Not long ago, I posted the below image on Instagram:
Yesterday, I received the following letter from a reader (I’ve redacted a few personal details):
“Hello!
I'm not sure how I found it, but I read Our Revels first--maybe a rec from an author's group on FB? I really enjoyed it and started through your backlist. … [y]our books--about adults who do creative things and pivot into different careers and even when catastrophic things happen, they don't feel terribly angsty, were just what I wanted.
It's weird, the characters often go through serious issues or have that in their past, but the issues don't hit me negatively the way some other books/authors do. I just want to keep reading the stories.
Thank you so much for publishing/republishing your backlist recently!
I've been focusing on your MM books, but enjoyed the fact that the MCs have friends of all types, not just maybe one opposite gender friend and/or a parent or sibling like many in the MM genre.
I really appreciate the connections within connections of your world and always perk up when I realize that I know or have heard of a character before.
I was surprised to see so few reviews on your books so I'm trying to write at least a short review for all of them. Hopefully, that will raise awareness of your work.
I hope you keep writing.”
I cannot express how effective this was. An immense reward for the emotional risk of producing creative work and releasing it into the world.
A positive review, or even simply a good rating, can make a tremendous difference when a potential reader is considering a new-to-them author. So thank you, kind reader. 99 days out of 100, I could be writing in a vacuum. Knowing you like my work is a tremendous dose of oxygen.