Why You Shouldn’t Worry about Family Not Supporting Your Books

When the Power series was first hot, my cousin said to me: “You should write books like on Power! The way we grew up, I know you can put some stuff together.”

That bothered me for two reasons:

  • I am not that kind of writer. Yes, I grew up around drug dealers and addicts, but I don’t write those kinds of books. (TWWBE was the closest book I’ve written with those themes.)
  • I interpreted it to mean the kinds of books I write already aren’t good enough for my Black audiences. In my mind she may as well have said: “We Black people wanna read books like the Power TV series.”

Self-Publishing is a lot of work, and not feeling supported by our family and friends can be crushing.

However, consider these facts, with a focus on point two:

  • Family and long-time friends don’t know the author you. They are only focused on who you’ve been to them growing up and will probably only jump on the bandwagon if you make the New York Times Best Seller and are introduced by Oprah.
  • More seriously, family, relatives, and long-time friends who don’t read the kind of books you write are not your targeted audience anyway.

Meaning you didn’t write this urban romance novel for your auntie.

You wrote it for the 34-to-44-year-old single Black woman who spends her time sharing relationship memes on Facebook, analyzing the breakups of celebrities in the Shaderoom, and devouring novels by Ashley Antoinette Coleman.

This is called appealing to your target audience, or the specific group of people within your market that your marketing is trying to reach.

Put simply: the strangers most interested in the kind of book you write who will likely go from strangers to book besties.

This is why worrying about why your relatives aren’t supporting your writing career is a waste of time.

Because you didn’t write the book for them in the first place.

Not unless they are part of your intended group.

So if auntie is within that wheelhouse, she will be a fan of your books.

But if she is more interested in the Power TV series, she should probably find an author who writes books like that.

Be encouraged.

Check out more Indie Author Basics articles here.

Yecheilyah’s Book Reviews – No Idle Word by Tehilayah Ysrayl

Title: No Idle Word: Poetry and Prose

Author: Tehilayah Ysrayl

Publisher: ‎ Tehilayah Ysrayl

Published: May 7, 2019

Pages: 98

Her name means “A song of praise to Yah,” and Tehilayah’s anthology of poetry and prose sings just like the book of Psalms. We can tell the author thought through each piece before she penned it, as each poem is focused and intentional. There are no idle words in this anthology, as the title implies. Each stanza seeks to emphasize the significance of the use of language.

This is a short and quick read, but you will want to take your time with this one. The poems force us to pause and savor the meanings between the lines. Tehilayah speaks with gentleness and wisdom. I can hear the poetry being read aloud, and she makes excellent use of metaphor and imagery.

This author is also a great singer, which is also a testament to her name and why this book reads like a collection of hymns.

Finally, I enjoyed how the author stayed close to the book’s theme. We are reminded that there are no idle words from the opening to the end.

Ratings:

  • Presentation: 4/5
  • Authenticity /Authentic Voice: 5/5
  • Creativity/Lyrical Content: 5/5
  • Thought Provoking: 5/5

Overall: 5/5

Grab Your Copy of No Idle Word Here

https://nolineleftbehind.wordpress.com/

To have your book reviewed on this blog apply here. The registry is open UNTIL AUGUST 1ST!

Be sure to apply BEFORE August even if your book releases after if you want a review on this blog.

Stay tuned for our next dope read!

Yecheilyah’s Book Reviews is a reputable review service that features writers from all over the world, both traditionally and independently published. We are listed on Kindlepreneur as a top-tier book review blog and Reedsy as one of their vetted active book blogs that provide insightful, excellent book reviews.

*Books are read in the order they are received.

 

Preparing Your Self-Published Book for Bookstores (Part 1)

Contrary to popular belief, self-published books can get into brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Ask me how I know…

Here Are Three Easy Ways to Prepare Your Self-Published / Indie Book for a Store:

1. Have a professionally designed cover with your name and title on the spine.

Usually, I will tell you to ensure it’s edited first (do that, please), but I want to highlight book covers here because they become even more important offline.

Imagine you are in Barnes and Noble (or anywhere) looking for your next read. The cover is going to attract you first.

Also, because you see it from that point of view, the book becomes easier to notice if the name and title are on the spine.

Some bookstores also take your book through a review process, where their team has to vote on the book. If the cover is poor and the editing is not up to standard, they’ll reject stocking your book.

2. Buy Your ISBN from Bowker

You can get your book into Independent stores with a free ISBN on consignment. However, having your book registered under your or your company’s name is a plus if your target is larger chains.

It’s a plus because bookstores hate Amazon’s guts. As soon as they see you are published with Amazon, they are judging you and already trying to come up with a way to let you down easy. It’s almost an instant no.

There are also tons of benefits to having your own ISBN. I go into depth about that here.

3. Use both Amazon and Ingram Spark.

Publish with Kindle Direct Publishing for Amazon only. Do not choose the expanded distribution. This option puts your book into Ingram Spark’s system but under Amazon.

Instead, you will opt out of this and create your own Ingram account.

Then, you are going to publish your book there as well.

This will allow bookstores to order your book directly from Ingram Spark through you instead of Amazon should they decide to carry your title. It also prevents you from bringing copies in yourself, which you would do under consignment.

More on this in part two…

Check out more Indie Author Basics articles here.

Yecheilyah’s Book Reviews – Black Coffee by Bree Gordon

Title: Black Coffee: From Empty to Overflowing with Peace, Healing, and Purpose

Author: Bree Gordon

Publisher: ‎ Bree Gordon

Published: February 18, 2020

Pages: 122

Bree Gordon begins her book with frank sincerity and unabashed vulnerability. We learn about her trials and tribulations as her marriage unraveled and her mental health suffered. Gordon utilizes her therapy sessions as the basis for telling the stories of the women who made a difference in her life, and the revelation about who these women are will leave you speechless.

In this book, we meet not just Bree but also Linda, Gia, Reena, and Trina. It’s got that How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting to Exhale vibe.

This book’s layout and packaging are both excellent. Gordon welcomes us with a stunning cover of her enjoying a cup of coffee and then weaves this motif across her chapters. From “Brewing” to “Spilling the Beans,” I like how imaginatively she titled the chapters to enhance the story. It brought the narrative and the title together well.

What truly sets this book apart is the inclusion of therapist notes. It will surely help other women who have had to walk in Gordon’s shoes.

Ratings:

  • Authenticity / Believable: 5/5
  • Organization: 5/5
  • Thought Provoking: 5/5
  • Solid Conclusion: 4/5
  • Overall Rating: 5 / 5 stars

Grab Your Copy of Black Coffee Here

bree

https://www.breejgordon.com/

To have your book reviewed on this blog apply here. The registry is open UNTIL AUGUST 1ST!

Be sure to apply BEFORE August even if your book releases after if you want a review on this blog.

Stay tuned for our next dope read!

Yecheilyah’s Book Reviews is a reputable review service that features writers from all over the world, both traditionally and independently published. We are listed on Kindlepreneur as a top-tier book review blog and Reedsy as one of their vetted active book blogs that provide insightful, excellent book reviews.

*Books are read in the order they are received.

 

The Habit of Rushing Time as We Age

Photo by Jeffrey Paa Kwesi Opare

A 28-year-old might say, “I’m almost thirty.”

A 38-year-old might say, “Wow, I am almost 40.”

A 48-year-old might say, “Sheesh. I am almost 50.”

Rarely do we appreciate where we are without becoming anxious about where we are going.

I wonder why this is and if it keeps us from being grateful for where we are. Sometimes I wonder if I fully appreciated my twenties when I was in it.

I guess that’s why they say hindsight is 20/20.

My twin sister and me talk about this often because we don’t like to rush our age. When we turned 36 this year, we didn’t say, “We are almost 40.” We said: “Yay, we are 36!”

This doesn’t mean we haven’t thought about approaching 40 (cause like, do it hurt?), but we don’t like to rush our age time.

I am not 37 until I am 37 and not forty until I am 40.

I hope to keep this outlook on life as I age into my 40s, 50s, 60s, or however long I have left.

Instead of saying how much older we are getting, perhaps we can enjoy every minute of where we are now.

My Viral Experience on TikTok (What I Learned)

I wouldn’t say going viral is fun. I find it overwhelming. However, it could be less stressful if you are prepared. Here’s what I am learning.

Proper Preparation

When I first joined TikTok, I made my account a business account. I didn’t wait until a bunch of people followed or anything like that because I knew I wanted to use it to increase awareness about my poetry and black history book. I added my website link, which I customized for TikTok like I did on IG.

SN: I stopped using Linktree years ago. While I love it, I wanted to brand my website, not Linktree so I created a specialized page on my website for my social media pages. For Instagram it looks like this, and for TikTok it looks like this.

This made it easier for people to sign up to my email list and visit my website to order books once my videos took off. Without this seemingly small act, I would have been stressed about where to direct all these people. Thankfully, I had somewhere for them to go if they wanted to learn more about me.

Don’t Worry About the Numbers, Just Post Your Content

I immediately noticed that once a video goes viral, people binge the rest of your content. This means that even if your posts aren’t doing well (regarding numbers), you should continue to post! This way, you are not frantic about what to post next after your viral moment.

I had tons of other black history videos, and poetry content people could watch while I worked on creating more videos.

Every post on my page averaged over a thousand views after that one viral video. I followed this up with a welcome video, directing people to my email list, and then I posted again today (7/19) a whole week later.

The viral video is on its way to a million views, and I have reached 15K followers, up from the 3K I had when I first posted.

SN. I have never used ads or paid anything to boost my videos on TikTok. All my growth is organic.

Changes to My Account

  • After 5K follows, you can no longer see who views your posts. I don’t like this change because I enjoyed being nosy. (lol) I like to see who is just watching versus who is taking action.

  • You now have the option to create a playlist to organize your posts. I like this because I can now separate my poetry videos from the Black history ones. Even though the black history is more popular, I still do poetry and I don’t want my audience confused. You will get black history but you gonna get these poems too.

  • You can now have people subscribe to your page instead of just following it, apply to TikTok’s creator fund to start making money and sign up for the TikTok shop.

That’s it so far!

Authors, Are You on TikTok? Do You like it or Nah?

Once Upon a Time in Alabama

Once upon a time in Alabama, there was a racist white man named Charles Agustus Lamar who was angry with Northern states and their desire to end slavery. He devised a plan to send a ship to Africa to buy Africans for $100 and sell them for $1,500. His ship, called the “Wanderer,” made national news in 1858 that it had successfully imported 370 people from Africa who would be enslaved.

However, the slave trade had been outlawed, and Lamar was arrested for illegal slaving.

That’s when another racist white man, steamboat captain Timothy Meaher, made a bet that he could do the same thing but not get caught.

Photo: Yecheilyah

On July 8, 1860, the ship (called the Clotilde / Clotilda) sailed into waters near Mobile Bay carrying 110 men, women, and children stolen from Africa under the cover of night.

They were bought from the Dahomey tribe at $100 each.

After dropping the people off, they burned the ship to hide the evidence, and it was thought to be gone forever.

Photo: Yecheilyah

However, 160 years later, wreckage from the Clotilda was discovered by an environmental journalist, filmmaker, and charter captain Ben Raines who wrote about it in a book The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning.

On Saturday, July 8, 2023, I and a group of others had the opportunity of a lifetime on the 163rd anniversary of Clotilda bringing our people into this land.

We met and talked with Raines about his journey and findings and sailed to the location of the wreckage, still buried underwater.

It was a humbling experience that filled my heart with much gratitude.

We saw the swamps our people had to walk through once they were let off the steamboat, and it made me truly not want to complain about anything ever again.

A festival was also taking place to celebrate the opening of the Africatown Heritage House.

It felt like 150 degrees out there and ya girl put this scarf on me. Imma let it slide cause she from Kenya, lol.

Once our people were freed, they built their own community and called it Africa Town, which was the original name because the founders ruled it according to the laws and customs of their African homeland. By the early 1900s, Africa Town (later spelled Africatown) was the fourth largest community in the nation governed by African Americans, attracting the attention of Booker T. Washington and Zora Neale Hurston.

Today, Africatown is on the brink of disappearing, though it is a huge part of why this story has been preserved, as the Clotilda prisoners passed it down to their descendants.

More on Africatown and the Clotilda will be covered in the book!

What’s Next?

On our way back from the site, we discussed hopes that there is more focus on preserving the community of Africatown and providing it with the resources needed to thrive. With the money pouring in from the Heritage House, the fear is people might want to come in and gentrify the area. The hope is there is money going into the community to help the people too.

We also hope they do not remove the Clotilda wreckage from the water. Not only will it cost millions of dollars just to remove it, but it might also decrease the value of the wreck and the area.

We propose that instead, a replica of the ship can be made. Again, this will bring resources to the community as everyone wants to see the actual ship. There could be tours conducted to view the replica, the Heritage House, and finally, a boat tour through the location (the same as the one we took this weekend). It can be an exciting three-day or full-day adventure with resources going toward rebuilding the Africatown community.

Photo: Yecheilyah

Africatown is the only known Black community that still exists today that was founded by Black people who had come straight from Africa.

My new book, Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School is coming in 2024. I am currently looking for beta readers willing to receive an ARC for advanced feedback. If you are interested, please see this post for details and email me.

Details on the cover reveal, preorder details, and official release date coming soon.

I can’t wait for ya’ll to see the cover!