Why I Personally Respond to My Readers

I get this all the time: people remind me I only get 35 cents for each book I sell, and want to know why I take the time to personally respond to emails and website comments. My answer is always the same:

It’s good manners!

Folks tell me I should use an auto-responder or hire a secretary to do it. They say, “How can you afford to answer emails?” My response: “What does book income have to do with answering emails? No one’s paying my readers to write to me! Isn’t their time as valuable as mine? –Of course it is!”

When you read my book and take the time to click onto my website and leave your name and email address, and tell me you loved my book—how could I not thank you? You paid money to read my book! You gave up your time to read it! That’s a gift of time you’ll never get back.

Do most people not understand this? Out of every single thing in the world you could have done today, you chose to spend those precious hours of your life reading my book?

It’s the most incredible honor in the world!

Bless your heart! I’m so humbled I don’t even know how to properly thank you! Is someone going to sit there and tell me my readers don’t deserve a couple minutes of my flippin’ time to thank them for what they’ve done for me? My readers aren’t an interruption of my time. They’re the purpose for it!