We all have our favorite authors, and if you’re anything like me, you’re chomping at the bit to get your hands on your favorite author’s next book! But there’s plenty you can do in the meantime to support them, too.
We should all be supporting our favorite authors because it’s a nice thing to do, but if you need a little extra boost of motivation, take this into account:
Most authors (both indie and traditional) need other jobs to support themselves. Obviously, there are plenty of big name authors who can make a career out of writing, but for many, an author’s salary isn’t enough to support their life. Because of this (and other pesky things like healthcare), most authors have other jobs that inevitably slow down their writing processes.
So if you want your fave’s next book faster, support them in any way you can! The more people that do this, the more money that author will eventually make, and perhaps they’ll get to a point where they can work at their other job less and write more – it’s a win win for everyone!
How to Support Authors
Below I’ll talk about some obvious ways you can support authors (buy their books!) and some less obvious ways, and I’ll tell you why they can actually help them out. There are so many lovely FREE ways to support authors that everyone can be taking advantage of.
1. Buy their books!
The easiest way to financially support an author is to buy their book(s). As a self-published author, I can tell you that I make the most money on paperback purchases, then e-book purchases, then KU (kindle unlimited) reads. I can also tell you that I don’t care how someone buys my book, and I genuinely appreciate them all!
I consider reads in Kindle Unlimited, Kobo Plus, Scribd, etc. (which are all subscription services that a user pays a monthly price for, then gets access to a large library of e-books) to be purchases as well, because the author DOES get paid for those reads! For example, I know that Kindle Unlimited pays about half a cent per page read.
2. Leave reviews on Goodreads, Storygraph, etc.
Reviews are a HUGE, FREE way to support authors! Until I became an author, I was pretty apathetic about leaving reviews – I really only did it if I loved or hated a book. Now I know that even just leaving a star rating or a one line review can make a difference!
Platforms like Goodreads and Storygraph are ways that readers keep track of the books they’ve read, review books, and connect with reader friends. They are also how many readers choose what books they are going to read next. They might peruse reviews to see if a book has any of their favorite tropes, any content warnings for things that might trigger them, etc.
Reviews help readers find books that match with their personal tastes. As authors, we want people who read our book to like it. We know that not every book is for everyone, and we want to seek out the audience that our book will connect with.
There is a joke in the romance community that if you see a one star review stating that there was too much sex in a book, that will actually sell many readers on that book!
Reviews also help a book can visibility/legitimacy. If someone clicks on a book in Goodreads and sees a high number of reviews, including a variety of ratings, they know that it was actually read by a variety of readers. On the other hand, if someone clicks on a book and it has just five, five star reviews, they know that is probably just the author’s friends leaving them great ratings.
3. Leave reviews on Amazon (or wherever book is sold)
It’s also important to leave reviews on platforms where the book is actually sold (vs. just the platforms in number two). I know this will be shocking to my bookstagrammer friends, but not everyone uses platforms like Goodreads. If you’ve written a review on Goodreads, Storygraph, social media, or somewhere else, it is SO EASY to copy and past it to Amazon, and the author will be forever grateful!
Once again, reviews help so much with visibility. The more reviews you get on Amazon, the more likely they are to promote it, and the higher it will show up in search engine rankings (of which Amazon is a top one).
The more reviews you get, the more likely you are to:
- Show up in “also bought” and “you might like” lists when someone is looking at a book
- Be “top rated” in a genre
- Be included in Amazon’s newsletter
Basically, more reviews = more visibility = more purchases = more money!
4. Post about their books on social media
Social media is scary powerful. People take the opinions of their friends and trusted influencers very seriously! By hyping up a book on social media, you can easily convince others to read it as well.
In marketing, there’s a theory that it takes seven exposures to a product/services/etc. to convince someone to purchase it. As an active bookstagrammer I can confirm that there’s something to this! The first time I see someone post about a book, I’m usually not too phased by it, but when I see it for the fifth or sixth time, I think “there must be something to this! Maybe I should actually check out this book.”
5. Follow the author on social media
Following an author on social media ensures that you won’t miss any news about their upcoming releases, any giveaways they do, or anything else you might be interested in from them! It also adds legitimacy in the way that reviews do…followers are NOT everything, but when someone stumbles across an author’s account, the more followers they have, the more likely the person might be to follow them as well.
6. Interact with the author’s social media
We all love to stalk on social media (at least, I hope I’m not the only one!), but if you’re following an author, you might as well interact with them too! This could mean anything from liking their posts, commenting on them, saving them, sharing them, DMing the author, etc.
The current thinking for engagement on posts is that saves are the most powerful interaction (some consider them a “super like”). Supposedly, the more saves a post gets, the more widely Instagram will share it.
Shares are great because they get more eyeballs on the post (whether someone shares a post to their stories or shares it to a friend vs DM). Again, Instagram likes seeing posts get shared and might push them more.
Good old likes and comments are wonderful as well! Anything that shows interest in a post will make Instagram more likely to push it to a wider audience, for example on the explore page.
7. Recommend their books to friends
Don’t underestimate word of mouth recommendations! Again, people trust their friends’ recommendations (as long as they know they have similar tastes). Anything that gets more people to read an author’s work is so helpful.
8. Suggest an author’s books to your local library
I love utilizing my local library and always have! Libraries are such important resources for communities. They provide entertainment, safe spaces, valuable programs, and so much more. If you notice that your local library doesn’t have your favorite authors’ work on their shelves (or on their Libby or other digital reading apps), recommend them!
For my local library, I scroll to the bottom of the home page there’s a link that says “suggest a purchase.” That takes me to a form I can fill out with information about any book I’d like them to purchase! You might have to do a little digging on your library’s website, but you should be able to find a way to make book suggestions.
In Libby: search an author or book’s name. If your library does not have it, you might get a “Didn’t find what you’re looking for?” headline followed by a list of books that say “not owned.” At the bottom of each book will be a “recommend” button, and it’s as easy as hitting that! You can also click “my account” then “recommendations” to see books you have recommended.
You can see below that I’ve recommended all of Chloe Liese’s books because the Bergam Brothers series is ELITE.
Caveat for authors enrolled in KU: unfortunately, those of us who have our e-books enrolled in KU are contractually not allowed to have our e-books available elsewhere. Our paperbacks and audiobooks can be, though!
Now, you might be wondering how much money an author could possibly make from a library purchasing their book, and the answer is not much – authors typically only get paid once for the purchase of the copy of their book. But think of it like a domino effect: once a library has a copy of their book, an exponentially bigger audience has access to it, and those people may leave reviews, engage with the author on social media, recommend the book, etc. The more people that have access to a book the better!
9. Sign up for an author’s newsletter
Most authors have newsletters you can sign up for that they send out monthly, weekly, or somewhere in between. These often contain updates and perhaps personal tidbits from the author’s life.
You can also often get perks for being a newsletter subscriber, such as first looks at covers and any sorts of reveals, first notice of sales and giveaways, or even free books or bonus content. For example, my newsletter subscribers get access to a private bonus content page that contains/will contain bonus epilogues for all of my books!
You can sign up for my newsletter here or at the bottom of this page 🙂
If you have other ideas for how to support authors, I’d love for you to drop them in the comments below! I love learning about new ways to support fellow authors. The further I get into this author journey, the more I realize how much we depend on our readers and community to fuel us!
