Over the past...well...years now, I have been struggling with facebook (hereafter known as The Dark Overlord). You see, I have one of the largest single person owned dragon pages on the platform. I have worked my dragontail off for over 10 years sharing my art and journey with as many people as I can, and thousands of people have responded. Over 110 thousand in fact! But now when I share a post it gets swallowed up for the dreaded algorithm, or worst case, the Dark Overlord decides not to show it to anyone because I might share information that they can't profit off of.

As you can imagine, this has become VERY problematic. All those people asking to see my work (any you might have been one of them) but now on average a couple hundred people see my post, and if TDO decided to suppress it, maybe 50 people. On top of which I have to work harder and harder to keep those few people seeing my work. At this point if I was to put money behind a post to get it seen by everyone in my audience, it would cost me well over $10,000, and as of right now I spend 15+ hours a week preparing and posting to appease The Dark Overlord.

That's time I should be painting more dragons.

So here is my answer.

You. You are my answer.

I would like to send you a daily email. Just one, but in every email you get to see a new dragon. New Dragons, Old Dragons, Finished Dragons, Dragon sketches, Work In Progress Dragons, Dragons that wouldn't otherwise see the light of day... I have a LOT of dragons that I'd bet you haven't seen! Occasionally I will add things like where I will be next, or if I'm launching a kickstarter (2025 calendar anyone?) but that's it. No sales, No spam. Just a beautiful dragon to look forward to every morning.

    I don't know about you, but over the last couple of years I have noticed that The Dark Overlord is starting to affect my mental health. It sees and knows all, it demands sacrifices, and has become toxic, all the while saying “where else are you going to go?”. Scrolling last night I realized only 1 post in 4… FOUR was from a friend, family member, or page I asked to follow. And I used to LOVE The Dark Overlord. I'd brag about how awesome it was that I could show others my artwork. How it was like a permanent art show with thousands of people seeing my art. Now it's a show that I would cancel and tell all my art friends never to do. I am escaping the clutches of The Dark Overlord to reach you directly, without his gatekeeping.

So now I come back to the email list. I invite you to join me on this new journey that we can take together, and do hope you accept. If you ever decide you don't want to see the dragons, unsubscribing is simple as clicking one button. I will NEVER sell or give away my email lists, and Shopify is one of the best places for keeping your email safe.

If you have stuck around this far, thank you. I can't express how much that means to me. I know this is a bit dramatic, but no less true. I am tired of putting so much of myself into another company that doesn't care about me or my art, despite being one of the thousands of creators who helped build them up. I have so many more dragons I want to share with you and I hope you will join me. 

There is a “Sign up” Button on the front facebook page right under the banner, and I hope to see you there!

~Carla Morrow, The DragonLady