What authors want
Besides major deals and good snacks
I’ve seen a couple of recent posts with gift ideas for writers (and, uh, yourself!) — ideas that are perfect, by the way. Receiving a box of your favorite pens? So thrilling!
I’ve only got one more thing to add, if you want to do something nice for the authors you read:
Reviews.
If you like an author, if you’ve read their book, then one of the easiest, free things you can do for them is to leave a review of their book/s . . . Particularly a review on a retail site. (We love reviews on Goodreads, Storygraph, and social media — those are important, too!)
Reviews on retail sites are significant because if another person sees them — well they’re already looking at the book’s buy page, and they don’t have to go anywhere else to click the order button. Seeing lots of ratings and reviews (especially if they’re positive, let’s be honest . . .) is going to make someone on the fence more inclined to give the book a shot. Other people seem to like it — let’s see what the fuss is about!
Most stores don’t even require you to have purchased the book there. You can get a copy from your favorite independent bookshop, the library, or borrow a friend’s copy. And you can still leave a review!
It also doesn’t have to be a unique (or long) review. If you’ve already left one somewhere else, it’s absolutely acceptable to copy and paste it.
Some of you might remember a newsletter I sent earlier this year — the only giveaway I will ever run for knit wings. In it, I posed this offer: if NIGHTRENDER receives 500 ratings and reviews on Amazon by the time DAWNBREAKER releases, I will knit a pair of wings and run a giveaway for it.
It’s a big ask, but not an impossible one. Given that the wings are a significant effort on my part — 45 hours of knitting if I make no mistakes — I wouldn’t knit a giveaway set for anything less than potentially life-changing for my book.
I’ll be honest though — we’re not even close right now.
But there is still time! DAWNBREAKER was pushed back to Fall 2023, so if you’ve read NIGHTRENDER and want to rate it . . . well that would be lovely.
You might know by now that I have lots of books out (see below), and I’d love if you left a rating or review on any of them! But NIGHTRENDER is the only one I’ll do this giveaway for.
I know it probably seems a little self serving to send that reminder — and okay, it is! (If I don’t push my stuff, who will??) But I do want to encourage you to leave reviews for other authors, too. It’s one of the simplest, most helpful things you can do for any author and book you love.
It may seem small, but it’s really huge to us.
In updates:
DAWNBREAKER
I finally, finally! turned in DAWNBREAKER. I’m so relieved . . . and nervous! I’ve written before about how the second books of duologies are always difficult. DAWNBREAKER was no exception.
And just to keep things interesting, just as I was about to start my last couple of reads on the book, I became afflicted with the plague of our time. (Covid.) This was (as far as I’m aware) my first time getting it. I was kind of hoping I might make it the whole pandemic without catching it, but that was not to be.
Needless to say, it added extra difficulty to making it through that last pass on my book. But I was victorious in the end — over the deadline and the virus. (Okay I’m still working on the virus; I feel much, much better than before, but I still get fatigued pretty quickly.)
New writing post
Since my last subscriber-wide newsletter, I’ve added only one writing post: So you want to cowrite something. It is, as the name suggests, about cowriting.
I was hoping to add more, but see aforementioned deadline and aforementioned illness. And then, for no reason that I can see, Substack ate the finished post and reverted it back to a week-old draft — which I had to finish again before I could post it.
Coming up, I have a guest post from my agent, reasons I’ve been rejected, and publishing expectations.
Order my books
Want to grab one (or more!) of my books? They’re available everywhere, including:
Bookshop.org (choose an independent bookstore to support!)
Amazon (make sure you use Smile!)
Not sure what all my books are?? Here’s the rundown:
INCARNATE, ASUNDER, and INFINITE are about the only girl who is new in a world where everyone else is perpetually reincarnated. She has to figure out why she was born and what happened to the person she replaced. (More details! Amazon link.)
THE ORPHAN QUEEN and THE MIRROR KING are about a princess fighting to reclaim the kingdom that was stolen from her as a child — but magic is illegal, and she uses magic . . . and the masked vigilante who hunts people with magic is now looking for her. (More details! Amazon link.)
BEFORE SHE IGNITES, AS SHE ASCENDS, and WHEN SHE REIGNS are about a girl who loves dragons, and when she finds out that dragons are being illegally smuggled out of her country, she tells her government . . . only for them to ensure she never tells anyone ever again. Now she must escape her imprisonment to save her dragons — and maybe the world. (More details! Amazon link.)
NIGHTRENDER is about three kingdoms constantly at war, but when monsters from another world begin to invade and a princess is trapped in a bubble of altered reality, someone must summon the champion who can put things to right. But last time she was awake, things went horribly, violently wrong. . . . (More details! Bookshop link.)
MY LADY JANE is a comic retelling of the tragedy of Lady Jane Grey — think history meets The Princess Bride (More details! Bookshop link.)
MY PLAIN JANE is Jane Eyre meets Ghostbusters (More details! Bookshop link.)
MY CALAMITY JANE is Teen Wolf meets Scooby Doo . . . in the Wild West. (More details! Bookshop link.)
MY CONTRARY MARY is a companion to MY LADY JANE — about Mary, Queen of Scots (More details! Bookshop link.)
MY IMAGINARY MARY is about Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace — they build a robot! And bring him to life! (More details! Bookshop link.)
Okay, that’s all for now!
If I don’t chat with you before 2023, I hope you have great holiday and a wonderful new year.