Monday, February 3, 2020

How to support the authors you love

Girl reading book in bed

I know as readers, we like to support our favorite authors. With the publishing industry being the way it is now, especially with the growing crop of indie authors, I think it's important for us to know how we can support the authors we love. Vote with your money!! This gets asked a lot, so I thought I'd address it here.

For starters, and it's the most common, buy the book. However you buy it (other than used and through a second-hand bookstore), ebook, paperback, hard copy, the author will get a royalty and get paid for the purchase. This happens regardless of whether it's a trad pubbed author or an indie author. And the royalty payment is anywhere between 5% and 30% of the purchase price depending on the publisher.

Now to get into something a little more complicated if you are a super fan or if you read on Kindle Unlimited (KU) if you want to support your favorite author.

Kindle Unlimited

If you read on Kindle Unlimited, the author gets paid per page read when you borrow the book. Usually, the author gets paid between 0.04c to 0.06c per page read. However, there are a few things you need to know about this. The author will only be paid for the first read-through. If you do a re-read through KU, they will not get paid for the second and subsequent read-throughs. Also, if you borrow the book, do not read it, return it, borrow it again, and read it, the author will not get paid. (I'm not exactly sure about this one, but it's anecdotal evidence I've heard. Take this one with a grain of salt).

So if you want to support an author through a reread, I would suggest you buy the book because they will get paid for the purchase if it is within your budget. Totally okay if it's not something you are able to do. They have already been supported and paid through your first read on KU.

To be clear, for those of you who want to offer your full support, and read through KU, and want to purchase the book, there's a sequence you need to follow. You need to read on KU first. Then purchase the book. If you purchase the book immediately, the author will get paid for the book, and you will not be able to borrow it via KU since you already own the book and the author will only get paid the one time for the purchase of the book.

I'm not saying any of this is mandatory. Support your beloved authors however you choose and in whatever way works for you.

Audible escape

What about audiobooks? It's a similar situation. If you have an Audible Escape (AE - it used to be the Romance Package) subscription, then borrow the audiobook via AE and listen to it. They get paid for that. Then, if you really love the book and love the author, you can also purchase the audiobook with an Audible credit or via Amazon Whispersync for Kindle, and they get paid again. Like KU, there's also a sequence to this. AE first, purchase second.

From a social media front, I'm sure you are aware of or are in lots of Facebook groups for books of genres you like to read. It helps to share posts, comment and recommend relevant books when other readers ask for recommendations. My only caveat to this is to be careful about not posting too frequently in groups where Facebook might construe your posting as spam and ban you from groups for a period of thirty days. We don't want that. Also be sure to read the rules of whichever group you are posting or commenting in to be certain you are not violating any rules. Some groups do not allow promo posts.

Pencils

And finally, you know how important reviews are to authors. There seems to be a magic number of reviews on Amazon for the recommendation algorithm to kick in. I've heard it's fifty reviews for a particular book title. So if you can, leave a review even if it's only a quick sentence saying you loved the book. It's not what's written in the review, but the number of reviews that are important with Amazon's algorithms. Of course, higher starred reviews help more than negative or one-star reviews. That's just a given. If you are interested in how to write a book review, I've got an entire article written about it.

So that's it. Just remember, whatever you do, it's voluntary and entirely up to you. There's no formula, and there's no must-do's. Support your favorite authors however you feel comfortable doing. Everything you do helps them keep on writing stories for you to love and enjoy.

Tell me. What's your favorite way to read a book from a favorite author? How do you support them?


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2 comments:

  1. Morning Deanna

    I buy, read and review I also get a lot of ARC's and leave reviews everywhere I can hoping that more people will buy read and enjoy the book

    Have Fun

    Helen

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are a super star, Helen. You are tops when it comes to supporting authors.

      Delete