Tag Archives: Reading

Do you hear from your readers?

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Do you ever hear back from people who read your books? It could be in a review, purchasing more than one of your books, or perhaps they tell you whether they like it.

One of my favorite reviews came from a grandfather who told me about his grandson who had read the first volume of my Jasper, Amazon parrot series. He told me his grandson put down his electronic device and started to read. When he finished the first volume, he asked his grandfather where volume two was. It makes me happy.

One will not always get five-star reviews, and you might even get a one or two-star review. It happens. We need to evaluate how to keep going.

Writing for our target audience, whoever they are, must be kept at the forefront of our minds when writing our books. It is so easy to veer left or right during the writing.

Writing for children is hard, or so I have been told. You have to write in a way that is not over their heads or below their intelligence. Adults will read a book, and if they are not a fan of the book, they will still read a bit more to see if they can salvage it to finish the book. A child doesn’t give that kind of commitment. If they don’t like your book by the first few pages, they will look for another one. Parents pay attention to what their kids like.

I had a mother who wrote what her son told her about the first volume of my Jasper series.

My kid: it made me feel happy, calm, and emotional in some parts. 📗🦜🦜

 I enjoy reading this book to my kid.

That made my day, and it still does.

Kids are enjoying what I write. And I try to make sure I always write for the target audience. Insulting your readings by not doing so does no one any favors.

Here is to the next book and hopefully more happy readers.

I have an addiction: Author’s life

 

I have an addiction. In fact it started early on as I was growing up. It has continued to grow within me. To make it worse I married someone who has the same addiction.

Books.

My husband and I love books. We love going to used book store and scoring the deals and also books we been looking for. In fact one of our moving trips from one home to another involved a U-haul van that had only books in it.

The shame of it all. But we are shameless. One of our problems is we rarely give the books away. I did purge about 110 books years ago by getting rid of 95% of my James Patterson books to a battered women’s shelter in town. I have donated a bit to the local libraries. I have placed some on my book swap site online.

I alone have nine bookcases. Six of which are large-sized. And while that might seem a lot it does not come close to my husband and his own bookcases. We are addicted. Again we are shameless about it.

It doesn’t help that companies have asked me, and yes I have accepted, to review for them meaning free books for Sharon and hubby.

It’s a disease. It is. I don’t try anymore to explain it to non readers. There is no point. Either you get it or you don’t. Either you love it or you run away from it.

This is my addiction. I might need to purge some more to make room for the others I am more than sure to bring into the house.

But this an addiction that we are glad we have.

Where are the people who buy your books from?

 

It is always nice to see where in the world the people who purchase your writings live. For the last few years Japan has been one of the most interesting places that people were buying my books. It always makes me smile and ponder a few things. How did they hear of me, what am I doing right for them to know about my writings and then I go to does it matter? After all they are buying them in the first place.

If I knew what I was doing right I would focus on that a bit more. But every time I get word that they have placed an order we give a little WOOHOO at home.

Well that changed last week when a new contender made the list. Luxembourg. I had to look that up to see where it was on the map. That was really cool to get a new country to add to my list. As with Japan I was thrilled and yet wondered how that came about.

Luxembourg. Welcome to the family. I hope you enjoyed what you read and check out my other books. But a big hearty hello!