How can readers support their favourite indie authors?

How can readers support their favourite indie authors?

   How can readers support their favourite indie authors?

Introduction:

I get a lot of questions from readers and authors, but one of the most interesting for me is readers asking what they can do to help support their favourite indies. I find it interesting because while authors put a whole bunch of time into marketing and editing, I think it’s funny that the amount of information we give to our readers, educating them about how they can help spread the world, is often limited to one instruction per post. More informed readers can be a powerful marketing tool, especially if they’re passionate about your content.

I’ve found that while authors are spending hundreds and even thousands of dollars to get eyes on their work, the only thing you need to do as an author is explain clearly what you want existing readers to do and a lot of them have no problem sharing, recommending, or spreading your content among their social circles. Not only that, but it’s FREE and arguably more EFFECTIVE than any other kind of marketing. I mean, I’m ten times more likely to pick up a book if it’s recommended to me by someone I know, as opposed to by Amazon’s oh-so-famous ‘Also Bought’ algorithm.

My point… a lot of these readers are seriously untapped as a resource, as the majority I speak to want to know how they can help, but are either too intimidated to ask, or worried they’ll do something wrong.

So, I thought I’d give these wonderful people some failproof ways to promote their favourite indie authors!

Let’s get started!

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 The Basics:

·       Buy the authors books (E-book or Paperback) on release day/pre-order.

·       Read the author’s books through Kindle Unlimited (Yes-we do get paid!)

·       Add our books to your Goodreads shelves and recommend them to your friends.

·       Tell your friends about us.

·       Recommend us on Bookbub.

·       Take a picture of yourself with our latest release, or write a status and post a link to the book on amazon, and post it on social media <3

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Leave Reviews:

I’m starting off with an obvious one, because reviews really DO matter. It doesn’t have to be an essay, and even if it’s one sentence and a star rating, it doesn’t matter, a review is still a review! A lot of people will review on Amazon, of course, but there are other websites to submit your reviews to that can seriously impact an author’s reputation on that platform.

Examples of these include:

·       Goodreads.

·       Bookbub.

·       Waterstones.co.uk

·       Your personal Social Media Profiles such as Instagram, Tik Tok for video reviews, or linking to your review on amazon or goodreads on sites with smaller character limits like twitter.

·       Personal Book Blog/Website

·       iBooks

·       Facebook Groups

·       Barnes and Noble

·       Reedsy

·       LibraryThing.com

·       Pinterest

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Reach out to your community:

There’s a lot of authors out there encouraging you to share your thoughts and their content online, but I think one of the most powerful types of marketing, as I said in the introduction, is word of mouth. As an indie author, I am blown away and so grateful everytime someone recommends me to a friend, but there are also other ways you can use your voice on a larger scale.

These include:

·       Asking your local Indie Bookstores to stock your favourite author.

·       Recommending your favourite author to your local book club.

·       Putting up business cards or promotional material in local coffee shops/libraries. (With permission of course.)

·       Asking your local library to stock your favourite author.

·       Writing blog posts on an author’s work, why they inspire you, who would also love their books, if you run one.

·       Nominate your favourite author or books in awards online or in your community.

·       Pin the authors books to relevant group Pinterest boards!

·       Look out for fellow local readers to see if you guys might be able to carpool to signings! This not only saves you money on petrol but gets more readers to the author’s signings who might not have been able to make it!

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Staying on top of social media:

If there’s one thing that’s never easy as an author, it’s making sure that all your readers get ALL your updates. With social media algorithms being what they are, and email marketing often ending up in someone’s spam folder, there are a few tricks that authors can let their readers in on to make sure that they don’t miss any updates.

If you want to make sure you keep up to date with an author online, you should:

·       Add their mailing list address to your *whitelist* (Google this if you aren’t sure how)

·       Follow them on Amazon, Goodreads, Bookbub, Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, Instagram, and any other social media platforms they frequent. If you subscribe to all of them, it’s almost impossible to miss when there’s new info- especially if the author is good at keeping these things up to date.

·       Join their reader group.

·       Make sure you check their website at least once a week.

·       Help out other readers by sharing, liking, commenting or tagging people who might be interested in content from the author and increasing its visibility.

·       Add your favourite author to your ‘See First’ list.

·       See if the author offers a discord server or group chat alerting people to new content.

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Giving a financial boost:

If you’re really up for the job of helping your favourite author reach their career goals and dreams, there are several other ways you can put money in their pocket that don’t include pre-ordering or buying their latest release.

·       Buying and wearing merchandise designed by the author.

·       Buying Signed Copies direct from the author.

·       Subscribing to the author’s Patreon. (This unlocks special bonuses for you too like free stories, merch, exclusive first looks and more!)

·       Reading a book through Kindle Unlimited first and then buying the e-book afterwards. This can (in theory) double the income an author receives.

·       Gifting your favourite author’s paperbacks to your friends for birthdays, Christmas, or just because.

·       Buying books at full price rather than when they’re on sale or free.

·       NOT downloading e-books from piracy sites!

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Conclusion:

To conclude, as you can see there are a lot of ways you can help out your favourite author WITHOUT spending a dime! The thing is, a lot of authors don’t mention these ideas to their readers, and some of them are quite out of the box and might not be obvious to someone who doesn’t have any marketing knowledge. At the end of the day, as an indie I’m grateful when my readers do even one of these things, and most authors feel the same.

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