If you’re cash-strapped (and who isn’t these days!) but still want to help your favourite authors out, here’s a list of simple, easy, and totally FREE things you can do that really make a difference!
- Tell others about the book. Nobody buys a book that they don’t know exists. Nobody borrows a book from the library unless they know it’s there, either! And in our information-saturated world, getting through all the noise and reaching the right people to let them know about a book’s existence is one of the hardest things for authors to do. When you talk about a book you love and tell other people about it, you’re doing a lot to help with that!
- Request the book at your local library. Did you know authors still get paid when books get borrowed from a library? First, the library buys copies for circulation (e-book and hard copy) AND authors often get a small per-borrow fee for e-books. Many countries also have PLR (Public Lending Rights) programs that also track representative samples of library borrows and provide royalties to authors through those programs.
Most libraries have request forms that you can fill out to ask them to pick up copies of books they don’t yet have, but you wish they did. This helps you (since you get to read the book if the library buys it), but it also helps other people discover the book so they can borrow it, too! - Subscribe to the author’s newsletter. In a world where copyrights are being illegally trampled across so many different platforms, where community safety efforts on platforms are being reduced or even cut altogether, and where we seem to be constantly finding out less than-savoury information about CEOs and companies, many authors are leaving once-popular social media platforms for more ethical spaces. But that means, they lose the reach they had on those platforms, which can be really difficult to rebuild elsewhere. If you’re subscribed to an author’s email, then they can always reach you with important book news and updates, no matter what platforms you and they might be on.
- Leave a review. If you loved a book, please consider leaving a review on the platform you bought it on, and then sharing your thoughts on your social media accounts or on sites like Goodreads and StoryGraph. Your views may just be what intrigues someone else enough to pick up a book they might not have otherwise considered! Additionally, some marketing opportunities are only available to authors with a minimum number of big-site reviews, so the more real reviews a book has, the better.
- Share author posts. Finally, you can really help by sharing social media posts and blog articles that your favourite authors post. You never know when something you shared might be the tipping point that catapults a book into the spotlight!
