My writing partner and husband got back from the wonderful event that is Authors After Dark which this year was held in New Orleans. We got to meet a bunch of awesome book bloggers, readers, and fellow authors. We both highly recommend this convention if you write fantasy, horror, science fiction, romance…or any combination of the above. Seriously, as a writer you don’t get to have this kind of quality interaction with readers. This convention is one of a kind in that very important regard.
However, the point of this post is about something else. It is about supporting authors, and helping them keep writing. Tee and I were both on a panel about this very topic, and it turned out in a reverse of the usual way things go, that we learned a heck of a lot, rather than disseminating what we know.
Writers are creative people, but I know of far too many who have had to give up their creativity because the realities of providing for themselves and their family have taken precedence over doing what they love.
After meeting the people we met in New Orleans, I realized that readers are just as invested in the careers of their favourite writers as the writers themselves. So, the panel I attended was all about feeding that desire to keep reading what they love.
Here they are in no particular order
- Amazon. Click the Like button under the title of the books you love. The Amazon folk use this in their magic algorithm, and it helps the book show up higher on a list.
- Amazon. Scroll down and click on the tags that the book has. Or make new ones yourself. This will also help people find your friendly author.
- Amazon/Barnes and Noble/Smashwords/Kobo/Goodreads/any other social network. Leave a review. It doesn’t have to be long. Apparently the least it can be is twenty words—but that is not too much. In the end the reviews all add up.
- Blog or Facebook. If you have a blog and can write a paragraph or two, then spread the word. Also imbed images or video files so that it can be pinned on Pinterest.
- Tell a friend. Honestly, Fifty Shades of Grey didn’t become popular because of marketing, it became popular because all the mums in the world talked about it at the playground. Unlikely anyone will be able to replicate that success, but still word-of-mouth does really help.
What do you think? What are your best ways for helping out your favourite authors?