#authorsforauthors Movement

Good day to all of my readers. This post is going to be a shout out specifically to all of the authors in the Small Town Slashers fan base. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been incredibly impressed with how supportive and welcoming the #writerscommunity of Twitter has been. As a new author, with serious self-doubts about whether or not I could make this a viable career, it would have been so easy for me to give up at this point. Although I have made several sales through online marketing efforts, I am nowhere near the goal I had hoped/been led to expect I could achieve out of the gate with The Drifter. With that said, I cannot help but to continue to express my eternal gratitude to everyone who has purchased a copy of my book so far. However, as this post is targeted to authors specifically, feel free to leave this one and come back next week. For those who do, I am planning to share something special...but you will have to wait to see what that is.

Now, to my dear friends and allies in this struggle to share our stories with the world, I wish to propose an idea that I recently had. Before I do, I need to be clear that this idea is not new (it may even have been proposed exactly in this fashion somewhere that I haven't found), so I'd like to take a moment to recognize some awesome people and ideas that already exist in our community. First, and foremost, one has to recognize Dave Westfall (@dkwestfall1) for being the leader amongst us in shouting out new and exciting authors to follow. Then there are those who are already out there buying books from Indie authors. I would like to believe that most of us do this, but to shout out just a few, I encourage you to reach out to Sean Michael (@TheGiftOfLife19), B. L. Allen (@BLAllenBooks), and Mark-Jonathon (@AuthorMarkRunte). Finally, I wish to recognize those who have actually created groups (something I do not yet know how to do myself) dedicated to buying, reading, sharing and reviewing Indie books as a collective effort to give authors a larger boost. Being that I am part of one such group now, and that it was the inspiration for my hashtag, I must give a huge thanks to my friend Jodie Renée (@writinghub2) for both creating and inviting me to it.

Now then, I am sure you are curious as to what my idea is, so I won't keep you in the dark (*chuckles*) any longer. I have been seeing a lot of tweets lately about three things in particular:
1) The struggle to query our work to publishers/agents
2) The struggle to find reach a greater audience once it is published
3) The struggle to find sales in the current market drought

I wish to propose an author support program. I believe that if we are all capable of devoting ourselves to the following ideas below, it will make a world of difference to all of us going forward:
1) Try our best to purchase 1-2 books from Indie authors each month. Review them, hype them, and wait for it to be paid forward in kind.
2) We form an Author Buddy system where we can:
      a) share each other's work before seeking beta readers for the sake of offering suggestions and improvements to attract
            our audience and publishers/agents.
     b) practice pitch our work to each other so that we can give tips to improve before we send it off to agents/publishers
     c) support each other through both success and failure alike; after all, we are all going towards the same goal.

I realize that it may be naive of me to believe that such a commitment to one another is possible, but I have a Utopian outlook on life. So I am throwing out this idea and this hashtag, #authorsforauthors, out into the world, with the sincere hope that you will join me in a promise to ourselves and each other to make all of our lives a little bit better. Peace and love to you all and have a wonderful week.