Robin Takes The Scenic Route

Support & Encouragement

6/28/2018

Life, for it to be as good as it can possibly be, needs to include a few things. One of them is a healthy source of support and encouragement. Without it, we wither away. With the wrong source, we turn bitter and still wither away. For some of us, encouragement is a constant need. People like me need to know we're helpful, useful, doing some kind of good for someone. Otherwise, people like me feel like, "What's the point to this life, anyway?" It took such a long time for me to figure out how to make social media work for me instead of against me. Disclaimer: If you don't want to read a post written from a Christian perspective, then just skip this one. But then you won't know more about me. And you might want to know how you can help other writers and encourage them. This is me, but all authors need encouragement and support.

My Worries Add Up So I Beat Them Back Down

I worry about...

whether I've offended someone with a careless choice of words
whether anyone likes what I write about
whether I'll be able to provide some kind of income help for my family
whether I'll be able to stay true to myself and still do what I love
whether my bio photo is good enough (They tell you to smile but I won't fake a smile. That's not even close to being me.)
whether being 'me' will turn more readers away from my work
and anything else you can probably think of.

Then I tell myself I serve a big God. (Psalm 119:89-91) He's big enough to...

help me ask for forgiveness and do what I can to right the wrong. (Romans 12:3)
help me push past what other people think about my writing. (Romans 12:2 & 1 Thessalonians 5:15)
supply my needs and the needs of my family. (Philippians 4:19)
help me stay on the right path while doing what I love. (Philippians 4:8-9; Proverbs 3:6)
help me accept myself for who I am. (1 Peter 2:9-10)
send readers my way who either need to read what I've written or will simply enjoy it. (Judges 7: 2, 4, 7)
take care of every worry I could every come up with. (Philippians 4:6)

When I tell myself these things, it is a way of encouraging myself. But truly, you can't grasp how amazing it is, how deep it reaches into the soul, to have another human say they enjoy what you wrote, created, composed, painted, built, etc. When we lift others up this way, too, we are also brought along for the ride.

So What Does That Have To Do With You?

Well, there are ways you can encourage your favorite authors. I'll list a few from an awesome posters people shared on IG. (These work well for musicians and artists, too, but you'll need to change the places where you leave reviews and connect with them.)
Ways To Help Your Favorite Author:

Review their book on Amazon. -- I don't know how many people out there know reviews are /everything/ on Amazon. If you want your work to be seen, you have to either pay people to review it (People can do that but you can't request five star reviews from those folks...or anyone, really. Besides, authors, don't you want a /real/ review of your work?) An author needs 50 5-star reviews to have their work added to newsletters and other promotions. Considering the possibility you may not feel the book deserved 5-stars, then read on. There are other ways you can help.
Review the book in other places. -- Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Wattpad, wherever you find the book, please leave a review. Your faves will thank you, and real authors will thank you for your honest review. (For other types of creations, you can leave reviews on sites like Soundcloud, DeviantArt, Society6, Etsy, YouTube, Quotev, etc.)
Follow your favorites on social media. Then say hi! -- Not all authors are on every social media platform. Most will find out which one their fans frequent more often and create accounts on those. I like social media but sometimes, it doesn't like me back. Still, visit your favorite authors' websites and see where they connect with fans. Give them a like or a follow at the places where you also have a profile. They'll thank you!
Post about their work online. -- Do you have a blog or website? Why not write an article about your favorite author's work? Sharing is caring and the support is much appreciated.
Talk about it! -- If you like an author, and you enjoy reading their work, then share it with your friends and family. If you told your circle of friends and there was only one who chose to read the work, you'd still have helped the author out. Every reader counts!
Ask your local library to add the book(s) to their shelves. -- Did you know you can put in requests for your library to carry specific books or authors? I didn't know that. But now I do! What are you waiting for?

Now, if you use Instagram, then please go follow these folks whose posters informed me for this post.

They didn't ask me to do this. But I think it's only fair to say without the original posts and the reposts, I would never have seen these helpful items.
I'd also like to encourage you to follow a couple of other folks. I tried to do a search for the original posts about how to support authors. This is where my search led. I found this post about "Feeding" the Authors at MK Turner's website. And the closest I could get to the Amazon info poster was Killarney Traynor's Twitter profile. She also has a blog you can check out. So you can use the links to check out those folks.