“How do readers find you?”

It’s a question with two very different meanings, but writers talk about it a lot.  The first is about discovery.  How do they discover the first of your books, as a writer?  Is it through person-to-person conversation about the books that readers are enjoying?  Is it through a more central point of referrals, like bloggers or reviewers?  Is it through active advertising?  Which platforms?

It’s one of the most consistent conversations that writers have, but I’m concerned with the other context for the question, today.

The second meaning is about connection.  A reader has enjoyed a book, a series, an entire catalogue, and they want to connect with the author, either to be better aware of what’s going on and what’s coming up next, or because they just want to engage with an author as a human being.  How does a reader reach out to you, as an author, in order to gain information or relationship?

I have a lot of paths, in truth, and they address different desires, as well as different degrees of connection.

The cheapest, easiest way to find out when I have new material out for sale is to follow me on Amazon.  Amazon sends you an e-mail every time I have a new book out.  Cool.  It’s a button on the Amazon website, and it’s really easy to un-check if you change your mind.  Plus, you only get e-mail from Amazon about my new books.  Narrow, specific, news.

You can follow me on Bookbub and hear when I have a new release out *or* when I have a short-term sale going on that is associated with a Bookbub promotion.  Slightly more information, slightly more obscure.  You have to have an account on the site.

You can follow me on Goodreads.  I honestly don’t know what happens, when you do that, but I know you can.  I think you get feed notifications when I post a blog to my website.  I don’t even know if they tell you if I have a new book out.  I’m not sure this is a high-quality path to ‘finding’ me, but it’s there.

I have a contact-me link here on my website.  You can fill out a box and it will send me an e-mail, which I will read.  My respond rate is better than 90%.  (I went through a season where a few got past me, but I do try for 100%.)  That’s very direct, but I don’t tend to keep up an e-mail correspondence with readers like that.

Then we get to the big two.

You can sign up for my newsletter.  I’ll let you know when I have new books out, I’ll let you know when I have sales or price changes coming, and I’ll let you know when I’ve got special stuff going on, like giveaways, new series-branded merchandise, (someday) Kickstarters and the like.  Lots of information, but I’m not the type of author who is going to give you anecdotes out of my own life as part of my newsletter.  There are no cat pictures, no recipes.  Very, very little narrative at all.

You can sign up here: https://sendfox.com/lp/m2r2d1

What you’ll get is a series of e-mails describing the series I’ve got out (with some fun GIFs in them), and then my new updates as I send them out.

It’s good.

But when people ask ‘how do readers find you’, my *best* answer is not the newsletter (as much as that goes against writer conventional wisdom).

It’s my Facebook group.

If you want to be somewhere that I act like a human being, that’s it.  I have conversations.  Mostly about writing and books, but they’re actual human-sounding conversations, and I *love* them.  I go through seasons with more energy and seasons with less, but this is my place, and if that’s what you’re looking for, please *please* come hang out.  There are some seriously cool people there, and it’s fun and… alive.

So consider this your official invitation.

Come see me.

Here.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/435117423514398

Plus, (for those of you reading this in the very near future) I’m giving away Verida merch to celebrate the return to The Queen’s Chair series, and the only place to sign up is there on the group.  Drawing will be the week of the launch of book 5 of The Queen’s Chair (Feb 2024).

Cool.  See you there.