Maybe you don’t read much, or maybe you just don’t like fiction. Maybe you like it a lot and you have a TBR pile of sixty or so novels. Whatever the reason, you have a good friend or close relative who self-publishes her stories and you think it is totally cool but you haven’t gotten around to reading one yet. It would be nice if there was a quick way to show your support.

There are ten of them I can think of, and any single one will make her smile. You can probably do them all in under twenty minutes without spending a dime or uttering anything but the truth. Are you ready? Open your browser and let’s go

Start with Amazon.com. Type in her name, and pick the option to go to her Amazon page. In the upper right hand corner, you can like her author page. Let’s be honest, an author page with few or no likes looks so forlorn. What if she doesn’t have one? Gently suggest to her that she take a few minutes and make one, so you can like it.

Now go to her most recent, or most popular, book. Scroll down to the reviews. Find a few that speak highly of the book, but also are well written and honestly point out her strengths. A positive but fair review will attract readers who will like the work, and that is what you want for her. Click the button at the bottom of these reviews that says you found the review helpful. You did, didn’t you? Your click will help scoot these reviews up to the top.

On to Goodreads. Here, you can add her books to your bookshelf. When you do, all your friends will see that you did, and that is free publicity for her. Then check out Listopia. Goodreads has hundreds of lists, ranging from the color of the cover to the first letter of the title. Her book surely belongs on several, so add it. Once again, that’s more publicity.

Twitter gives you lots of options. The easiest is to simply retweet one of her own book-related tweets for her. My favorite is to write my own tweet about her book that includes her name, the book’s title, and some fun or funny remark. This gives her something to retweet to her own followers, and that is priceless.

Facebook also offers a lot of options. Hopefully she has a page for her book and you’ve already liked it. If not, fix that. If so, like and share a post of hers that you particularly enjoyed. With the new FB algorithm you may have to go to her page to find it as it may no longer come to you. While you are there, comment about another post or two. All this activity will bring more eyes her way.

Finally, drop by her blog. Become a follower. Comment on a post. You can even mix and match here by tweeting one of her blog posts or sharing it on Facebook, so that you make a little noise everywhere on her behalf.

If you are the writer, not the friend, consider hanging on to this list until your birthday or some other special occasion rolls around. Then don’t be shy. Pass this along to anyone who says that they want to do something nice for you.

Note: z2 is just finishing a blog tour through the fine folks at Reading Addiction Virtual Book Tours. The post below is part of that tour and it appeared May 4 on a wonderful blog called Book Faery Reviews. Please share this post with wild abandon and make struggling writers happier everywhere.

Appreciation for the great images above goes out to the Facebook pages of Hippie Peace Freaks and Your True Voice. Please drop by and give them both a like.