are required to put your physical address on every email you send. I'm not comfortable with people knowing where I live, so I'm setting up a P.O. Box. Depending on where you live, this can add an extra expense to your budget.

Your emails might land in spam boxes

This can lead to some of your subscribers not seeing your emails, which can be a loss of revenue if you're announcing an upcoming book.

It can get expensive

Depending on the amount of subscribers you have and how many emails you send a month, you might need to sign up for more expensive plans with your list provider. This can get expensive if you don't have the budget for it.

You'll need a reader magnet

To get people to sign up for your list you have to give them something in return. If you don't, a lot of people won't be interested in subscribing so you can potentially lose a lot of revenue. Possible ideas for a reader magnet:

- Free book.

- Free short story.

- Writing resources.

If you email to little or too much, you'll lose subscribers

You need to make sure you hit the sweet spot when it comes to emailing. Email too little and people will get bored and unsubscribe. Email too much and people will get sick of it and unsubscribe. I'd recommend one email a week with extra ones only for book launches.

You may have noticed that I have yet to set up an email list for my website, but I'm working on it. Once I've got my P.O. Box sorted I'll add a pop-up which you can sign up to. I'll send one email weekly with snippets of my current WIP, a link to any new blog posts and a segment which I'm calling 'Mishie Monday' where I'll add a picture of Mishka in every email.

You may be thinking about what you'll get in return. Don't worry, because once you sign up to my list I'll send you THREE short stories contained in the Elemental Dragons universe! Keep an eye out for that sign up from!

Next week I'm going to talk about rejection. I'm sure many of us have submitted to agents and publishers and received a rejection in return. Although it may seem like the end of the world, it can actually help you make your manuscript better.

See you next week!

Hi all!

This is my first of (hopefully many!) blog posts that I will post into my site. I will talk about my writing, announcements, tips and tricks etc. so please keep your eyes peeled.

Seeing as this is my first post I will talk about why I chose to write. If you've had a look through my about page you'll see that I mainly write YA Fantasy. I love fantasy, it's so easy to escape from reality for a few hours and read about teenagers having adventures across dangerous lands and battling ferocious beasts.

But that's not the only reason I aim my writing at teenagers.

When I was a teenager, books were my only escape. At school I was isolated and no-one really spoke to me because of my shyness. I'd spend my breaks walking aimlessly in the hallways because I had no one to talk to. Most days I'd just wander around trying to hold back the tears.

But, books made me forget about that.

I wasn't just the lonely quiet girl in a book, I could be anything!

I desperately wished that I would just get sucked into a book and go on adventures and have a stable friendship group.

Although I was always a shy and anxious girl, those years made me depressed. Of course, no one believed me until I was nineteen.

They called me a liar, attention seeking, worthless and told me to kill myself.

Books were my only outlet.

Although I had written a few short stories when I was young I didn't really think I was capable of writing a book. When I hit seventeen, I thought I'd give it a try.

In three months, the first draft of Blood and Water was done.

It had no name, several plot holes and a lot of grammar issues but I was over the moon.

It inspired me because I thought about all the other teenagers that were going through what I went through. Anxiety and depression with no help and no compassion.

So that's why I'm writing, for them.

Books can keep people alive, they make them believe they can be anything. As a teenager, you need that to get through until someone finally believes you.

Three doctors later, I was finally listened to and I am now a lot happier than I was.

A lot of people still think I'm lying and want to bring me down. That's why I waited four years before I even started querying, I was afraid that those people would come back to haunt me. I was terrified that my readers would believe them over me. Now that I'm self publishing, the thoughts became even worse. It would just take one nasty person to start hurling accusations that could ruin my writing career before it even started.

But, I have now reached the point where I'm not going to let them hold me back. This is my dream, the one thing I'm good at. Why should they be the ones to take it away?

So while currently I'm focusing on YA in the form of Blood and Water and Nirvana, I am open to New Adult and Adult so maybe I'll write a book for them too!

Right now, I'm focusing on the people who I think need it the most. I've written the book that I needed when I was their age. I just hope that my work can help one person, no matter their age, and help them get through the dark times.

Thank you for reading, I hope you'll stick around! Next week I'm going to talk about mailing lists and the pros and cons of setting one up.