(I’m Returning to a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday blogging schedule and still updating the site for mobile. Thanks for being patient!)

Sign–up for an ARC, with the amount of discourse that is going around! Yikes.

What do readers owe us? Nothing. Nada.

We get to write the books; we don’t get to dictate how readers respond to those books.

Would I love all 5-star reviews? Sure. But what I want more than that is to connect to readers. I love it when a reader slides into my DM’s telling me that they wish Xander was their Dom. Okay, that makes me have a moment of panic and say, “No! Nooo.” And sometimes, when a reader tells me that one of the Bandit Brothers Books, is their first intro to BDSM, it makes me question my life choices… but…

I appreciate it all the same.

I get to write the books. I don’t get to tell readers what to do with them or how to write reviews, or if they can tag me or not tag me. Do I want to be tagged in one-star reviews? No…not really. Some of them make me laugh….because you have to laugh.

But I don’t wanna tell readers how they should be reading – even ARC readers, with three asterisks***

If you’re a past ARC reader of mine, thank you! You are amazing. My books are better because of ARC readers catching things like my vegetarian character eating bacon, wonky formatting, and three different spellings of Chantal.

I don’t have any expectation other than you’ll read the book and post a review.

I’ve started asking ARC Readers if they want a release day graphic to share because readers have asked me but I clearly say that it is not a requirement.

Here’s my *** for my ARC Readers:

* Don’t be a pirate. I know you would never pirate it, but it happens and I feel like it’s a CYA I have to have on the form

* If you are going to give it less than 2 stars, please reach out before you post your review. I ask this for two reasons: a) It gives me a chance to fix something that needs to be fixed before publication, if it’s something technical b) It gives me a heads-up that this book isn’t landing the way I wanted it to. That’s me asking you to reach out, not me telling you not to post the review. Why do I ask this?
Ah, because of a huge formatting error Flame For Two had this past year when I added an updated file, fixing minor things (backmatter) and I put it into a service, hoping to boost the book. It’s my bestselling book in the series. But I suddenly got all these reviews back talking about grammar. I had beta readers re-read it, I begged peers to re-read it, I broke my rule and questioned friends who I know had read the book and they all said, it’s fine. We were all looking for grammar errors in the original file, not checking the updated, new file I had sent into this review service (sighs – this plan totally backfired, I lost sales). In an effort to prevent this error – which is a known sideloading error through BookFunnel from happening, I now put in that clause on my ARC Form, with the words, “I promise not to freak on your head.” And it worked! That error was caught in Flame For Foe and fixed before publication.

I know that ARC’s are supposed to be the version, the cleanest, error free version and I strive for that but I’m doing this without a cook or a nanny and the tiniest of budgets.

*Have read at least one of my books & posted a book review before joining my ARC Team, anywhere. That’s a new * I added this year for the Bandit Brothers Series. I want you on my team and this is me, trying to cut down on readers who sign up on a whim – I want you here, if you want to be here.

I appreciate my ARC Readers so very much! They’ve kept me writing this year when I have felt burnt out. They slide into my DM’s and check in on me and tell me they’re waiting for the next book and that makes me feel so writerly I wanna squish you.

Thanks for reading!