How to support your favorite indie author

If you’re reading this blog then there is a strong possibility that you are either an author or someone who just simply loves to read, either way, you still enjoy books and as such have a lot to thank the wonderful authors who pour their hearts and knowledge into each page of our chosen paperbacks, eBooks, or hardbacks.

If you get as much joy out of reading as I do, then I’m sure that you would also like to show some appreciation to those great authors who you have read or may even know. Now, when I’m referring to authors here, I am referring to those indie authors who don’t have the massive publishing houses behind them, those authors and writers who have worked hard to get their masterpieces in front of an audience and really appreciate the support of their readers.

This is where we can all help, supporting your favorite indie author (and not just at Christmas) encourages further creativity and an increase in titles from those you enjoy reading, it’s a real win-win, you get more great things to read, and an author gets the opportunity to bring their manuscripts to life.

So, what can we all do to help support? Here are our top ideas on how to get behind indie authors:

ONE) Buy their books! This may be a bit of an obvious one, however, if you have a friend, relative or colleague who is trying to self-publish a book, buy copies, buy one for yourself and give them out as gifts for others (so many people love to receive books as presents, it’s a much more thoughtful gift).

TWO) When you do buy a copy of their book, find out where they are selling it and buy it from where they get the best return, in many cases this will be from their own website. Normally, most authors will direct their readers to where they would prefer you to buy the book from, you’ll be able to see this from their website or social media channels.

THREE) Don’t write-off Amazon however, when you do buy a book from Amazon, it really helps for the ranking of the author’s book, the more that are sold, the higher up the search results and the more sales the author will get.

FOUR) Pre-order their next book, this really helps with booksellers ordering in more stock in anticipation of strong sales for the title, what’s also worth remembering is that in most cases preorders count towards the sales of that book for the first week, so they have a great chance of going into a best seller list and as a result, they sell more books.

FIVE) ​Rate and review online, if you liked the book, one of the best gifts you can give back to the author is a five-star rating along with a great review, make sure you take a couple of minutes writing a short review (try not to give any spoilers away) and if you can, place it in several online bookstores (obviously Amazon should be your first).

SIX) Get in touch with your favorite author and tell them that you enjoyed their book. Writing can be a very lonely task and often the only feedback received is incredibly critical, so getting some positive feedback telling the author how much you enjoyed their work can be very motivating.

SEVEN) If you have read a book that you loved, share it, promote it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and whatever other social media channels you like to use, sharing a link to an author’s book is a powerful way to help them, many authors benefit greatly from word-of-mouth sales, so shout about what you love and spread the love.

EIGHT) Awards help authors, and there are plenty of websites and organizations that love to hand them out, however, they need support to ensure great authors win. So, if you see a competition which would suit your favorite author, nominate them, and then tell everyone you know to vote for your author.

NINE) Sign up for newsletters from your fav author’s website, by doing this you’ll know when your author will be releasing their next book, you also tend to get any promotions before anyone else, so in many cases you’ll get free chapters of new books and discounts too. But most importantly, it lets the author know that their readers are interested in their work, this is so powerful for any author and really keeps them going.

TEN) Find new great indie authors, go to websites such as Goodreads, Gnooks and Bookbub, where you can easily browse for new books from authors you may not have heard of before, you can also search for new authors via Twitter and Facebook where many are building their social media presence.

The main thing to remember, this isn’t about promoting work that you didn’t enjoy or was badly written, this about supporting the indie authors that you read and love, these great authors will really appreciate your help in getting their work in front of a larger audience.

So, if you have a spare moment, do something great today and support an author.