How you can help me (an author)

Every so often an author blogs about the things you, the reader, con do to help their career. Sometimes it’s enthusiastic and sweet. Sometimes it’s pretty demanding, or downright whiny. The problem is even when it’s on the “I mean it in a nice way” you end up making someone out there reading feel like they aren’t a good enough fan. Because that’s how it always comes off. As if you’re looking your reader directly in the face and saying “You’re not really helping me, but people who do these things are.”

Mind you, I get that especially now authors are under a lot of pressure to hit lists. We fear for the contracts we do have, we worry our series won’t see an end, or even a beginning because publishers are in deep shit and cutting costs means cutting contracts, dropping authors and other nastiness.

So here’s a list of commonly recommended “helps” and why they suck (or not).

1. By the author’s book IN PRINT, from an INDY store in the first week of release.

Why do they want you to do this? Because this is how they get on the USA Today and NYT Bestsellers lists. But I’ve never seen an author say “Hey, I’m trying to make the NYT bestsellers list, if you want to help…” It’s always “If you REALLY want to support me…”

The problem is an increasing number of people prefer digital books, sometimes for reasons that aren’t subjective, like the features which let you change the size of the text, which helps many people with eye issues, even legal blindness, read the books they want much easier. And some people are jobless in this wonderful world, so they can’t afford to buy books, period. Or they have to wait for their unemployment check (or hopefully just pay day) to pick up the book.

And as a a former Big Box Bookseller who hand sold a lot of books (some by the author who most recently posted her list) who is also a consumer who has been treated poorly at indy bookstores allow me to point out that while big box stores might be run by soulless (hah, get it?) asshole capitalists they are staffed quite often with passionate book lovers (sometimes even librarians and teachers) who struggle to keep a job period in this market, much less keep a job in the book/publishing field.

There is no way you could say this to me because what you’re saying is “If you really want to support me as an author you’ll drive 13 miles to the local indie store that treated you like crap (more than once) and doesn’t carry my book *on purpose by choice* order it through them (where no, they won’t be convinced to start stocking your books) go home, wait 3-8 days then drive back out there and pick it up instead of ordering it from the comfort (and low gas-expenditure) of your own home. Because even though you’ve turned multiple people on to my books in your tenure as a bookseller your effort counts for nothing because you worked for a nasty big box store.”

Of course, not every reader has my issues. They do all have some, you know. Namely that they are the end point of the book transaction period. We write the book. The Publisher packages and distributes the book. The bookseller stocks, dusts, recommends, whatever the book. The reader buys the book and has no more loyalty to the author than I do to Rubbermaid when I buy freezer bags from Walmart instead of Kroger.

If use buying the book isn’t enough for you we’ll stop buying it. If you treat certain booksellers like they aren’t equal to others just because, they’ll stop recommending your book and recommend an author who was very nice to them.

I know you don’t MEAN to say that one purchase is unequal to another, but that is what reader ears hear.

2. Face out/relocate my book so it gets more attention.

So even if stores aren’t paid for face outs they still have house rules for them (like there must be three copies or more). And moving a book out of its section means one thing: Booksellers and readers a like can’t find the book and will get it someplace else. Or get something else. And if booksellers find out you’re encouraging this, which means actively encouraging your fans to make their jobs harder, they will not be pleased.

3. Stick bookmarks/flyers/etc in books at the bookstore.

Just asked first. We handed out author bookmarks at the registers with no issue. But lacing the paranormal romance section with one author’s swag gets all that tossed in the trash bin and can get your fan banned from the store.

4. If you must buy an ebook buy a print copy too and give it away or something.

Really? So if I buy an ebook copy I owe you a print purchase too because while other people get to be super spechial fans just for buying because I like a format you don’t I have to buy it twice to be equal? Please see my point #1 and if me spending the five dollars I manage to steal for myself a month on your book isn’t good enough then I’ll kindly take my money to a Starbucks or Taco Bell, or an author who’s gleeful that I even bought their book in the first place.

5. You need/have/should write a review or recommend the book to others.

This one bugs me a lot. Of course us authors *hope* you’ll want to talk about our book. Word of mouth still accounts for most new sales and we love feedback because we’re insecure snots who (even when some of us are best sellers) think no one could really like our stories.

But really the reader-writer relationship ends at buying the book. I have a ton of books that I’ve bought, intending to read, and might never. Stupid obligations (like my kids and husband and reviewing gig and my own writing, and my dog being sick) get in the way and sometimes this really is the best I can do for authors.

Telling me I owe you feedback (excluding crits and books I’ve sworn to review) is asking me to take time out of my life when I often don’t even have time for myself (like tonight, I’m working on three hours sleep) and fluff your ego (because too often the people wanting this feedback only want good feedback. My experience has been these are the authors that aren’t happy if you give them a three star review and instead want you to fall in true lurve with their prose).

I take my reviewing seriously, and my connecting with authors seriously, but when pushed into a choice between reviewing and my family or reviewing and a day job reviewing will always lose. And it should, because it is extra.

Now, of course someone has gotten to this point and has been pissed off (likely more than once) by my little rant. I know that this isn’t what authors mean when they list their “how you can help my career” but stop and consider: Is there any other career where it’s appropriate to outright say “If you like my work here’s what you can do to help my career”?

Sure there are rewards for referrals, sometimes, but where are the mechanics and doctors and teachers who reply to “Hey thanks for coming in today, here’s a list of how you can help my career” they aren’t there, because it’s universally considered bad taste. Coming back for a second, third, fourth time is the sign that a consumer wants to help your career/business. If they do refer others to you it’s a huge compliment. It is not something I feel I have the right to demand from people or make them feel guilty about not giving me because I do not know what their situation is. I do not know if it’s already cost them just to get my latest book. I do not know who they’ve already recommend me to. I have no way of knowing what they have already done to help me and I’m not going to risk making them feel like they owe me more.

Sure you can’t predict when someone is going to be inspired to do more, and when they’ll feel irritable and a little nasty because their best isn’t good enough. Lists like this don’t come off well, even when well intended and you end up with loads of pissed off readers questioning whether your next book is worth the effort of pleasing you or not.

Usually it won’t be.

If you really want to help an author:

1. Read their work. Borrowed, library-issues, digital, print, indy, big box as long as it isn’t pirated or stolen from the store.

2. If you like it come back for more.

Yes feedback is great. Yes recommending it is great. Yes trying to game the system to get your favorite author on the lists can help. But read shall be the whole of the law, unless you’re going for bonus points.

Here’s the super serious bit: The day the reader is suddenly responsible for maintaining the author’s career is the day something breaks in the relationship. Because too often businesses and people look at each other as nothing more than pocketbooks from which money must be wrung. Then, very quickly, the sad state of an author losing a contract becomes, not just a thing which must be overcome, but something that is the reader’s fault.

I very publicly struggled with the idea of support in a capitalist world in my blogging about my Borders’ closure. And that is a terrible feeling you can easily pass on to your fans, whether you mean to or not.