How to Rally Your Troops for Support

I’m frequently asked by authors how I get my contacts/friends/family to really support me as an author. I put the following piece together to make it easy for them, and easy for you, with yours. Feel free to copy and paste in your own details and send around to your contacts. Or, focus on only one type of activity at a time and dole it out in small nuggets. Small nuggets fit most people’s lifestyles/attention spans. So here you go . . .

How to Help Your Favorite Author

I’m sure the author in your life would appreciate any efforts you make on her behalf, even if you stop after the first suggestion in this article. But, heck, why not try them all? Any of us can eat a very large elephant, if we just do it one bite at a time (and preferably utilize vacuum-sealed freezer bags, because it’s going to take you a while). I will not address the vegan/vegetarian ramifications of this last statement; suffice it to say that I truly meant “can” and not “will want to.” Now, back to the topic of promoting your favorite author.

The Old-fashioned Way

Buy their books, people, in whatever form — print, e-book, audio, or whatever. But don’t just buy them. Read them. Tell everyone and their red-headed brother how much you loved them. Lend one to a friend, who might in turn buy the book as a gift for someone or tell five other people about it, who then go buy it. And here’s an idea — you can give them as gifts! Put one on your book club’s reading list; start a book club if you don’t have one. Ask your local bookstore to order them for you. Ditto your library, or donate yours when you’re done reading it. Your words are powerful. Use them.

The Techie Way, but Low Techie

• Subscribe by e-mail to your favorite writers’ blogs and newsletters. Then forward them to other people, who might also subscribe or visit the websites. While you’re at it, follow them on all forms of social media. You can find me at http://pamelafaganhutchins.com to subscribe and follow, and I’ll reward you with free books. (Just sayin’.)
• On Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest and similar social media sites, post links to the authors’ books. Or share/retweet links posted by others. Follow your author while you’re there.
• Follow your author on http://BookBub.com. I’m at https://www.bookbub.com/authors/pamela-fagan-hutchins.
• One-third of all book sales occur on Amazon. Go to Amazon, and do several important things:
  • Visit their author pages. Sign up to follow them/learn about their new releases. Share/tweet them. Here’s mine: http://amazon.com/author/pamelafaganhutchins

If you don’t know how to find their author pages, then go to one of their books. If you click on their name below the title of the book, it will take you to the author page. If you don’t know how to find their books, you’re in trouble. Just kidding. Search for the book by title and his/her name in the search box in the center of the page near the top.

Visit every one of their books. The Knights of Pamelot have their own spreadsheet with links to every one of mine, everywhere. Share/tweet them. Leave honest reviews, with credible ratings. Write simply and from the heart. Heck, Amazon only requires 20 words.

Not High Tech, But For The InterWeb Savvy

• People buy books online at other retailers, too, and the best places, besides Amazon, for authors are Barnes & Noble (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/pamela-fagan-hutchins?keyword=pamela+fagan+hutchins&store=allproducts) and Apple’s iTunes and iBooks (https://itunes.apple.com/us/author/pamela-fagan-hutchins/id528793408?mt=11). On B&N and in iTunes/iBooks, you can leave a review/rating. Don’t forget to share/tweet the author and book pages on your social media. If you’re super ambitious, visit Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/search?q=pamela%20fagan%20hutchins), Kobo (http://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/Search?Query=pamela+fagan+hutchins) and Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/pamelafhutchins), too. If there’s an audiobook version, include Audible (http://www.audible.com/search/ref=hp_tseft?advsearchKeywords=pamela+fagan+hutchins&filterby=field-keywords&x=0&y=0).
• There’s a virtual author/reader social club online, and it is a powerhouse: Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/pamelafaganhutchins ). Join, people, join. Here, you can “fan” your authors, rate and review all their books, and even add their books to your “to-read” list. By adding their books to your to-read list, you are in essence recommending to the world that they all do the same. Or at least to the world comprised by your Goodreads friends.
• Do you Pinterest? From a page with your author’s book and an image of its cover, “Pin it” and include a comment about why you love it. The power of the Pin. Do you Stumbleupon? Again, from a page with something awesome about your author and their book, stumbleit. Use any other social media you like, too.

Now I’m Talking To The Bloggers

• Invite your author to guest post. They can whip up a custom confection for your site, or you can interview them or one of their characters. Do a cover reveal for them. Excerpt a chapter.
• Here’s an idea: you write about their book — as in, review it. I’ll bet your author friend will even give you a book for a giveaway. Don’t expect expensive loot, though. Authors are ramen-noodle eating, Salvation Army clothes-wearing sorts of people whose kids walk uphill in snow to school, and like it.
• Guest post on their blogs, which brings your traffic over to meet them, and potentially creates followers/purchasers.
• Join Amazon’s Associates, or B&N’s Affiliate Programs and their sell books for a commission on your site.
• And of course, share/post/tweet/pin/stumble like mad over all of the posts created above.

Bonus: Here’s my hyper-organized grass-roots marketing spreadsheets, for my Knights of Pamelot, free for you to download and emulate. https://www.box.com/s/c621f562f74e5e139ab9

Some of you are salivating with intention and I lost others of you at the first mention of booting up your computer. That’s OK. Just do the stuff you’re comfortable with. It’s all good.

Thanks for supporting your favorite authors, and me!

***

My best,

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins, winner of the 2017 Silver Falchion award for Best Mystery (Fighting for Anna), writes overly long e-mails, hilarious nonfiction (What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?), and series mysteries, like those in her What Doesn’t Kill You world, which includes the bestselling Saving Grace and the 2015 and 2016 WINNERS of the USA Best Book Award for Cross Genre Fiction, Heaven to Betsy and Hell to Pay. You can snag her newest release, Bombshell, if you’ve already run the rest of the table. She teaches writing, publishing, and promotion at the SkipJack Publishing Online School (where you can take How to Sell a Ton of Books, FREE) and writes about it here on the SkipJack Publishing blog.

Pamela resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. She has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes and trail rides with her hunky husband, giant horses, and pack of rescue dogs, donkeys, and goats. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start).