True story, but I have some of the most loyal readers in the book world. No, really, I do. And it’s not because they all leave me five-star reviews (they don’t, I have ARC members who’ve left me two-star reviews) and it’s not because they message me constantly to tell me how wonderful my books are….its simpler than that.
They trust me to bring them a book they want to read every time I release something new. Let me explain. When I wrote the Rylee Adamson Series, it took off like a fucking rocket. It’s still many of my readers favorite series, still the one they recommend to other readers to read first. But you know what? When I wrote Recurve, the first book in my Elemental Series, they read that too…and it took off. And when I wrote Fury of a Phoenix, my readers trusted me and read that too. And Witch’s Reign, and now Aimless Witch. They trust me to not fail them ❤ And because of that, I can keep bringing then more stories, more characters, more books. I can keep them reading (hopefully) for years in my crazy worlds.
But not all authors have that kind of loyal, trusting fan base. In fact, I’ve seen time and time again where authors of high skill, and a rabid fan base for a single series, struggle to get their readers to even ACKNOWLEDGE that they’ve written anything outside of the ‘favorite’ series. Even when those other series are AMAZING…even when once those readers read the ‘new’ series and love it, they rave about it months or even years after release. But by then it’s too late…the writer has already moved on believing that the ‘new’ series is no good. It’s not worth pursuing.
What happens to those writers and those series? Those writers start to lose money. Their new series is killed off as not worthy, as a waste of time and effort. The writers start to lose faith in their own writing, they start to struggle to find the words…in short, they begin to fail even those readers who believe they should only get their favorite series—those readers who aren’t willing to try anything else end up shooting themselves in the foot. Because now the writers can’t even produce those favorite series because of the lack of support for anything else. It’s sad to me, so sad to see writer’s crushed this way. Worse, I’ve seen it time and time again.
You see, the thing is, we writers would not be here without YOU the readers, and we know this. I know this. I am forever grateful for the readers I have, in some cases for their friendships, their own stories, their support. But more than all of that for their trust in me that I will continue to bring to them the best of my abilities stories, that I will bring them new characters to love (even if they loved Rylee or Larkspur first). Thank you, from the bottom of my heart for being the kind of readers I’m proud to say read my books. ❤ I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you all, but I will continue to do all I can to keep your trust, and to keep you reading. ❤
