KARMA
Wouldn’t you love it if you had anonymous advocates for your book?
People who read your book and enjoyed it so much that they are telling people they know and meet about your book. They might even recommend your book on Facebook or Goodreads, without ever having interacted with the author. They did so because they loved the book and wanted to share it, not because they were asked to promote it.
Such word-of-mouth support would just be golden.
Guess what.
You could be the anonymous supporter for wonderful books that you’ve read.
If they are, in fact, wonderful books, they very much deserve your support. If also you paid very little for said book, while deriving much enjoyment from it, your support would be a great way of leaving a little tip for all the time and effort that must have been put into making that book wonderful.
Who knows?
The positive things you do just for the sake of doing good (for those things that are worthy of your support) may return something positive to you some day.
Or at least you’ll be in a more positive mindset, knowing that you’ve done good deeds, so that you’re more likely to see the good things in your own future, rather than focusing on the negatives.
Or maybe a few of the people who see all the good you’re doing will feel the urge to do something nice for you.
Don’t perform good deeds for the mere hope that good deeds may come back to you. Rather, do them because you see the value in doing the good deed itself.
And for those who are slamming the competition or playing unfair, they are probably shooting themselves in the feet. But they are also inviting bad karma to someday repay them the favor.
Or at least they’ll be in a more negative mindset, perhaps worried about possible bad karma, more likely to see the bad things in their future, taking anything positive for granted.
Or maybe people who see all the bad they’re dishing out will be more reluctant to do nice things for them.
There is another reason to support good books.
It helps to create a better brand for the book industry, which helps everyone.
Show what positive wonders there are in the book world. Show the best examples of great stories and great writing.
This helps to attract more readers overall.
Show examples of great self-published books, and that helps to recruit more support for self-publishing.
Show examples of great Kindle Unlimited books, and that helps to recruit more subscribers for Kindle Unlimited.
But focus on the poor features of the worst books, and that hurts these brands, deterring readers.
After all, books are competing against videos, movies, games, and other media.
Chris McMullen
Copyright © 2014 Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers
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Comments
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chrismcmullen 
I like this idea of Book Marketing Karma – something I’ve practiced for a very long time, but never put a name to before. Being an anonymous advocate is kind of like being a Secret Santa! You do something positive for an author whose work you enjoy and also have the satisfaction of recommending the book to your friends. And it’s all done for the sheer pleasure of putting books and readers together, and supporting an author you value. Creating a better brand for the book industry is just icing on the cake! Thanks, Chris for a great blog post. I hope other readers (and authors) will become involved in practicing Book Marketing Karma!
Thank you for being a book advocate and helping to build a better brand. May the pleasure in that bring an added bonus. 🙂
I love the idea of good karma. I am that person. I do what I want others to do for me. I feature authors and other writing-related professionals because I want to help them connect. I leave reviews when I read because I do want readers to discover the books I loved AND I know they are an author’s bread and butter.
Everyone should follow this advice, Chris. Thank you for sharing. What a positive message!
If Confucius gave book marketing advice… 🙂 Thank you for being ‘that person.’ May the positivity that you spread return to you.
“If Confucius gave book marketing advice”–I wish I had included that phrase when I tweeted this post!
I appreciate it just the same. 🙂
We all appreciate you! I love your blog and how you support all of us writers. I know we are a pain in the butt, but you help us out:)
I have promoted a book quite a few times in my life for no other reason than I happened to find it somewhere, read it and loved it. One book last year I loved it so much I did a post about it on the blog I wrote for at the time and I continued to read the entire series. This particular book I found on Amazon. Sometimes I go on Amazon and type in a subject and then buy whatever books pop up in the results – up to my spending limit of course. I have discovered several authors I love in this random selection method.
I also do random buying at bookstores both new and used. I go to a section I like, say fantasy, then pick a few books off the shelves that I either like the cover or like the name of the book or that happen to be adjacent to books I’ve already read and regardless of the description on the back of the book – I buy it anyway because I have found in the past that although I was not impressed by the description – I enjoyed the book anyway.
I highly recommend this practice to others. Buy some books you may not be excited to read, ignore their description, ignore any reviews, even ignore the title or cover – just randomly pick a book and read the entire thing. You might be surprised at what you’ll find.
Those are cool ways to look for books. Thank you for sharing your experience and for supporting authors. 🙂
Great post, Chris! And as you say, ‘what goes around, comes around’… I definitely believe that.
Thank you. Believing that has its merits. 🙂
This is an uplifting and knowledgeable article and am taking some of your ‘pay it forward’ ideas to heart!
Thank you. I love the pay it forward concept. 🙂