Hello Lovelies, and welcome back to the blog. It’s the end of week two for NaNoWriMo and probably most authors are starting to feel the burn. As in times before, in week two, I am in the muddy middle of my draft. The writing usually becomes a slog for me, and the burst of energy I feel at the start of something new fades away as burnout becomes an ever more likely scenario.
It is in this kind of place where I am at my lowest as a writer, and for this reason, I wanted to talk about a few free ways you can support and uplift your favorite authors any time of the year, and especially during writing slumps.
Like, Comment on, and Share their Posts
Why This is Effective: According to Facebook, “Interacting with people is associated with a greater sense of well-being… On the other hand, just scrolling through your Facebook feed, passively reading or watching without interacting with others, tends to make people feel worse.”
It isn’t just Facebook. Most social algorithms are looking for interaction of any kind with creator’s posts. The more interaction a post sees, the more likely any social platform is to push that post out to fans, to people who like similar topics, and to complete unknowns. Your like, comment, or share of any influencer’s posts helps get that post in front of even more people who might like that influencer. It takes only a few seconds to do, and it’s completely free.
Leave Reviews Everywhere (Think: Podcasts, Goodreads, Amazon)
Why this is Effective: Did you know that most advertising and marketing groups require a book to have at least ten reviews before they accept an advertising request? For Indie authors and first timers, this is especially true. If you do not have reviews for your book, it is treated by the algorithms as a complete unknown.
Sibs, a candle never loses its own brightness when it lights another candle. While some authors will get their first reviews by sending free arc copies out to review bloggers in exchange for an honest review of their novel, not everyone has the luxury of doing this. Leaving even a simple, “loved it, one of my favorite indie authors, would highly recommend” counts and will help the algorithms know which books and authors to push.
Ask for their books at libraries.
Have you ever gone to the library to borrow a book, and found it not to be there? Sometimes even big names get pulled off a library’s shelves due to availability of space and checkout frequency. It makes sense, right? Libraries want to stock what their patrons are reading, not every book known to man. With self-publishing coming onto the scene, more books are being published than ever before. How does a librarian know which books to acquire?
Well, you ask for those books. Most libraries have a request form in the library or online. Often, if you request a book you want to read, the library will acquire it for you, because chances are good that if you want to read that book, someone else will be interested in it too.
If you don’t like them, at least don’t actively discriminate against them.
Why this is Effective: “A lot of smaller businesses only have a few reviews, and one negative review can flip it from being five stars to being two stars. Your one negative review could have so much weight that you actually destroy the reputation of a business online just because you had a bad experience.” says brandshouter.com on their website.
We authors are all in this together. There is a scarcity narrative where if someone else gets published, there’s less space for all of us, but that isn’t true. At the very least, if you don’t like something someone posts, just don’t interact with it at all.
Shameless plug here. What did you find interesting about this article? Do you do any of these things in order to support your fellow authors? Let us all know in the comments below!
