Community Over Competition: Building an Author Community
How can authors build a genuine community without turning every relationship into a transaction? This blog explores why other authors are not your competition, what meaningful support and reciprocity can look like, and how small, consistent choices can create a more collaborative, inclusive publishing community.
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If you've been in this industry for a while, you know how dog-eat-dog it can feel. After all, we're all on social media watching as other authors seem to thrive—often while our own sales feel like they're tanking and we're struggling for engagement. The green-eyed monster can sometimes get the best of us.
And sometimes, we get burned by others in our community who feel the only way to the top is by standing on someone else's shoulders.
It can be demoralizing. Defeating. Working so closely with our authors, we see it all the time. But we've also seen the beauty in this community and wholeheartedly believe we can work toward a stronger community where we aren't in competition with each other, but instead are each other's champions and friends.
The Author Beside You Is Not Your Enemy
Sales, preorder numbers, social media reach, reviews and rankings… agent or publisher interest, the number of events under their belts, their budgets… All of these things can feel like ingredients for an envy-induced bad-day molotov cocktail.
Trust us, we've been there ourselves. But their success is not evidence that you are falling behind. It doesn't make them your "competition."
You don't know what went on behind the scenes to get them there—you don't get to see the long, sleepless nights when they fought with imposter syndrome and had another author tear them down for the fun of it. You don't get to see the days and nights they spent recalculating their budget to see if they could afford to do both line and copyediting.
The algorithm makes success stories highly visible, but it's important to remember that there are years that likely went undocumented. Years when they too felt disappointment or jealousy.
They are in the trenches with you. They are a part of this community, too.
Community Matters. More Than You Realize
Community is more than just the performance of it. Sure, it's great when you see other authors commenting, liking, sharing other authors' work. It's great when they follow each other. But if that support is conditional, it doesn't matter in the end.
People can tell when your relationship is transactional—when the celebration of their launch is paired with a CTA of your own. Or when you take every opportunity to share something about yourself.
Support is important. Not just for you, but for other authors. We love seeing genuine relationships bloom—when it's just as simple as, "I write in the same genre as you. Let's be friends and talk about the weird things our characters get up to."
Long and short, we owe it to ourselves and our community to engage with each other in a way that doesn't feel like an invoice should be attached to it.
What A Meaningful Author Community Can Look Like
As I said earlier, you're all in the trenches together, fighting uphill battles against discoverability, algorithms, finances, and time. Think about how meaningful it would have been to you in the earlier stages of your journey to meet someone who would share their resources without the expectation of anything in return.
Think about how you would have loved for someone to tell you to avoid marketing scams or those dreaded emails from marketing "professionals" or "agents."
No, no one is entitled to your time and your energy. You don't have to share your skills or your resources with everyone. But if someone is in your orbit, and you connect with them, it takes nothing to say, "I worked with this person on this project and they were a lifesaver," or, "give me your cover reveal graphic. I'll post it on my platform."
During my tenure here at H&A, I've had the privilege of seeing authors create long-lasting, meaningful relationships with each other. I've seen them exchange manuscripts to beta read for each other—some have even helped stage launch campaigns. They read each other's books and become each other's biggest fans. They've become the soft place to land when a particularly scathing review hits them too close to home.
These are meaningful, soul-nourishing relationships that can make the mountain all authors must climb feel a little less insurmountable.
Reciprocity Without Scorekeeping
We've all heard that healthy relationships should be 50/50, and while we agree with that on a conceptual level, we want to allow for just a little more nuance.
Sometimes it will be 50/50. Sometimes it will be 60/40. And then, there will be times when it's 100/0. It will not always be a perfectly balanced relationship from author to author, depending on personal stakes, skills, bandwidth, or publishing schedule.
But the beating heart of the community should be this: where there is the means and desire, authors should support the people they choose to.
For example, my greatest skill lies in website design and cover design. My weakest? Line-editing. If one of my author friends were a line-editor and wanted to take a stab at my book, I may be inclined to help them with their website, or provide a cover for their book.
That said, there should always be boundaries. You should protect your peace, absolutely. No community, relationship, or opportunity is worth being mistreated or taken advantage of.
Your community should protect you. Just as you should protect them.
Our Community is Diverse—That Needs To Be Acknowledged and Celebrated
Queer, BIPOC, disabled, neurodivergent, and otherwise marginalized authors are frequently made to feel that only a limited number of them will be welcomed into a particular space.
That creates pressure to compete for the designated "diverse" seat rather than questioning why the table was designed with so few seats in the first place.
Community cannot dismantle structural inequity on its own, but authors can refuse to reinforce it. That might mean:
Recommending another marginalized author for an opportunity Sharing resources rather than gatekeeping them Correcting someone who treats distinct identities or stories as interchangeable Making introductions Advocating for more inclusive events, lists, and professional spaces
Community Grows Through Small, Consistent Choices
You don't need an enormous network, a platform, or a bottomless wallet to foster a community. All it takes are small, consistent actions: sharing someone else's release because you like the look of it, recommending a book you read because you enjoyed it, offering a newsletter swap, or leaving a thoughtful review. Hell, if you have the skills, time, and desire, beta read or sensitivity read for an author friend.
Or just simply… check in.
Publishing is expensive, vulnerable, and unpredictable work. It becomes a little less lonely when authors are willing to share what they know, celebrate what others have built, and offer support when they genuinely have the capacity to give it.
You do not have to diminish your own ambition to make room for someone else's success. You do not have to exhaust yourself to prove that you care. You only have to remember that a sustainable author career is not built in isolation—and that the people growing beside you may become collaborators, advocates, resources, or genuine friends.
There is room for your work. There is room for theirs, too. And when the existing table is too small, community is how we begin building a bigger one.
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