Fantasy

The Dragon Takes Over

Hello, this is your friendly Newsletter-Dragon, and I’m writing to you from cyberspace.

You know me. I’m the entity that delivers this newsletter to your inbox each week. 🙂 It’s been awhile since I took over, so why not do that today?

Why let my pint-sized nemesis, (Ran, Sarn’s son in the Curse Breaker series), have all the fun? I’m the one delivering his adventures to your inbox. Why don’t I get a say in things?

Right? It’s about time I put my claw down and took over. So that’s what we’re doing this week. Instead of hearing from Ran, (he’s just standing around inside a magical shield. How boring is that?), you get me. Since I’m a dragon, there’s obviously no comparison.

Dragons rule, and little fictional boys from fantasy worlds drool. Ha ha ha!

Okay, enough taunting. I’m done. I swear. Onward to *my* adventure. That’s right. This special issue is all about me, the Newsletter-Dragon.

Ran can ramble on about the whole possessed couch incident next week. Maybe. If I give the newsletter back to him. I haven’t decided if I will yet.

While we’re discussing couches, I would like to offer my deepest apologies to all the good and sturdy pieces of furniture out there. You keep providing soft places for our nice readers to sit and read about *me.*

I deeply regret the whole couch incident. As a dragon, I can say with perfect honesty that wasn’t one of my finer moments. But in my defense, Ran has too many books and too much page time. All I wanted was a little attention. Maybe even an adventure of my own.

Yes, I know I have a book out now. It’s called Dragon Spells for obvious reasons. But Ran has more books than me, and he’s in Dragon Spells. But he doesn’t know that book is getting a new cover. Unfortunately, the designer likes him, so he’ll be on it too. Bummer. I wanted the cover all to myself.

Oh well. That new cover should be ready in a week or two. If you already bought the ebook, don’t worry. Just ask Amazon to update the cover when the new cover is up.

But I digress. I came today to give you a glimpse into the mechanics of the newsletter process where all the magic and mayhem *really* happens. Forget about Ran and his dad. They’ve got nothing on my weekly battles in cyberspace to deliver this newsletter to you. It’s a jungle out there, and I’m not the wildest creature in it.

The journey begins, funnily enough, with a blank page. Either our scribe or one of us, characters, fills that blank page with words.

Once that’s done, it goes to me, the Newsletter-Dragon. I put those words into code because your email service provider prefers newsletters to come packaged up in this thing called HTML. And that’s my job since I’m digital. I have HTML instead of DNA in my bones. 😉

Now, I’ve got your newsletter all packaged up and ready to go, but I have to duplicate it and customize it for each recipient, (that’s you, my dear reader). That’s where the magic happens. I wave my arms and dance around that shiny new email while chanting the sacred words of multiplication and personalization, and boom!

A bright light leaps out of the one true CRM (customer relationship manager, which we don’t have. That’s why I’m praying for a miracle from the great CRM in the sky). That glorious beam of information stabs that email and shatters it into 1000s of beautiful copies. Each one is properly addressed to you, my dear readers.

After I gaze in wonder at the miracle I’ve wrought for precisely 2 milliseconds, I reverently place those shiny emails into my capacious pockets. That’s right. Unlike some articles of clothing you own, this dragon has pockets. Pockets are like fire; you never know when you’ll them, and one is never enough.

Anyway, it takes a little fiddling to get all those copies safely stowed, then off into cyberspace, I fly. And that’s where all the danger happens. There’s all these creepy lines of malicious code floating around out there.

The minute I take off, they rain down on me and try their hardest to worm their way into my code and the newsletters safely tucked away in my pockets.

But I hack, and I slash, and I burn that bad code to a nice crisp. Mmm. Baked code. Nom nom. Sorry. After I snack on a few extra-crispy trojan horses, I fly through the smokey ruins of my attackers straight to your inbox.

But wait! The journey’s not over once I reach the safety of your inbox. Before I enter it, I have to find the key to unlock it.

There are filters where all kinds of sorting happens. It’s my job to make sure your newsletter reaches you, so I have to be crafty with the headlines and the metadata and all the technical things those gatekeepers scan.

When I get the right combination of things, those magical doors to your box slide open, and a golden glow shines out, welcoming me. I reach into my pocket and gently place your copy of the newsletter in your inbox.

While I’m doing this, I keep my eyes firmly closed. Your privacy is my highest concern. I do not glance at the other emails in your inbox. I just gently place mine on top and move back, so the doors can close and cut off that pretty glow. Then it’s time to fly to the next inbox and begin the fight anew.

And that’s how this newsletter reaches you every week. But that all happens in seconds. In fact, I do all kinds of cool things that Ran couldn’t ever hope to copy, and that’s why I deserve more books about me.

Oh, and that couch incident? In hindsight, I realize it wasn’t the smartest decision I’ve ever made. I should have known that evil spirit had plans of its own. Maybe I’ll let Ran tell you what those plans are next week.

Where did I go when I went into that couch? Well, it’s not where Ran thinks I went. 😉

What happened to Melinda’s phone? Well, you must wait for the next installment to find out about that. Why? Because Ran is reading this right now, and I don’t want him to know. He’ll just have to find out on his own.

That’s all, folks. I hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes glimpse into how your newsletter is created and delivered. As always, don’t tell my Scribe, Melinda, I was here, or Ran’s aunt, that winged nuisance, Sovvan. She also gets too much page time.

–The Newsletter-Dragon


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