One BookToker, Satoria Ray, says one main reason for BookTok's apparent persuasiveness is that "the average person on BookTok isn’t getting paid to give their reviews...
"There aren’t these big influencers with huge followings and all these brand deals and sponsorships flying all over the place. It’s usually a person in their car who just got out of work and is like, ‘I was reading this audiobook and I really enjoyed it.’ It’s moms who are cleaning the kitchen and just put the kids to bed and are like, ‘Hey, I just read this really cool book.’
That’s unique to BookTok.”
Even if some BookTokers could be paid to promote books on the platform? I guess that segment probably graduated to another level after making videos for some time, and who am I to say it's not "authentic" enough, as long as viewers are buying the pitches and the books being pitched? Well, let's hope for the best for these content creators, especially those in the United States as the spectre of a TikTok ban looms.
Developmental editor Laura Portwood-Stacer, author of a guide to crafting a compelling scholarly book proposal, speaks with Princeton University Press's Assistant Promotions Director Maria Whelan about aspects of book promotion and how authors can collaborate with publishers on marketing and PR. Books don't sell themselves, and many authors are either oblivious to the need to market their books and themselves, or can't afford to put much into marketing.
Speaking of which, here are some tips on self-publishing and marketing your children's book, courtesy of author Karen Inglis. Or, if one prefers, given the advent of technology, an AI-powered book marketing tool – say hello to Ida, folks.
Samira Azzam was a Palestinian writer, broadcaster and translator whose collections of short stories were acclaimed during her lifetime, only to fall into obscurity after her unexpected passing in 1967. A selection of her stories, translated from Arabic, has been published in a new collection titled Out of Time.
“When I first started reading her work, I found them strong and compelling,” translator Ranya Abdelrahman tells The National. “They are on the surface about people's everyday lives but her characters are so vivid. They make you think. These are stories that were written more than 50 years ago, and yet, I found them so relatable and relevant. That's the mark of really good literature. It stands the test of time.”
Sarawak-born Nadia Mikail's debut novel The Cats We Meet Along the Way, about a teen's road trip through Malaysia set against the backdrop of a looming apocalypse, won this year's Waterstones Children's Book Prize in the older readers category and was named the overall winner. Nadia's anxieties over her family during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to the book: "In the midst of trying to kind of work out those anxieties through writing, I realised the only thing we can do is care for the people we love every day and hope for a better future for them even when things seem hopeless.”
In a candid video, Xiran Jay Zhao answers why the sequel to her bestselling Iron Widow, a sci-fi/alternate history mash-up of Pacific Rim and The Great Wall with miscellaneous hitsorical Chinese figures, is delayed. She claims the way and how much royalties are paid in the publishing industry left her with months of no money, forcing her to take gigs that paid sooner and thus delaying the release of Heavenly Tyrant. Considering the glacial agility of traditional publishers, Zhao's situation won't change soon, but one can hope.
One sees notices on the copyright page of a book, but a prohibition to share the book and "if you want a copy, buy it"? Such a notice was found within the Zodiac Academy fantasy series, which has predictably drawn public ire and ridicule because, well, libraries? BookXcess-type stores? And friends share books with friends, too. It would be no surprise if this case was in the United States, arguably the most litigious country on the planet where even grapes have an end user licence agreement. Almost everyone involved with the book washed their hands off that "Do Not Share" notice, which is still inside one volume of the series on Amazon.
Beijing-based OpenBook, an industry-data research firm, released charts of bestselling titles for February 2023, which I presume is for the Chinese market. Looking at lists from outside the West can be illuminating, but some common threads remain in reading trends, like the sellability of movie tie-ins. Headlining the article is how such a novel, based on a most-watched crime drama series, pushed Liu Cixin's title from the number one spot.
Discussions over the use of AI in writing point include loosening one's writing gears but one author who doesn't appear to need such help is Amy Daws, whose book, Wait with Me, is about to be made into a movie. The inspiration for that book came to her while she was waiting to get her car serviced. If only more of us were visited by the muse in such convenient times...
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