How to Help an Indie
You are probably well aware that small independent publishers find it hard to make ends meet. That is just the way it is. We mainly do it for the love of books. But it helps if we can make a bit of money out of it too. Here are 10 ways you can help out indie publishers
1. The easiest and way to #helpanindie is to buy our books, from wherever you prefer to do so. Local bookshop, online, big chain, or direct. Every sale counts.
And for the next few days you can buy any Eye & Lightning book with 30% off direct from this site.
2. Review our books online. Even if you didn’t buy the book from Amazon, posting a review on there helps the author and publisher get more profile. The same goes for GoodReads, or your blog, your Facebook page or Twitter account.
3. And there is no need to spend money if you don’t want to. Please borrow our books from libraries, and if your local library does not stock the book, you can ask them to order it in. They won't always be able to but well worth a go.
4. Share photos of our books online. We think we have great covers for our books and it is always great to see people sharing images of newly arrived or newly read books on social media.
5. Keep asking for our books in your local bookshop. If the new books from Eye & Lightning, or any indie publisher, are repeatedly being requested, then any bookshop worth its salt will make a point of getting them in on publication.
6. Support our ebook promotions. Many indies will create offers on ebooks from time to time (we can change the prices on these much more easily than print books!) and downloading one at 99p can make author and publisher a decent amount of money if enough people do it.
7. Word of mouth is the most important thing when it comes to book sales. Publishers would swap TV appearances, rave press reviews, ads on sides of buses and pretty much anything else in exchange for the buzz created by readers loving a book and shouting about it.
8. Sharing our posts and tweets can help us spread the word about our books. If you see @EyeAndLightning tweet about a book you have enjoyed, or are interested in, then retweeting it is a huge boost for us and we are always grateful.
9. Join our mailing list! We don't take the piss and only send out a couple of emails a month, and they nearly always contain special offers. Go to the bottom of our main page to sign up.
10. And finally, if you buy books from a publisher direct then both author and publisher make more money, so do please consider that. And we currently have 30% off all our books with free UK p&p. Just press the Buy button and insert the discount code HELPANINDIE at the checkout.
30% sale runs until midnight on Monday 24 June
