Soooo Many Great Books, Spring 2024 (2024)

Hello & Happy Friday! This post is one of my favorite kinds to write—a book post! Before I dive into the book list, though, I want to share a few thoughts about book buying and book promotion…we hosted a really lovely book launch party for a friend earlier this month (& we just put another one on the calendar for next month—how lucky are we?!).

At the book launch party, after I interviewed the author, I gave the attenders a little inside baseball on how books get sold and how to support authors, etc. Afterward, several people told me that it was very helpful, and that they wanted to support authors and books but didn’t necessarily know the specific things to do.

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(Basically, these are the things that every publisher wants every author to tell their readers explicitly, but to be honest, when it’s your book that’s coming out, it can feel a little tacky/hard-sell-ish. But here’s one upside to the fact that I don’t have a book coming out anytime soon: I can just dive in to the hard sell on behalf of all the authors in my life who do!)

Here’s the deal: the best way to support a book and its author is to talk about it. The best place to talk about it is on social media, and the best time is the first week of its release. Books come out on Tuesdays, so I mark my calendar with books I want to support, and I post about them almost every Tuesday.

Also, the most effective way to post about books is to show a photo of the cover—what happens then is that if enough people post photos of its cover, as other people are scrolling, they get this sense of “wow, this book is everywhere!”—and that’s exactly the goal.

Posting reviews is another great way to support an author. Goodreads is great, but Amazon is still king when it comes to reviews and overall rating—those numbers really matter to a publisher.

Here’s the funny thing about book sales, especially in the early days of a launch: you would think that if a book is struggling, the publisher would see that and add a little marketing money…but it’s actually the opposite. If a book is struggling, it will get less attention and support from a publisher, BUT if a publisher sees a lot of excitement and buzz about a book, they’ll add more support and more budget—that’s why reviews matter, why Amazon ratings matter, why social posts matter, AND it’s why pre-orders matter a lot.

Pre-orders show the publisher that there is a mobilized audience for this book, and when pre-orders are good, support from the publisher goes up—more media, more marketing dollars, more tour stops, etc. And that support makes SUCH a difference for a book launch.

To recap: if you want to do one concrete thing for an author you love today, pre-order their book. And then if you want to do a second thing, put a note on your calendar to talk about it during release week—on social, with a photo of the cover. And if you want to do a third thing: Amazon review.

One of the most frustrating things I’ve experienced in my (can it be?) nearly twenty years in the publishing industry is that great books really do fall through the cracks, and not-so-great ones get shouted from the rooftops, because they have big marketing budgets. Readers can help change this, book by book, review by review. We can nudge publishers to support books we love through pre-ordering, posting, and reviewing.

Remember launch teams? Authors would invite readers to join their launch team, and once you’re on the launch team, you…essentially do all the things I’ve just told you about.

Here’s the thing: nobody has to invite you to be on their launch team—you can just do it. You can just decide to be a person who supports authors and their work…that’s what I do. I don’t know all the authors whose books I support and post about. I get some free books, but overwhelmingly I buy them (pre-ordered, of course!), and I’m happy to, because getting great content out really, really matters to me. Great creative work makes the world better—I believe that to my toes, and I’m grateful to get to support people who make the world better through great creative work.