by Patricia Bradley, @PTBradley1

Today is National Read a Book Day, and as I thought about that, it lead my ADHD brain in another direction. Like how I’ve been a reader all my life and until I became an author, I had no clue about leaving reviews. Or anything else that would help my favorite authors. 

I wish someone had sat me down and explained that if I loved a book, I should help promote it. If they had, I would have been a better reader to my favorite authors.  Here’re my Five Ways Readers Can Help Their Favorite Authors, and what follows isn’t intended to make anyone feel guilty. Most of the time readers are like I was, they don’t have a clue they can change the course of a book’s success. So here goes:

1. Tell twelve people how much you enjoyed the not-so-famous (or famous) author’s latest book… and tell each of the twelve to tell someone, and so on.
2. Send an email (or a note if you have an address) to the author (most have a contact page on their website or leave a comment on the Social Media site) telling them how much you enjoyed their book. That word of encouragement will feed an author for days! At least it has me.
3. Understand that what takes you mere hours to read took the author probably a thousand hours or more of blood, sweat, and tears to create.

4. An author’s livelihood depends on readers. If an author is traditionally published and their sales don’t match the publisher’s expectations that author will be dropped. If an author is Indie published and their sales don’t match the author’s needs, they may have to find a paying job. Either way, the reader loses an author they loved.
5. And last but certainly not least, write a review on one of the sites that matter: Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Christianbook dot com. 

The review doesn’t have to be long—a sentence or two just saying that you enjoyed the book because it was—take your pick—entertaining, a great mystery, fast-paced, great characters—whatever made you stay with the book to the end.

Should you review every book you read? I try to, but if I don’t like the book, I’ll generally pass on reviewing it. And I never give lower than a 4-star (out of 5) review, because if it’s below a 4-star, I didn’t finish the book. But if you feel compelled to write a 3-star review, try to give constructive criticism. And be kind; it doesn’t cost you anything.

So, go read a book today!

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Deception, Natchez Trace Park Rangers, Book 4

When ISB Ranger Madison Thorn arrives in Natchez to investigate a white-collar scheme, she has no idea she will be thrown back into the violent crimes division–or that it will get so personal. She’ll have to work with her childhood-enemy-turned-handsome-charmer to unravel the clues before it’s too late.

Patricia Bradley is a Carol finalist and winner of an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award in Suspense, and three anthologies that included her stories debuted on the USA Today Best Seller List. She and her two cats call Northeast Mississippi home–the South is also where she sets most of her books. Her romantic suspense novels include the Logan Point series and the Memphis Cold Case Novels. Deception, the third book in the Natchez Trace Park Rangers series, releases August 2, 2022. She is now hard at work on a new series set in the Cumberland Plateau around Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her writing workshops include American Christian Fiction Writers online courses, workshops at the Mid-South Christian Writer’s Conference, the KenTen Retreat and Scrivenings Press Author Retreat where she was also the keynote. When she has time, she likes to throw mud on a wheel and see what happens.