Blood Ties is Now Available!
Hello Fabulous Fans!
Teagan Tate here, drummer from the rock band Madison Grace and star of the steamy romantic suspense novel, Moving Target. I’m taking over the blog while our girl Maggie Clare is in grad school. Her summer semester is underway, and she’s busy with the last few projects she needs to complete her degree. Maggie says she misses you all, but she’ll be back before you know it.
Anyway, we’ve got some exciting news for you today. Blood Ties, the fifth book in the Tactical Solutions International romantic suspense series, is here! You can find it on Amazon, and it’s FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited. Don’t forget to grab a box of tissues for this one!
Once you’ve finished reading, Maggie would really appreciate it if you’d leave a review. I asked her if reviews really matter, and boy did I get an earful. Here’s what Maggie had to say about that…
Yes Teag, reviews matter! If an author receives a hundred reviews, Amazon sends a box of chocolates. At five hundred reviews, we get invited to join a secret writer’s club. When we reach a thousand, a unicorn shows up in our yard and spews multi-colored glitter all over the lawn. Totally kidding, obviously. However, reviews really do matter to authors and here’s why:
Reviews lend credibility and validity to our work. If you’re planning to stay at an AirBnb, or you’d like to try out a new restaurant, one of the first things you’ll probably do is check the reviews. As a reader, you’ll likely do the same thing. At least, that’s what I do. Especially if an author is new to me, it’s valuable to see what other readers are saying about them online and why. I’ll still make up my own mind about downloading, ordering, or picking the book up from the library, but I’ll feel better informed before I invest my precious time.
With regard to reviews, more are better. Amazon ran a survey regarding product reviews and found that people were 64% more likely to purchase something that had 1000 reviews vs. something with 100. Books are products, so more reviews matter! More reviews also equals better visibility, which can translate into more options for the author with regard to advertising. While most platforms, like BookBub, don’t require a minimum number of reviews to run a featured deal, they do consider those metrics. Sometimes, we might see a nasty review online about a particular book, but if there are a lot of other thoughtful, positive reviews, we might feel comfortable labeling that one as an outlier. At the very least, we’ll have plenty of data to help make a decision.
Finally, we authors appreciate reviews because they make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside when someone tells the world they loved our story. Truly, you can’t underestimate the value of a few kind words. Writing is a solitary endeavor, but most of us aren’t writing for ourselves, we’re writing to entertain others, to convey a message, to connect with readers, to share a world we’ve created and the characters who inhabit it, or some combination of all these reasons. To know we’ve touched another person with our work means everything.
I’ll tell Maggie I passed along her message, and I’ll catch up with you all next month with more cool stuff to share.
