Helping Authors Out Without Spending A Cent

Posted on | September 2, 2009 | No Comments

I caught one of ninja agent Nathan Bransford’s blog saying that the thing we, the reading public, could best support our favorite authors by buying one of their books.

This is true. Without a doubt the best thing we can do is buy a book. Every sale counts.

Still, it’s hard times for most of us, and buying the books of all the authors you love is a costly business*. So what do we do? One option is to log onto your local library’s website and request that they buy said book. Obviously if they’ve already got a copy this isn’t going to work, but for many new authors their books won’t necessarily be on the buy list. I asked my librarian girlfriend and apparently libraries are keen for their customers to ask for books. Most libraries have a book buying budget, and the more direction they can get from their customers the better.

What else? Write a review, then post it all over the place. Facebook, Amazon, Goodreads.com and any of dozens of book sites all want your reviews. Every good review you give your author adds to the chances that they’ll get a sale. If you’ve posted a review on your site make sure you publicise it, again send those authors some traffic.

This is a short post so you now have plenty of time to go and write some reviews.