The Write Life: Support your community
Now more than ever it’s time to support your community. It’s become clear that without active support, many of the communities we love and see ourselves as belonging to may wither and fade away. This is especially important for writers and other creators, whose communities are tenuous at the best of times.
How best to support your writing community?
Read, read, read. Read widely and deeply — and make an effort to read those writers who aren’t constantly in the spotlight. There are many fine writers whose works get overlooked because they are with smaller publishers that can’t afford a lot of marketing or who simply aren’t interested in self-promotion or social media. Go to the websites of smaller publishers in your country or writing/reading niche and see who they are publishing. You’d be surprised at how many writers you find who have fallen off your radar but you actually want to read. This is especially true if you live outside of the U.S. because, let’s face it, American publishing tends to dominate the cultural conversation. Hey, some of my favourite writers are American but I like a bit of variety!
Tell writers you like or appreciate their work. I can’t tell you how many times this has mattered to me when I’ve felt like giving up on a project and lighting my computer on fire. A well-timed social media post or email can mean the difference between a writer finishing their next work or not. We tend to work in isolation, after all, and the feedback we get tends to be spaced at very long and irregular intervals. Much like royalty payments! I can’t speak for other writers, but a generous comment here and there has meant as much to me as a positive review somewhere. I’ve even made some lasting friendships out of people reaching out to me!
Speaking of reviews, share the love for your favourite books. As fewer books are being reviewed in the media, personal recommendations matter more than ever. A review doesn’t have to be a carefully crafted BookTok video. It can be a few lines on your review platform of choice, or a simple photo post on your preferred social media platform. Don’t forget to tag the author to make their day and help them share your post! (But for the love of all the gods, don’t tag authors in negative reviews. That is not helpful!)
If you can’t leave a review, please consider leaving a rating. For better or worse, we live in an algorithmic world and ratings matter to a writer’s career. Every rating you leave on Goodreads, Amazon, Indigo, wherever actually does make a small difference to getting an author shown to potential readers, and it takes very little time to click on a star.
For what it’s worth, I think star ratings for books and other cultural works is madness. They’re not blenders (although my books have been called genre blenders!). I just give everything I read and like five stars because it’s all a matter of personal taste anyway. It’s the best I can do until someone comes up with a better system. Like maybe the number of times parts of a book have been highlighted and bookmarked….
Subscribe to the magazines that publish writing you like. This is a really simple one. If people don’t subscribe, then those magazines will cease to publish and there won’t be writing you like. It’s the same as buying books. Without a supportive community, there is no culture.
Most magazines can be found on Patreon these days, which makes it pretty easy to subscribe to them, and digital subscriptions are usually quite affordable. As a bonus feature, many magazines offer specialized communities to their subscribers in the form of Discord groups. So you’re getting twice the community for the price of one subscription!
Get out in person to events if you can. Go to the writers’ festivals, the reading series, the book launches, the conventions, and so on. If there aren’t in your area, then consider starting some. Join a writing group and use it for more than writing. (My writing group mostly plays games these days.) The same goes for book clubs. We’re social and physical creatures, and nothing builds community like presence. Most of my best and enduring friendships have been because of real-world events like this.
Once again, read, read, read!
