I have been preaching about supporting BIPOC authors for most of my time online as a book influencer and I thought I would summarize some of the ways you can support BIPOC and marginalized authors without spending ANY money. As someone who grew up with not much and is constantly trying to figure out how to survive in this economy, I thought this might be useful to many others as well 🫶🏾

1. Add their books to your Goodreads Want-to-Read Shelf.

Yes, I know many people have abandoned the platform but unfortunately publishers still look at this as an indicator of interest!

2. Follow them on their public social media accounts

Some publishers unfortunately do look at authors’ social media presence when signing new deals these days. (This happens more often with marginalized authors 😒 even though we know publishing can make a book breakout without the author having a big following)

3. Engage with their content online

Comment on their posts, like, share to your stories or reshare to your feed. Do this especially for their more “promotional” posts since those usually get lower engagement. You’ll be helping extend their reach in the algorithm and ensuring their content doesn’t get lost to the ether.

4. Borrow their books from the library

The more demand for a book, the more likely the library will be able to order more copies. Also, as far as I know in Canada, authors also get a small payout for any time their books are checked out.

5. Leave a POSITIVE review on RETAILER sites

i.e. places like Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Indigo, etc. These places are notorious for having awful randos who rate books by marginalized authors badly for no apparent reason (read: racism). Help work against this! Your review doesn’t need to be a literary masterpiece, it can be as simple as “i loved this!”

6. Leave a POSITIVE review on Goodreads

or Storygraph, etc. Again, this helps combat randos who review marginalized authors’ books badly because they “couldn’t connect to the characters” 🥴 (even though they’ll gladly connect to fantasy creatures).

7. GO TO THEIR (free) EVENTS.

Make the trek, do the RSVP, open the zoom. Showing up to support whether it’s an online or in-person event. It proves that there is actual interest in their books and it means the world to authors when you show up for them

8. Request their book from NetGalley

—if you’re a book reviewer, and even if you think you won’t get approved. This is another indicator of interest for the publisher.

9. Share your love online!

You don’t need to have a bookstagram/booktok to do this! Regular people can also be intrigued by book recs!

10. Tell your friends / coworkers / family / neighbours about the author’s books!

Get them to do everything on this list! word of mouth is HUGE for selling books.

OK those are my tips! Let me know if I missed anything that could help support your favourite BIPOC authors 🫶🏾

And if you made it this far, go add the books from Boundless Press to your Goodreads want-to-read shelf for FREE.

Dust Settles North by Deena ElGenaidi | Follow Deena on IG

Burn the Sea by Mona Tewari | Follow Mona on IG