How to Set Up a Mailing List for Authors

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Setting up a mailing list is one of the most important things every author should do.

Yes, everyone is on social media. And yes, blogging already takes a lot of time. Most importantly, writing your next book should remain your primary focus. But an email list is something you must work on as well, mainly because you own it. No platform can take it away from you. And if you’ve built a list of readers who genuinely enjoy your work, you can take that audience with you wherever you go.

What Mailing Service Should You Choose?

Grok recommends MailerLite. I’ve been using it myself, and it’s a great option for beginners. The service is free to start, and you can not only collect subscribers but also automatically deliver your lead magnet through MailerLite’s automation features.

I’ve also tried Mailchimp and several other services. Most of them offer free starter plans, but MailerLite was the only one I found that included email automation in the free tier. Mailchimp, for example, only offered it with the first paid tier.

What Is the Most Important Thing When Creating an Email List?

Give people a reason to subscribe.

This is where your lead magnet comes in. A lead magnet is something valuable you give away for free in exchange for an email address. As an author, this could be a free chapter, a writing guide, a short story, or even an entire book.

To find the right lead magnet, ask yourself a simple question: What would make me subscribe to an author’s mailing list?

Create a lead magnet around your answer.

Don’t Use Pop-Ups

Many marketers recommend pop-ups because they increase subscription numbers. While that’s true, they’re also intrusive and can turn away potential readers. The real question is: Are you simply trying to increase your subscriber count, or are you trying to attract the right subscribers?

For me, the goal isn’t to get 10,000 random subscribers. The better goal is finding 100 true fans. If you start your relationship with readers by annoying them with pop-ups, it becomes harder to build an authentic connection. At least, that’s my view. I will never use pop-ups on my website.

Where Should You Put the Sign-Up Form?

I prefer a clean, minimalist design. That’s why I don’t use a sidebar, and I don’t want a sign-up form appearing at the end of every article. Creating a dedicated landing page for my free book and linking to it in the top navigation menu is enough.

If you prefer a busier website layout, a sidebar can work well. Placing a sign-up form below every blog post may also increase subscriptions, but it can become annoying for long-term readers.

Starting a Newsletter

Once my system is fully set up, I’ll have a free weekly story available for subscribers. That alone makes a weekly newsletter worthwhile. I will also include updates about current writing projects, behind-the-scenes insights, and personal stories.

What I wouldn’t do is send hard-selling promotional emails every week. That’s one of the fastest ways to lose subscribers.

In simple terms: Write a newsletter because it provides value to readers, not because you want to sell something.

When Should You Start a Newsletter?

Somewhere between 50 and 200 subscribers is a reasonable starting point. However, engagement matters far more than subscriber count. If you send out a promotional email about a free Amazon giveaway, how many people open it? How many leave a review?

Ten active subscribers who genuinely support your work are far more valuable than 1,000 subscribers who never open your emails. If you have a small but engaged audience, a newsletter is already worth your time.

What Should You Write About?

Free promotions are always a good reason to send an email. Discounts and limited-time offers can also work. Beyond that, consider including:

  • Behind-the-scenes content
  • Writing updates
  • Practical tips
  • Book excerpts
  • Sneak peeks and teasers
  • Personal stories

How to Write Better Email Subject Lines

  • Keep them under 50 characters.
  • Personalize them whenever possible.
  • Use numbers and questions to increase open rates.
  • Focus on reader benefits.
  • Avoid ALL CAPS and common spam words.
  • Don’t overuse symbols or emojis.

How to Grow Your Email List

Once your list is set up, focus on growing it by following the advice below:

Provide Value

If you consistently provide value, readers will help market your list for you by recommending it to others. Always think of the reader first.

Link to Your List

Promote your lead magnet wherever possible. Link to your landing page on social media, in your X bio, on your YouTube channel page, and anywhere else readers can find you.

Be Active on Social Media

There is no real way around social media anymore. Post regularly on X, create videos for YouTube, share photos on Instagram, or focus on another platform you enjoy. You don’t have to be everywhere, but you should consistently use at least one platform.

Blog Regularly

Publishing blog posts helps new readers discover your work. With a clear link to your lead magnet, some of those readers will eventually join your mailing list.

Cross-Promote with Other Authors

Don’t swap email lists or add people who haven’t subscribed directly. Instead, collaborate with other authors. If another author is giving away a free book, promote it to your audience. In return, ask the author to promote one of your free books to their list. Link to each other’s lead magnets in the mail, and both of you can gain new subscribers organically.

Link to Your List in Your Amazon Books

My short story collections are designed to be given away for free. But even though they’re free, I want something in return from readers: To check out my mailing list.

That’s why every one of my books includes a dedicated page that links to my lead magnet. Readers who have already finished one of my books are among the most likely people to subscribe to my mailing list in exchange for another free book.

Should You Use Paid Ads?

As a beginner, focus on building the fundamentals and growing organically. Paid advertising only becomes useful once your system is already working. Ads are a scaling tool, not an ignition tool. Build the foundation first. Then consider investing money to accelerate growth.

To Conclude

Create a mailing list. Give people a compelling reason to subscribe. Focus on delivering value. Then be patient. Keep writing books, publishing blog posts, and building your presence online. Over time, your mailing list will grow alongside your audience.

How to Make AI Comics with Midjourney (2026 | V7)

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After about a year, I returned to Midjourney to test its capabilities for AI comic creation. Unfortunately, I have to say that I’m disappointed by the lack of progress.

I used Version 7 for this project. While I was working on the comic, Midjourney released V8, but I was already about 90% finished with V7, so I decided to stick with it. From what I’ve seen so far, V8 doesn’t appear to offer significant improvements in the areas that matter most for comic creation: character consistency and environment consistency.

If you’d like to check out the comic, you can find it here: The Last Superhero Part 5

How to Create AI Comics with Midjourney

Create Master Prompts

You want your style, characters, and settings to be defined through master prompts. Keep them as short as possible to reduce prompt fading.

Examples:

  • Protagonist: mature man, grey hair, grey beard, stern face, dark coat, layered dark clothing, tall
  • Female lead: woman in her 30s, dark hair, slim build, worn clothing, subtle manipulative expression
  • Style: comic, Scott Snyder style, black and red colors
  • Mountain setting: mountains, canyon road, military convoy driving

Go through your script and create master prompts for all characters and settings involved. The style master prompt should be added to every image prompt.

This approach doesn’t guarantee consistency, but it improves it as much as currently possible in Midjourney.

Create Character Image Sheets

Next, create character sheets for your main characters. For my comic, I created sheets for the protagonist, the female lead, and the NPC soldiers. At a minimum, I recommend creating the following:

Examples:

  • Character Main Sheet: [style master prompt + character master prompt], full-body shot
  • Character Face Sheet: [style master prompt + character master prompt], multiple panels, different facial expressions (or angles), plus specific emotions if needed (e.g., surprised)

The main sheet serves as your primary character reference. You can upload these images to Midjourney and use them as character references whenever that character appears in a scene.

The face sheet can be used as an overlay. You can place it on top of larger scene images whenever a character is speaking. I’ve used this technique many times.

Use Character Sheets in Two Ways

Once you’ve established a consistent appearance for your characters, crop the image in two different ways:

  1. Full-body shot: Remove as much of the background and non-character details as possible.
  2. Face shot: Crop tightly around the character’s face.

You can then use both images as character references, which helps improve consistency.

Tips from 2025 Still Apply

If you haven’t read my guide from last year, nearly all of the advice still applies: How to Make Comics with AI (Midjourney | 2025)

Problems with Creating AI Comics with Midjourney

My previous attempt using ChatGPT produced significantly better results. The main reason is that Midjourney still hasn’t solved the two most important issues:

  1. Consistency
  2. Generating multiple characters in the same image

Character consistency remains a major problem, even with the option to upload reference images. Style is difficult to control and can easily fall apart, especially when prompts become longer. There is also still no reliable way to maintain environmental consistency across scenes.

Even worse, there has been virtually no improvement when generating images with multiple characters. It seems that using several character references causes features to blend together. The same issue occurs with character actions. As a result, it’s extremely difficult to create scenes where two characters interact naturally while maintaining consistent appearances from panel to panel.

Other Problems

Language Filter
You still can’t use many words associated with violence. Since most action scenes involve some form of violence, this limitation makes it difficult to tell traditional comic-book stories.

Prompt Fading
The longer your prompts become, the more tokens tend to “fade.” In practice, this means Midjourney starts ignoring certain parts of your prompt.

Style Drift
Maintaining a consistent visual style was even more difficult than a year ago. If you compare the first pages with the final pages of TLS 5, you’ll notice a significant style drift that I wasn’t able to control.

Improvements Compared to Earlier Midjourney Versions

Faster Image Generation

Midjourney has become even faster. You can generate roughly 500 images per hour, giving you plenty of options to choose from. This remains a significant advantage over ChatGPT’s image generation.

High-Quality Individual Images

When focusing on individual images, the quality is excellent. With enough patience, it’s possible to create impressive standalone comic pages.

Conclusion

Overall, there hasn’t been much progress—especially in the areas that matter most. Consistency remains a major challenge, and the language filter makes action scenes unnecessarily difficult to create.

In many respects, ChatGPT’s V5 image generation already produced better results for comic creation. My next step will be testing ChatGPT’s newest image model, which I’ve heard very positive things about. Perhaps that’s the model that finally brings us a significant step closer to creating truly convincing comics with AI.