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Promoting a book to make money doesn’t mean you can’t be human or supportive. By giving back to the community, authors create positive images of themselves and get their faces and their books in front of people who might not otherwise be interested in their books or may never have heard of them. Selling yourself by helping a good cause will not only help you sell books, but in the end you will feel good about yourself and more connected to your community and the world at large. You may also have great experiences that will inspire your future books.
While you might go to work at a soup kitchen or just donate money, authors can find ways to contribute to their communities that will also help promote their books. The following are just six of the hundreds of possibilities for how authors can give back:
- Visits to Senior Centers and Assisted Residences. Older people make up a large part of the reading public, largely because they have more time to read. They also appreciate visits and interaction with others, and are likely to tell all their friends and family, including children, grandchildren, great-nieces and nephews, in-laws, and cousins, about a book they like. In other words, seniors have many connections and can provide great word-of-mouth referrals for your book. Especially if you’re writing about history, health care, or topics of special interest to older people, a group of older people may be the perfect audience for your book and message. Many senior centers, assisted living, nursing homes, and veterans’ homes have book groups and book clubs, and are always looking for event planning ideas. Authors may choose to volunteer to read to seniors at these facilities once a week or month, or simply visit and give a talk about their books. During the visit, be sure to hand out cards or bookmarks; Seniors may not always have the best memories and may not remember your name, but if your book interests them, they will show the books they buy or bookmarks to your visitors and tell them about your book. Older adults also enjoy participating in the discussions, and if the authors are willing to listen, they will have great stories to tell, material for future books.
- Speaking at student career day events. Budding young writers are everywhere, and offering to speak to high school or college students at career day events, or participating in events like Young Authors, can be a great way to give back to your community and provide needed encouragement. you received or would have received as a young aspiring author. In addition to speaking with aspiring writers, authors who have written nonfiction books may want to speak with future historians, doctors, businessmen, or other student groups whose field of study is relevant to the topics of their books. Although students don’t usually have a lot of money to buy books, that doesn’t mean they won’t remember the encouragement you gave them and buy your books when they are older, and they can also tell their parents about your books or ask for them for their birthdays or vacation. Best of all, the authors will plant a seed in the young so that new “keepers of the flame” can be born to continue the gift of writing and storytelling.
- Public radio and public television fundraising. Public radio and public television stations love to offer freebies to their listeners and viewers as an incentive to donate to their stations. While your book may cost just $25, viewers who give the station $100 can receive it for free with their donations, which sells a book for you and helps the station buy more programming to enrich the lives of people. These stations will want to buy your book at a discount, usually equal to what bookstores want, like 40 percent. You may not sell many books or make a lot of money directly through this place, although some authors have done very well this way, but it is a great way to advertise your book, and while all viewers may not donate the amount needed to get the book free, you can bet many will buy the book at full price in bookstores or online. Plus, you’ll now have media contacts at the station who might invite you when your next book comes out, interview you, or recommend you to other stations. Some authors have even had local PBS stations make movies from their books if their books are of local interest to their audience.
- Book donation. Donating a book may seem like a financial waste, but it can generate publicity that helps sell books and, again, provides a benefit to an organization. Many libraries that receive books donated by authors have connections to the local media and will take a photo of the author donating the book for their newsletters or even for the community featured sections of local newspapers – great publicity in exchange for a donated book .
Donating books as raffle prizes can also be effective. For example, if your book is donated to a church bazaar raffle, everyone who purchases a raffle ticket can see it as one of the prizes. Your book title could be seen by hundreds of people, and while only one person might win the donated book, several others might decide to purchase the book themselves.
Benefit dinners are another great place to donate books. Communities are always hosting spaghetti dinners and other events to raise money for people who have cancer, leukemia, or other health conditions that lead to large medical bills. Donating a book to help with a raffle or auction at one of these events will not only help you gain public attention, but it can also help raise money that could save a life.
- Promotion of literacy. As authors, we love to read. But, can you imagine not being able to read, or not having books to read? Illiteracy is a huge problem from which poverty, prejudice and many other social ills derive simply because people cannot read and therefore cannot be informed or educated. There are multiple ways for authors to help with literacy.
Visit schools and talk to children about the importance of reading or have an author visit and read your child’s book to them to get them excited about reading. Volunteer your time to help students by tutoring or helping them with a workshop. Tell the children about your own experiences as a writer. Get them excited about the world that will open up to them once they can read. Explain to them how reading and writing are important to almost every job out there today.
Don’t forget adult education programs where you can find more people interested in your book. If your subject interests them, your book could be a springboard for them to learn to read.
I know of an author who won a grant to offer a workshop to help at-risk teens write and publish their own books. She has found book publishers and printers who have agreed to donate time or print books at cost to help these students get their books published, giving them the confidence that if they can write a book, they can achieve anything they want in life. .
- Donate one dollar for each book sold. Many authors have donated a dollar for every book sold to a charity or cause important to them. This situation is especially true with nonfiction books. A book on Alzheimer’s could result in a dollar per book sold going to the American Alzheimer’s Association. A children’s book author might donate a dollar per book to causes that promote literacy. A book on wildlife could net a dollar for every book sold going to the American Humane Society. Beyond sharing their profits, authors are likely to sell more books, and therefore the volume of sales makes up for the loss of profit per book. Also, you can speak at conventions for these causes or sign books at congresses. People are more willing to part with their money when they feel it will go to a good cause and they will get something in return, like a good book.
There are many ways for authors to give back to their communities. Whether these avenues result in more book sales or not, authors will leave feeling good about themselves and knowing that they have made a difference, the results of which can never be measured or underestimated.