About a year ago I wrote a post about how you can help creators make money, without spending any of your own. I got to invent a character called Jiminy Snicket to use in examples, so I count it as a success regardless of the quality of the advice. I thought I’d do an updated post with authors in mind specifically, since that is my area of interest these days. Let’s say that our friend Jiminy Snicket, a year on, is a published author. It’s probably a poetry anthology, and they’ve probably illustrated it themselves…
Request their book from your local library
If it’s already available, borrow it. In the UK, authors can earn revenue when readers borrow their books from libraries. If Jiminy’s book isn’t in the catalogue, suggest the library purchases it. I do it all the time (not for my work. That would be embarrassing. I tend to request obscure YA novels and Nabokov. You guys can request my obscure YA novels for me. I’m not that desperate yet).
Engage with social media posts
This was on my original post, and still applies! Comments, shares and tagging-your-mates is good for feeding the Algorithm Gods and is also quite a nice mood boost for whoever’s running the social media account. Posting to the socials, especially when you have to do a certain number of promotional posts, can get repetitive and a little bit depressing. How many ways can you say ‘hey I’ve got a book out’ without boring your audience senseless? It’s hard to tell when the algorithm means that each follower might only see one of your posts every six months. Anyway. Put that screen time to good use! Engage with the social media channels for Jiminy’s publisher as well, if they have one, so the marketing team know that this is an author making waves in the, um, poetry anthology world.
Send work to friends who aren’t on the same channels as the creator
This still applies as well! Most authors have a presence on most platforms (Twitter, Insta and Facebook still seem to be the big ones), but not every reader has an account on those same platforms. Some people are even… deleting their social media in favour of doing something else.
Also I’m told that The Youth are all on TikTok?
By the way, if anyone wants to do some TikTok posts with my work, I’d appreciate it. I’m too old busy for another social media platform.
Anyway, yeah, word of mouth is still very much the name of the game with book sharing, whether the mouths are online or offline. Continuing with that:
Add their book to your wish lists or to-read lists
Most online retailers have an option to add a product to your wish list. Add Jiminy’s book to yours! According to a very quick search which I can’t link because writing this post took about two months: to-buy lists and reviews don’t impact a book’s ranking on Amazon (only sales will). But social sites, like Goodreads, suggest books to users based on what they have ‘shelved’ or what they have previously reviewed. So if you’ve read or want to read Jiminy’s anthology, add it to a list and it may be suggested to people who have read similar work.
All right, there we have it. Four easy peasy ways to do a good turn for the authors in your life! Truly I am a fountain of knowledge. I’m also off to watch the Olympics, so I will see you in the next one!
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Francesca's Thoughts 