You’ve heard the phrase “support your starving artists”. Today, I am going to share with you some ways to support your starving authors.
For those who are fortunate enough to make the Big Five – meaning the top five publishers out there i.e Simon and Schuster, Harper Collins etc – authors have far more opportunities for marketing. Even so, gone are the days when any author, whether traditional, midlist (I am a midlist author), or indie, could just sit back after a publishing deal and watch their book flourish without marketing it to some degree.
But we cannot do it alone!
Here are some helpful tips on how to support your starving authors:
- Buy our book even BEFORE it is released!
This is called pre-ordering. For most titles, Amazon allows the pre-ordering of a book three months prior to its release date. For example, yours truly pre-order link on Amazon looks like this. All you do is click on that pre-order link for my ebook, The Aviary. In three months, it will show up on your Kindle or Kindle app on your smart phone or tablet. BOOM! Instant Christmas present for your starving author. And all for less than your weekly (or daily) latte. Also, buy a physical copy and ask us to sign it. Seriously, we eat this up.
- Sharing is caring
Do you have a blog? Insta? Twitter? Facebook? Parent/sibling/aunt/child/pastor/friend/favorite grocery store clerk? Share the book with them! Word of mouth is a powerful tool. People trust their friends’ opinions far more than any social media ad or promotion. To this day, the book series that I became obsessed over were ones my friends suggested and ones I never, I mean never ever would have read based on promotion!
- Review, review, review!
This cannot be emphasized enough. Reviews on Amazon or GoodReads or Barnes and Noble or iBooks are worth their weight in gold. After all, what are you more likely to read? A book with only a couple nice reviews or 100? You don’t have to have literary prowess to write “this book rocked” and click five stars. Bonus points if you click five stars even if you hated the book. Platforms can be finickey and they will sometimes launch negative reviews to the top of the pile. So, if it’s especially an author you know, cling to that old motto: if you can’t say something nice…no seriously, five stars ALWAYS!!!
Feel important yet? Just keep reading…
- Stalk us…nicely.
So, this might be a me thing, but I honestly love it when someone approaches me at a book signing event and mentions how they came to see me specifically. I also love running into people at future events and they tell me how they remembered me from a prior event. Those moments make me feel all ooey and gooey inside. It shows loyalty. Bonus points for fanart!
- Bookstores/Libraries
Go to your local library and bookstore (big and small bookstores alike) and ask them if they carry the book. Bonus points for taking the book off the shelf and turning it so the cover faces out. (I’ve done this with authors I love). Double bonus points for casually suggesting the complete stranger next to you read that book you just beautifully displayed. (I’ve done this, too). TRIPLE bonus points if you ask the librarians or bookstore clerks to feature it on a display!
- Get Creative
Do you go to a book club? Suggest your starving author’s book for your next discussion. (P.S. The Aviary has actual DISCUSSION questions!) For those of us who write for a young adult crowd – cough cough – ask your local teacher friends if they would use it for their classroom or order it for their school library, especially if it tackles a tough teen topic like The Aviary does.
I hope these mere six marketing methods have made you feel tremendous and important. There are many other clever, little methods, so maybe check them out or ask your starving author anytime.
Remember, we cannot do this without you. For most of us, this is not just a job. We spend months and sometimes years – cough The Aviary cough – pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into our books. From borderline panic attacks to beta readers and critique partner to midnight editing to dozens of failed queries to the dreaded red editor’s pen, a starving author’s work is a lengthy and arduous process. Remember that TV show you just love to binge-watch? We are working so hard to write the next book in the series so you can keep reading! So, pre-order our books, share with your friends, leave those reviews, come to our events, promote our books at your local retailers and libraries, and come up with other creative ways to promote our work. If you keep promoting, we promise to keep writing so you can keep reading…and promoting.
Below are all the shiny, new pre-order links for The Aviary. Remember, for every book sold, a donation will go back to trafficking rescue! Help me get 200 pre-orders!
AMAZON SUPER LINK: https://amzn.to/2M9P9k9
BN/NOOK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com
SMASHWORDS: https://www.smashwords.com/boo
KOBO: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebo
ITUNES: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/u