Aiding Indie Authors

Thank you for stopping by and considering our unique program to help show our support in the Indie Author community!

It’s a pretty simple system that doesn’t require a whole lot of time, effort or money. But it is an incredibly powerful system for the Indie Author community.

There are NO membership fees or upfront costs for this program and the organizers of this program do not make any money from this program.

Why join this group? To help support the indie-author industry. Anyone can participate, whether you’re a reader, writer, aspiring author or published author. Members are part of an indie author community with the sole purpose of helping indie authors one-by-one to see if their book can really fly!

You join the program by joining our Facebook Group at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1675211409402187/

Don’t use Facebook? No worries! You can still support this initiative by downloading the book(s) featured below.

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It’s also best if you signup for our newsletter, as it’s the most effective means we have of communicating with our members, and know that they will get the communication.

This program and section of our website is different from our Featured Titles section. Please see full explanations of how it works below.

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[break]You will NOT be inundated with emails and you will not be sent any sales pitches, or infomercials, or junk, or trash, or spam… WE PROMISE. The only emails you will get from us will be regarding updates to our weekly spotlight title. They will also be short and sweet and pretty much just serve as reminders for the information that is in the main post for each spotlight. You email address will not be shared or sold to any other third parties.

What is the program?

It is a community of people dedicated to aiding indie authors by focusing our support on any books not published by the major publishers (often referred to as the Big 6) to help these indie authors get their writing careers onto the right foot.

If the book is amazing and the author is organized with marketing, then that book could really fly and gain a lot of traction and forward momentum.

If the book really isn’t very good and/or the author doesn’t put any effort into propelling it forward, then it will drop like a rock very quickly.

 

How does it work?

During the Spotlight of the Week feature, the book will be on sale for $0.99USD (Amazon will auto convert to the currency for each country), or they will be free, and we hope that you will choose to download as many books as possible (at the rate of just 1 per week). It really isn’t a big investment and you’re discovering a new author! Some members will also post reviews, which we encourage as much as possible.

If for any reason the price of the book in your country has not dropped to $0.99-ish or free, please do not feel obligated to purchase the book. We want this to be a very affordable program for our members – but we do leave the choice up to you. There are a number of reasons a price might not reduce in some marketplaces and we have no control over that.

There is NO EXPECTATION of participation to be a member of this group or to subscribe to our email list. You don’t “have” to download, read or review (or any combination of these) any Spotlight of the Week. But we hope that your choice to be here means that you’re interested in helping to support indie authors and their books.

We use a Facebook Group to post the Spotlight of the Week which will link back to the website post, but you don’t have to be a Facebook user to participate. The Spotlight of the Week is updated on our website each week too.

Members will receive three emails per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) to serve as reminders.

 

Member Responsibilities

While not “mandatory” – these are the ways we would like to see members get involved:

• Download/purchase (as often as possible) a copy of the Spotlight of the Week book during the week that it is being featured at the 0.99c price or for free
• When you read a book, post an honest review on the amazon site for your country AND .com (if that is not your home site) – you are expected to rate the book honestly, a book must be able stand the test of quality over time on it’s own merit – however, if it is a case of personal preferences please try to make a fair rating based on the overall quality of the book and writing – reviews don’t need to be long
• Please post reviews AFTER you purchase the book (this will flag it as verified)
• “Like” the author’s FB page and follow them Twitter
• If you are particularly taken with an author, please also sign up for their newsletter through their website (where available)
• During the week of promoting it would be an added bonus if you engage with posts from the author’s FB page and Twitter such as is reasonable for your regular activity – this can include: Likes, Comments, Shares, Replies, Favouriting, Retweeting

 

How do the reviews work?

No need to panic here, we don’t expect every single member to provide a review on every single book they purchase. There may be times when a member is delayed before being able to read a particular book. But we sure do appreciate as many honest reviews as possible for these books.

These reviews do not need to be a long, detailed analysis of each book by each person. A few thoughtful sentences is sufficient along with a fair and honest rating. The idea is to put together quick, honest, fair and easy reviews (easy to write and easy to read).

For example, simply state:

• What did you like most/least about the book?
• Which was your favourite scene?
• Would you recommend this book to friends or family?
• What was one thing that really stood out to you?
• If the book is part of a series, will you read more in the series?

Example review if you enjoyed the book:

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I liked that I could relate to the characters. My favourite scene was in chapter 4 between character X and character Y. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in the XYZ genre. While there was nothing dramatic that really stood out to me, the book was an enjoyable read from beginning to end. I’m looking forward to reading more books by this author.

Example review if you weren’t really keen on the book:

Unfortunately this book didn’t turn out to be a fit for me. I personally found the storyline to be lacking in some areas and the plot development was a bit weak – I really wasn’t sure what the point was or where it was going. The book was well edited grammatically and may very well suit the taste of some readers, but it’s not a book that I will be able to recommend and I won’t likely be looking for more books from this author.

Remember, authors do want honest reviews and feedback. If you didn’t like the book, offering some explanation in a respectful and objective way can be of huge assistance to the author.

Of course if you would like to provide a more detailed and in-depth review, those are certainly welcome too. And if you just want to say “Yup, I liked it and would recommend it.” that works as well!

 

FAQs

I’m so busy, I can’t possibly read a book per week!

Fear not! We can still support indie authors even if we need to save their book for later. But it’s probably a good idea to grab it while it’s being featured because life is life and we can easily forget about a book once it’s no longer being featured.

Sure we’d love you to read and write a review each week… but let’s be honest – life is BUSY! We ask that you show your support however you’re able to as often as you’re able to. Those that CAN read and review will, those that can’t won’t. PLEASE don’t feel guilty about only being able to be partially supportive. 

 

Will you be looking to expand this program?

Absolutely. Ideally, we’d like to see this grow into a separate group for each specific genre with each group having it’s own dedicated support network. So ultimately, in the long run, we could end up being supportive for a lot more than one book per week. But one step at a time.