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Part One: The Five Ways
If there’s an author you respect or appreciate and whose work you’d like to support, there are five ways you can help. All of them are extremely simple and can be done on a laptop or smartphone.
First, the simplest: If you haven’t read the book yet, mark the book “Want to Read” on Goodreads. The link to my new book, Outside, is here if you’re so inclined. Click, click, done!
Second, you can purchase the book or (better yet) pre-order it. Goodreads posts ordering (and pre-ordering) links right there on the book’s landing page, on the left, under the book’s cover. In general, pre-ordering is a much better option than simply purchasing it. Pre-ordering from your local bookstore (more about bookstores further down) is the best option by far. More details about this below!
Third, after you read the book, rank it (with stars) and review it (with sentences) on Goodreads and Amazon. Barnes and Noble, too, if you’re so inclined. It doesn’t matter whether you ordered from these venues or not. You can still rank and review the book, regardless.
Fourth, you can email your local library, asking them to purchase the book for their collection. This is super important. Libraries are always eager to hear what their patrons want to read. Also, libraries (and bookstores, too, now that I think of it) are usually eager to host author events, so if the author is local (or willing to travel), you can ask the librarian if an author visit might be possible. It’s usually a good idea to include the author’s contact information when you email the library. Mine is located here, by the way. As a school librarian, I LOVE visiting other schools and libraries!
Fifth (and finally), if you’d really like to help support the book, take a picture of it and post it on all your socials along with something nice like “Wow! I really, really, really LOVED this book!!!” Whatever you post, be sure to tag the author and publisher. I guarantee they’ll like, comment back, and repost. You’ll likely gain some new followers this way, too.
Part Two: The Nitty-Gritty (Or, A Few Words About Pre-Ordering and Reviewing Books)
For those of you who are new to publishing or just plain interested in learning more, I wanted to share some additional information about pre-ordering and reviewing books.
Pre-ordering affects algorithms.
Any book-related image or verbiage that you post or click online helps inform algorithms that put an author’s book in front of readers who will likely want to read it. This is particularly important when it comes to writing short reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. For example, my YA novel, Outside, is about 1) schools, 2) homelessness, 3) Alaska, and 4) fitting in. If someone were to review the book on Goodreads or Amazon and mention any of those four terms, an algorithm would take notice and place the book in the “Suggested Reads” feed of people who read books about similar topics. A five-star rating would certainly help boost its visibility as well.
Pre-orders, orders, and reviews also affect an author’s bestseller ranking. If you’re not familiar with bestseller ranks, find a book on Amazon and scroll down past the description and the reviews until you arrive at the publishing information. At the bottom of the publishing information, you’ll see the words “Bestsellers Ranking.” The lower the number, obviously, the better. Amazon offers several different Bestseller Rankings. There’s the ranking “in books” and then several other rankings in other categories, such as “in YA literature” or “in New Releases.”
Also, all pre-orders count towards the data that helps determine which books will be released on the New York Times Bestseller list. So, if you want to see an author’s book do well, pre-order it!
Reviewing a book is helpful to others.
Writing a review on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Goodreads – even a short one – helps potential readers decide whether or not they’d like to read the book. Duh, right? But readers (parents and teachers, especially) also want to know if books contain certain elements that might or might not be a good match for their children and students. Outside(sorry – it’s easier to use my own book as an example than risk misspeaking about someone else’s) contains references to violence in schools and premarital sex. Those things might not be appropriate, say, for a ten-year-old. However, both of those elements happen off-page. That is, they’re referenced rather than described – and so a school librarian might find the book appropriate to add to a high school collection, and an eighth-grade English/language arts teacher might recommend it to one or two of her students, but the book wouldn’t be a good fit for a sixth-grade classroom.
A simple ranking of two, three, or four stars could never communicate the information I just communicated. That’s why reviews are important.
In short, reviewing a book makes you a good literary citizen.
Pre-orders (and “Want-to-Reads”) affect print runs.
Publishers need to know how many books to print. If there are a bunch of pre-orders for a certain book, the publisher will have a general idea of how much demand there will be. Of course, publishers look at A LOT more data than just pre-order numbers on Amazon and Barnes & Noble before deciding how many books to print. Still, the number of pre-orders gives a strong indication as to how much interest there is in a particular title.
Likewise, if you pre-order a book from your local bookstore, chances are that the bookstore will order more than one copy of the book.
In closing, I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering OUTSIDE! The links are below. And if you have any good books you’d like to recommend to me, please drop me a line!
Benjamin Ludwig is a New Hampshire public school teacher and writer. He is the author of Ginny Moon, published by HarperCollins | Park Row Books. The book, inspired by his experience adopting a teenager with special needs, was an Indie Next and Library Reads pick, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and one of Amazon.com’s 20 Best Books of 2017. To date, it has been published in 19 countries. His novella, Sourdough, was the recipient of the 2013 Clay Reynolds Prize for the Novella.
He lived in Alaska for six years, an experience which in part inspired his latest book, Outside, which is forthcoming from Conquest Publishing in December 2024. He believes strongly in the importance of experiential learning, and that teaching is an art, not a science. He holds an MAT in English education and an MFA in creative writing, and loves hearing from fellow teachers and writers. You can connect with him through his website (www.benjaminludwig.com) and on Twitter (@biludwig).
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