Attention! Authors.com Needs Your Help - Spread the Word About Authors.com!

We're very proud of our community and would love to make it bigger and better for all of us. To do that, we need our members to take an active role in that growth and help us spread the word. Please help us!

So what benefits can members expect to reap from helping Authors.com grow its membership?

Increased Exposure to a Larger Audience

The larger Authors.com is, the more exposure your book and writing gets. Sure, you can visit a few small forums and connect with other writers. Alternatively you can do so right here in one fell swoop and connect with our  community of over a thousand members. We offer so much more than a forum alone can do! If you want more people to be aware of who you are and what you do, this is the right spot to do that. You have many different  sections where you can interact with our membership base. Take advantage of them!

Increased Activity

With increased membership numbers comes increased activity.  A vibrant community is a healthy community! To achieve that, we need our members to share their experiences and be regular posters here. We have an  enormous pool of knowledge here and we want that pool to become even larger. We want Authors.com to be the "go-to" place online where all an author's needs can be fulfilled. We're mulling over new ideas all the time  (such as a Group where services can be requested) to make that happen. Additional members will boost activity and keep our community fresh.

Increased Diversity

If you live in a small town all your life, you're not exposed to new experiences in the same way that you would be living in a large metropolis. It's the same with online communities. The more expansive a community and  diverse its membership, the more frequently you will come across new thoughts, ideas and opinions. "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions" said Oliver Wendell Holmes. Members  from all walks of life and professions enhance diversity within a community and that's a good thing.  Even within a niche writing community such as ours there are many already: authors, writers, publishers, poets, book  readers, agents and editors and so on. Within that it can be further broken down to those interested in different genres or that are here to improve their writing skills for example. Members join for all different reasons and  that individuality they bring with them enriches the Authors.com community every time someone new signs up.

Increased Networking Possibilities

Authors.com has over 1100 members currently. In a community of that size, the odds are good that you'll find members to network with. If it's a two thousand strong one, the odds improve in your favor. Chances are you'll  not get so lucky in a smaller one and those odds will diminish accordingly. The more members we have, the more opportunity is there for you to gain additional social media followers and ultimately to convert some of those  into sales. You can also build business relationships more easily whether you're a buyer or a seller when you have an existing membership group to tap into. All in all, it simplifies the marketing side for you.

Building Friendships

Of course it's not all about sales. Authors and others in writing related industries understand each other on a level that leaves non-creatively inclined people bemused. Close lasting friendships can be forged in large  communities where common interests are shared. The joy of a large online community is that you don't have to live next door or even in the same hemisphere. The bigger we are, the more likely you would find friends that  understand and appreciate your creative fire.

Have a Bigger Community Voice

Authors.com is and always will be a community driven site. We're inspired and motivated by our members' voices as our regulars know. That's why we introduced a Suggestions and Feedback thread on the forum. We listen to, consider and implement your ideas, suggestions and feedback where appropriate. Because we're not some large faceless corporation bound tightly by regulations but a tight knit community whose direction is 100% driven and run by its members, we have a great deal of flexibility. The bigger the community's membership, the more voices get heard. The more ideas we have for improvement, the more we can incorporate. Everybody wins.

Sounds good! So what can I do to help Authors.com become bigger and better?

First, thank you for your interest in supporting Authors.com! You can help us grow our membership in a number of ways. Whatever you can do is helpful and very much appreciated. We're confident that with your help in sharing our links and more word-of-mouth recommendations, we can grow in leaps and bounds. When we do, the Authors.com  community members will reap  all of the above benefits and more.

Here's some suggestions. Feel free to do as many or as few as you wish:

• Invite, invite, invite! Right under the Authors.com header is an Invite tab. Log in to see it. You can import email addresses there or enter them manually.
• Add a link to Authors.com on your website or in your blogroll.  Anchor text suggestions are (in HTML):
  <a href="http://www.authors.com">Community for Authors and Writers</a> or simply:
  <a href="http://www.authors.com">Authors.com</a>.
• Writing an article about authors? Embed a link to Authors.com in it using the word "authors" as anchor text.
• Find an article you loved on Authors.com, or a point you think deserves repeating? Share it by Tweeting the link, passing it on at LinkedIn, or add it to Facebook.
• Are you a Digg, Reddit or Stumbleupon user? Add a link to an Author.com blog or forum post you found especially useful.
• See an Event on our calendar that's in your local area? Let your friends and family that live nearby know about it.
• Proclaim you're a proud member of Authors.com in your email signature.
• Prefer a graphic? Log in to create a customized badge you can add to your website or blog. See here:  http://www.authors.com/main/embeddable/list
• Do you visit other writing related forums? Add a link in your forum signature to our homepage. (Please check their rules first on sig links to ensure you're allowed one!)

Those are some ideas to get you rolling. We're sure you can come up with more creative ways to help! Please do add suggestions here. Thanks for being a valuable member of Authors.com and please comment below about what you've done. We'd like to be able to thank you.