Readers Promoting Writers

Jim is on vacation this week, and is blogging from the past!  He has very little Internet access, but will read and catch up on comments eventually.  Please feel free to comment and let him know whether you people of the future are zipping around in flying cars and personal jet packs yet!

Red Hood’s Revenge [B&N | Mysterious Galaxy | Amazon] came out yesterday.  One question that comes up a lot with book releases is how readers can help to promote the writer.  Either the writer wants to get the readers to help spread the word, or else the readers actively ask what they can do to support the writer’s new book.  So here are Jim’s thoughts on:

What readers can do to support their favorite books!

It’s simple enough, really.

Step 1: Get yourself hired as the head buyer for a major bookstore chain.
Step 2: Stock up on the works of Jim C. Hines.
Step 3: Profit!

For those of us not in a position to take over as a buyer, I refer you to the blog post I did asking where you learn about new books.  (On LJ here.)  Reading through the answers confirmed a lot of what I already suspected: word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful factors in getting people to pick up a book.

I’ve seen and tried a lot of different things to publicize books.  I’ve done author interviews.  I’ve provided HTML code people could copy and repaste with the book’s cover and info.  But … and perhaps this is a “Duh!” moment … what seems to work best is simply people talking about the books they love, and why.

So if you want to help support the princess books, or any books for that matter, just talk about them.  Write a blog post describing what you love about the stories or the characters or the world.  It doesn’t have to be a formal review or anything like that (though reviews are always appreciated).  Your excitement about a book you loved will sell that book far more effectively than the author ever could.

And if you’re really not comfortable with that, there’s always cosplaying your favorite character 😉

Other suggestions and ideas on what to do (and also what not to do) are more than welcome!