Helping Authors (And Authors, Help Your Fans!)
As more of my friends are getting published, I’ve become aware that I haven’t been a very good writer-friend! I never knew it, and they were too polite to let me know what more I could have been doing. Sure, I’ve been buying books from folks I’ve met on Twitter, blogs, and Facebook. Buying books is great, but there is more we can do, and now that I know, I thought I’d share it with my bloggy friends.
These are things I have begun to do with books I like, and my author friends have let me know it makes a difference:
- Buy the book! (Of course!) And although this is a list of DO’s, here’s a DON’T: Don’t ask an author to send you a copy (free). Author friends have ALL told me they’ve had folks say to them, “Oh, your book is out? Send me a copy.” No! Buy the book! This is how authors make their living, and sales figures are important! If you’re asking because you want an autographed copy, buy a copy and ask the author to sign it.
- If the book isn’t out yet, pre-order on amazon. I didn’t know this, but bookstores can be influenced to stock a title based on pre-order figures. So every pre-order is important!
- Review the book on your blog. (Now, I don’t review every book I read (or even every book I like) on this blog. Mostly because my blog would turn into a book review blog if I did. I just read too much! However, if you really love a book or really want to help an author, do this!) If you don’t want to do a full-on review, a quick mention and link is always appreciated!
- Rate and review on amazon. Ratings really influence amazon sales, and reviews don’t have to be long to be helpful. You don’t have to have bought the book on amazon to rate/review it there.
- Add the book to your goodreads shelf and rate/review it after you read it. Goodreads is a great way for authors to build up enthusiam for their release, and the more shelves a book is on, the better, even if it’s on the “to read” shelf!
- Interview the author on your blog, or give them space for a guest post.
- Spread the word. Good old-fashioned word-of-mouth is important. Retweeting announcements on Twitter or sharing the author’s posts on Facebook is a simple thing you can do that’s free and easy!
- When you’re in your local bookstore, ask if they have the book (even if you don’t intend to buy it.) This will help put it on their radar. Every inquiry helps! If you know the book isn’t out yet, you can simply ask them if they can find out what the release date is for you.
And in the interest of balance, here are some things authors can do to make life easier for folks (like me!) who want to help:
- Write a bio for your website. If I’m going to review a book, I always try to find an author website to get more info on the author. You’d be surprised how many authors don’t bother to put anything about themselves on their blogs / websites! But if I’m going to interview an author, it really helps if I know a bit about their interests (beyond their own work) so I can think of some questions to ask. Info like day job, hobbies, family, pets, or even favourite books or movies can help me think of interesting questions!
- Provide (on your website) a photo of yourself and your book cover(s) in a large enough format that I can put one or both in a post and have them look good. A lot of blogs seem to use teeny tiny profile shots. Don’t make me hunt around the web to find your book cover. Sure, I can maybe find it on your publisher’s website or on amazon, but having to search for info like this is one one of the reasons it’s so time consuming to do a review post!
- If you’re willing to do guest posts, write some ahead of time! That way when I ask you if you want to do a guest post, you can reply saying, “Sure, I have three articles ready. Here’s the first paragraph of each one. Which would you like to use?”
- Make it easy to contact you. You’d think this would be a no-brainer, but I run into author websites all the time that have no contact method beyond leaving a comment on their blog! I recently wrote to an author this way, wanting to interivew her on my blog, and left my email address. When I hadn’t heard from her a week later, I went back to see if she’d even approved my comment. She had, and she’d replied there, rather than emailing me! She asked me to email her my interview questions, but there was no email address on her website anywhere! I moved on to easier pickings. Sorry, but there are a lot of good books out there, and I’m not going to work that hard to help authors who can’t be bothered.
- Have blurbs, exerpts, and review quotes on your website. Again, just to make life easier for those who want to write about you!
I know a lot of authors are reluctant to talk about themselves, and they feel like putting together a “press kit” makes them seem pretentious, but honestly, you gotta do it. We love your books! We want to help! But if you make it too hard, we will find something else to blog about.
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Great post, India – I really like your tips for authors to make things easier, as well. It’s amazing how easy it is to forget things like letting people know how to contact you!
This is great advice thank you. My debut novel comes out late this year and I am already fretting about the fact I’ll need to have a semi-decent picture taken and write promo stuff. You’re right – I’m shying away from it because I hate self-promotion (oh dear) and I hate talking about myself. I prefer to be consumed in text form, in post-apocalyptic London, through characters much more interesting than I!
However, seeing this has made me realise that it isn’t an ego thing – it’s a convenience thing for other people. So thank you x
[ Follow me on Twitter: emapocalyptic ]
A great reminder of how to help you lovely published authors!!!
Good luck everyone with all your writing and publications!!
take care
x
Great post! it’s the photo biut that always gets me. Other authors seem to come out with a shot that makes them look like a 40s film star. I just come out looking like someone stuck a beard on Danny De Vito
@Kitty Thanks for stopping by! I am in sort of a weird limbo between published author and unpublished. It’ll be a little while before I have to worry about following my own advice in the second list!
@EmailQuestion: A friend emailed me to ask if it’s better (for the author) if she buys a book from the publishers website or amazon. The author gets more money, usually, if you buy directly from the publisher. On the other hand, more amazon sales mean higher amazon ranking, which can lead to more sales. I would say it’s a toss up. If you’re too late to pre-order, then I’d say either is fine!
[ Follow me on Twitter: IndiaDrummond ]
Wonderful list, India! I’ll RT it. I totally agree with the email one. When we’re on blogger sometimes it will disappear off the profile and then it’s impossible for anyone to contact you. I’m thinking about adding it to my sidebar.
What a great article. You listed several things I didn’t know about or simply hadn’t thought about. Thanks!
[ Follow me on Twitter: LeahPetersen ]
Great post, Indy. It’s handy to have such great tips in one place and, for once, I read a list and was happy to see I was already doing most of what you suggested to help my author pals!
I’ll work on the second list to help others help me but I still have a bit of time in which to do that just yet!
[ Follow me on Twitter: katheastman ]
This is such excellent advice! I am going to tweet this page.
[ Follow me on Twitter: MariaZannini ]
What an informative post for both sides! Your tips are spot on.
Excellent tips. I’m a great believer in “what goes around comes around”, so I try to help as many writers as I can.
At the moment I’ve a back log of authors to feature/interview on my blog and out of those I done they’ve returned the favour, so it’s all good.
[ Follow me on Twitter: wisebird2009 ]
Indy, I do review exchanges and interview exchanges where we review each other’s books and interview each other on our blogs. Do you want to to one with me when your book comes out at LPI?
Really good points – I haven’t been great at this yet either. I’ve bookmarked this page for myself – I’ll do better in the summer!
[ Follow me on Twitter: jemifraser ]
I came here through a link posted by Talli on FB. This is such a brilliant post. Should be a must read for all writers and aspiring writers and friends of writers.
[ Follow me on Twitter: raynaiyer ]
I will work on those things for my blog.
[ Follow me on Twitter: alexjcavanaugh ]
Great post! Those Amazon rankings are extremely important and it only takes a few minutes to write one. And people don’t even have to GO to the book store. My mother called all the book stores in her city and asked if they had my books. It helps.
[ Follow me on Twitter: molliebryan ]
Excellent post, India. I’m going to post this on Facebook.
India, great advice, thanks for writing this up. I have been doing some of this but will make sure I follow up with more of your suggestions. I like to help other writers get the word out about their books. Thank you again!
Ciao,
Ardee-ann
[ Follow me on Twitter: ardee_sagemoon ]
I’m back. Did you cut out that little thingy on the keyboard? If so, you have too much time on your hands…
This is a really, really great post. I think if we all followed this advice the writing world would run much more smoothly. I wish I could by all the books I want to, but I can’t. I still try, though.
I wish I could buy every fellow author’s book out there. Unfortunately my funds (or lack thereof, really) won’t allow. But I still think this is really sound advice.
Great post, India!
C xx
[ Follow me on Twitter: cathleenholst ]
@Dan One word: photoshop. (Yes, my photo is very much touched up.) I do worry that nobody would recognise me off the street, but there ya go.
@Marsha Are you insane? Clipart.com Heh.
@Aubrie I’ll send you an email about interviews and reviews. Thanks!
Thanks for all the feedback on the article, everyone, and for helping to spread the word!
[ Follow me on Twitter: IndiaDrummond ]
Great information, India. I’ve wondered how to help fellow friends. Because I’ve decided my blog format would be very specific, I haven’t done interviews or traditional reviews. (Why am I so stubborn?) But I have given shout-outs. I should do more with Amazon.
And because I love my blogging community, I have the published books on my wishlist or pre-order. Now I have to shop, read, and review on Amazon.
This was such a great post, India, thank you for writing it and putting all these things down!
[ Follow me on Twitter: SanguMandanna ]
OK, well, then — I was gonna say, *When your book comes out, please send…*
Never mind.
Great advice for all of us. Two *vernacular* poems are being published in the annual Woody Guthrie Anthology and I’m as happy as if they were novels. [Not as easy as it looks, boys and girls.]
[ Follow me on Twitter: girlfrenkate ]
As they said in the Godfather:
“It’s business”
So when you’re in business, mean business.
Thanks India, I hope this post is still available by the time I need it for myself, but luckily I can already use the advice with people I know who are getting published.
A good list! Always looking for more ways to lend a hand!
Great post and I probably fall into the bad friend category although I do try to buy, rate and review when I have the time. Brill tips!
[ Follow me on Twitter: MelanieTrev ]
Such great advice! I have to say that I’m proud of myself, I’ve been helping writer friends out and hadn’t even realized it! I was so excited that they even said yes to be interviewed that I didn’t realize how much I actually helped them in the process. I’m only missing the review on Amazon.com so I’ll be sure to stop by from here on out and help out my blogger friend!
Some great books out there, I would hate for no one to know about them!
[ Follow me on Twitter: Jendaiker ]
Hi India,
Did I see a mention on your blog before that you design websites for writers? If so, my email is info@oliveobrien.com
I just have one or two questions to ask you.
Thanks!
Olive
[ Follow me on Twitter: oliveobrien ]
I just dropped you an email, Olive!
[ Follow me on Twitter: IndiaDrummond ]