Free and Easy Holiday Gift Ideas for the Author in Your Life
Help authors navigate late-stage capitalism this holiday season
It’s beginning to look a lot like… uh… blind consumerism and the time when small businesses, solo entrepreneurs, and side hustlers make their most cash for the year. But you don’t have to spend any cash to support your author friends. Here are a number of ways you can support the writers in your life this holiday season for FREE.
#1. Reviews
Reviews help authors in myriad ways, but here are my top three reasons to leave a review:
Reviews provide credibility to their work. Other people are likely to make a purchase if they see that others have enjoyed it, and honestly even bad reviews can help a book. You didn’t like the way that poetry collection deviated from the left margin and you just didn’t “get it”? Well that sounds right up my alley! Here’s my money!
Reviews boost auto-populated searches. When my book Survived By first launched, it wouldn’t auto-populate in Goodreads or Amazon search bars. (What does auto-populate mean? It means when someone starts typing in “S-U-R-V-I-V-E-D” that my title would then pop up. Only after typing in “Survived By Anne Marie Wells” would my book show up. But now after several reviews and reaching the Top Ten for many of Amazon’s poetry lists, it auto-populates.
Reviews become marketing materials for authors. Every time I receive a review, I post it on my socials, but reviews can also be used on book covers, websites, and other promotional materials.
#2. Selfies
Leveling up your review game, you can post a selfie with the book. Posting a selfie with an author’s book can introduce potential readers to new authors they may not otherwise encounter.
#3. Quotes
Posting the quotes from an author’s book that particularly impacted you can significantly impact a book’s sales and commercial success. Back in August, after a TikToker posted about my book, reading passages from it aloud, my book went from 1.7 millionth on the Amazon book ranking list to 30,000th over night. This created a domino effect. Other TikTokers also purchased my book and posted about it, and my book has floated above the 500,000th rank since, fluctuating mostly between 10,000 and 100,000th ranking.
#4. Add to To-Be-Read list
Even if you haven’t and can’t afford to purchase an author’s book, you can add it to your “To-Be-Read” list. On Goodreads, StoryGraph, and other book tracking apps, adding a book to your TBR list helps with those auto-populated searches I mentioned above. If you don’t use any of those apps, you can still post a Google-searched image of the book cover on your socials saying “I can’t wait to read this book!”
#5. Suggest the book to your library
It’s easy to suggest a book to your local library. Most library websites have a tab specifically for this. If not, you can inquire by sending them an email or calling. Odds are they have a protocol for suggesting a book.
Additionally, once a book has been purchased for the library, this opens the door for the author to be able to work with that library in order to host a reading or writing workshop.
#6. Make the book your next book club read
When my book came out, my good friend Julia chose it for her book club’s next read. This encourages additional readers, particularly readers who might not otherwise read within that specific genre.
#7. Suggest the book to your local bookstore
If your local bookstore is Barnes & Noble, they may be less inclined to shelve an indie author’s book. If you love your local indie book store, though, you can let them know about the book. Better yet, if you’re ready to purchase the book yourself, you can tell your local bookstore that you would love to buy it through them instead of buying it on Amazon. (Your local bookstore will thank you!)
Just like with the libraries, if the bookstore ends up purchasing the book, this will open the door for the author to do a reading or other event there.
#8. Suggest the author for an event
Last year, a friend of mine who works for the CUNY system reached out to me saying her team was looking for speakers for their Emerging Leaders Conference, particularly on the topic of social justice. I created a pitch for a talk on the historic and modern usage of poetry in social justice movements and activism. Her team loved it, and I was booked.
A couple different friends suggested me to be a guest for two different literary podcasts.
One friend suggested me as a guest speaker for a local event on mindfulness where I created a couple of creative writing exercises to facilitate with attendees.
Another invited me to be a preliminary judge for a poetry contest.
None of this cost them any money, but it created opportunities for me to promote myself, sell my book, and build my resume.
Nothing is better for marketing and promotion than people saying your name in rooms you are not in.
#9. Like & Share
If nothing else, you can like and share their posts on the socials. Liking and sharing gives validation, adds to an author’s overall social media “performance levels,” and it makes them look good when potential publishers or collaborators are scoping them out.
Whether we like it or not, having an active social platform is definitely a plus when pitching to publishers. They want to know not only that your writing is amazing, they want to know that you have the ability to then sell that writing when the time comes. Social media engagement is visible “proof” that an author has a network of people who will be waiting, money in hand, to buy their book.