Support Your Local Author

Gifts don’t all come in brown paper packages tied up with string.

All of us — I would bet that’s almost literally true — personally know someone that’s written a book. They want us to buy it. If our relationship is close enough, we do.

What then?

Do you want to do something truly nice for this friend of yours? Believe it or not, authors want more than just a sale. The sale is great, don’t misunderstand me, but there are more things in play here than the $1.43 Amazon holds in trust for the writer. If you really want to be supportive, here are three big things you can do that are, in the end, maybe even more important than buying the book in the first place (and if you didn’t buy the book, then the author did, and you really should reciprocate with one of the below)(it’s part of the social contract)(but don’t do it if you really don’t want to).

1. Read the thing. Writing is hard, and writing well is excruciating (and delicious). Writing is meant to be read. If you have a book from a friend, read the thing. As far as you can before you can’t stand it any more. Hey — you might be pleasantly surprised and it’s actually pretty good. Regardless, it will not harm you, and it will mean a great deal to the author. Oddly, this is both the easiest and by far the most time-consuming of my recommendations here. 1a: tell the author you read the book. Giving books to people is fun, but when they tell you they took the time to read it, that’s gold. This is dangerous, though, unless you want to —
2. Review it. If you tell your author friend you read their book, you’ll have to say something about it. Find something specific you liked, and tell them that (“I loved how you described Madam Postlethwaite’s second-best drawing room. I’ve always wanted a room like that.”) This avoids having to say “I thought it was better than Macbeth.” (Do not say this.) 2a: Publicly review it. Posting a review on Amazon and Goodreads is a gift that is hard for non-authors to appreciate. Both of those platforms judge how popular (and praiseworthy) something is by the number of people that care to talk about it. Especially if you liked the book (3 or more stars out of 5), you can make a writer’s day by posting your comments to that effect. Yes, you are welcome to write a 1-star or 2-star review as well, if that’s your sincere opinion. Be prepared for blowback — the author might be the kind that reads reviews, despite reams of evidence that this is stupid and destructive. Still, the number of reviews is just as important as the stars. It’s a gift to take five minutes and write a couple sentences. Be kind.
3. Tell someone about it. The greatest gift you can possibly give an author is to tell others about their book — and here I’m not talking about an Amazon review. Get personal. If you really liked it, and you can think of one person that probably would as well, take the 30 seconds Facebook requires to type them a message and tell them they ought to check it out. “Thought of you while reading this. You’d get a kick out of it.” That’s all it takes. If you want to tell the world on Instagram or Twitter, and you hashtag the book title, or tag the author, you’ll make a friend for life.

Most social transactions are unequal, that is, one party places much more value on the interaction than the other one does. If you were to meet Brandon Sanderson, for instance, you’d likely place a lot more value on that meeting than he would (he will not go home and tell his wife in a breathless voice, “you’ll never guess who I met today!”). In a little-known-author interaction, though, you are the one with the power. Your kind word, your two-sentence review, your 4 stars, those are the kinds of things that keep them (us) writing.

Everyone talks about making a positive difference in the world (again, almost literally true). These are some ways you can. And how often can you do it so simply, to such effect, with so little cost to yourself?

Cj

P.S. I just finished reading Drats, Foiled Again! by K.L. Lantz. I’m not going to lie — the book isn’t perfect. But it’s pretty good, and it will be appreciated and liked by the readers it’s aimed at (readers up to 14 or so). Yes, I reviewed it. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.