April Random Ramblings

Welcome Back, Booklovers! This is another round of random ramblings where I ramble about all the topics floating through my head right now that I don't feel like filming a video or writing a full length blog post about one topic.

A lot of people are talking about respectability politics and the Black experience right now but quiet about how that manifests itself in books. So many of the lauded books by Black authors do engage in respectability politics in some aspect. It's the Black character whose appearance isn't described beyond curly hair and dark skin. Whose family members are off page the entire time despite the character claiming to be close to them because too many Black people in a book make a book a Black book which makes white readers feel uncomfortable.  Respectability politics is Black characters avoiding using Black vernacular, avoiding mentioning cultural dishes, lack of mention of superstitions or traditions. 

As someone who follows a lot of writers, interviews authors,  and is getting back into writing stories I enjoy observing and learning from various authors. There's so much discussion about author as a brand now especially as traditionally published authors take on more and more of a role of doing their own promotion. And it's very clear some authors don't know what their author brand is or how to reach their intended audience. Some people aren't even aware of how their publisher is marketing their book to the masses. I don't see enough resources addressing this with advice for debut or even established authors. Authors of color especially have to do the majority of the marketing themselves. 

For most authors a large portion of their book sales come from Amazon. There's just no denying that Amazon is a force when it comes to one top shopping. And with book prices being so high and there being such a variety of books on the market to choose from it's important to appeal to the online book shoppers. It's actually crazy to me when I see authors who aren't lead title authors do absolutely nothing even on a bare bones level to connect with their followers.

I find that romance authors are more in tune to what their author brand is and who their target audience is despite some publishers pushing the idea that everyone is your audience. If they know they're brand is Southern Black romance they make it known. If they know their brand is monster smut they narrow in on readers who love monster smut. They also promote their backlist

I see all the conversations around piracy and booktokkers returning books. It would be foolish of me to say I've never returned a book or pirated a book. In high school during business class I once printed out a full length novel so I could have a copy of one of my favorite books. I did buy books but since we didn't have a lot of money and I didn't have a job(not for lack of trying though) I bought books on sale and I read from the library. But there were a few times I read the pdf online. That was 10 years ago! I'm not surprised to see it's still happening. I call out the adults who have the means to buy the book but don't or have access to a good library and just don't utilize it because they'd rather donate a few dollars to a piracy site.  Attempting to lecture kids about how wrong it to promote piracy is a waste of breath.

And my final thought is that everything doesn't have to be written in a book. Because while writing can be very therapeutic, it's not a replacement for therapy.