10 Ways to Show You Love a Writer

A few years ago, fellow author Eileen Flanagan penned a fabulous article that I’ve kept bookmarked on my laptop. It’s sound, thoughtful, and amusing advice for anyone who loves a book author.

With all of the great beach reads hitting bookstores now (the storage on my Kindle is full to bursting!), and Center of Gravity being released in just 6 short weeks, it’s perfect timing to share an abbreviated version of Eileen’s post.*

Here we go …

10 Ways to Support your Favorite Writer

1.   Buy your friend’s book. If you can afford it, buy it for everyone in your extended family. If you can’t afford it, ask

2.   Don’t wait to pick up a copy. How it does in its first weeks determines whether a book will stay on the bookstore shelves or be sent back to the warehouse to be shredded. Try to buy it as soon as it’s published, or better yet pre-order a copy, which gets your friend’s publisher excited about the book’s prospects.

3.   Where they you get the book? In the long-term, it is in every writer’s best interest to support independent booksellers. Go to IndieBound to find one near you. When a book is newly released, however, it may help your writer

4.   Write a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Mention it on Facebook and Twitter, and recommend it to your book group.

5.   Skip writing the review if your friend’s book is sci-fi and you’re more of a Jhumpa Lahiri fan. Say something like, “I’m so proud of you for following your passion.”

6.   If your friend is a good public speaker, recommend her to your church, synagogue, mosque, ashram, kid’s school, Rotary club, etc. If you live far away, your friend might get to come visit you and write it off her taxes.

7.   If you have a website or blog, link to your friend’s website. The more people who link to her, the better she looks to the search engines, which may help people who don’t already love her to find her book.

8.   If your friend could legitimately be a reference on some Wikipedia page, add her as one, with a link to the most relevant page of her website. Authors can’t tout themselves on Wikipedia, but there is nothing more fun for a writer than discovering a spike in her search engine traffic due to a link posted on Wikipedia. It’s kind of like having a secret Santa.

9.   Don’t ask your friend if she has thought about trying to get on Oprah. Trust me– she’s thought of that.

10. If you pray, go ahead. It couldn’t hurt to pray she gets on Oprah.

For the full article, visit Eileen Flanagan.

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