Posted on by seasonsshadow

Opinion: New York Times Bestseller Achievement Does Not Promise a Good Read

Maybe I’m old and getting grumpier, or maybe the world I live in is truly getting sneakier and less whimsical. I remember times when I would go to the bookstore and be drawn in by things like “#1 New York Times Bestseller!” written on the cover. However, it wasn’t until recently that I learned exactly how one gets on the New York Times Bestseller list. If you’re like me and were living in the land of assumptions, let me lay it out for you.

The New York Times takes in information from certain vendors both brick-and-mortar and digital. Each week, it’s essentially a popularity contest of sales – Who in which genres sold the most copies that week, as reported by the vendors who report to the New York Times (which will be abbreviated to NYT moving forward in this opinion piece). There are different parameters for digital media and ebooks, but the general idea is the same.

When I found out that not all bulk sales were immediately discounted for this contest, I became a little disillusioned. Now, MOST bulk sales are discounted, but not ALL OF THEM.

The next thing I found out was that there is no criteria for the content of the book, just the parameters of genre. The NYT Best Reviewed list is something else entirely.

Think about that for a minute. If someone wrote a book, marketed it as fiction, wrote 300 pages of paragraphs filled with sentences like “And then I saw”, “And then I went”, and “And then I thought” over and over and over, and 10,000 people bought it because they thought it was funny… that would make it on the list. The book could be written as though dictated by a child in their rambling story phase, with many grammar and spelling errors, but as long as it is reported as selling well, then it makes it on the list.

What started me on this whole rabbit hole was listening to an opinion piece about Lani Sarem’s Handbook for Mortals. Now, the events that sparked the YouTube video I was listening to happened back in 2017, so it is by no means new news. However, if you live under a rock like I do, you may have missed it. If that’s the case, allow me to paraphrase it for you.

Handbook for Mortals upstaged The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas on the NYT Bestseller list. Position #1. It was widely unknown by the online reading community prior to this. The displacement sparked controversy because it was thought Lani Sarem bought her way to the top of the list for her debut novel.

Before I looked into this more, I thought that had to be an obnoxious and very well-coordinated effort on the part of the author and the author’s friends to go and buy at least 5,000 individual copies of this book over the period of one week.

Silly me, there are companies to do that for you!

Companies like Result Source Inc. If you go to their website, which it blew my mind to find out was still active, you can submit your contact information. The entire thing has been stripped down to a simple “contact us” link. Probably because of the unwanted attention scamming a bestseller list got them.

Now, this is not the first time a book has been flat out removed from the NTY Bestseller list, but in my opinion, it is certainly the most interesting.

I wish I could say that there was a source of reviews I trusted. Goodreads was a promising effort, but the amount of 1-star review bombing that’s happening there based on the author’s behaviour or opinions. Can we please implement a 2-tiered system? This author gets 1-star because of reasons X,Y, and Z. Their book, A Tale of Mischief, 5 stars. Amazing. This tells me that I might have a good time if I find this book at a used bookstore, but not to order from the author themselves, or from a standard bookstore.

What’s your opinion on good books written by questionable people? I’d love to know in the comments!

References

Posted on by seasonsshadow · 2 Comments

12 Books You HAVE to Read Before You Die!

Okay, okay. The title is clickbait. No one cares if you have read these twelve books, and nothing in your life will be harmed if you’ve never heard of these books. Except maybe April’s read – it depends on how many nerds you know and interact with.

So I don’t know about you, but I hated the time in high school when they would demand we read certain books. They said it was important. That the ideas in them were integral to our manifestation of self to think about. Be made aware about. Animal Farm, One Flew Over the Cucoo’s nest, the Catcher in the Rye, Life of Pi, and the Giver are the titles that stick out in my mind. And I’m going to add my thoughts as a grain of sand in an entire opinion beach full of other people’s grains of sand.

The Giver? I couldn’t tell you what that was about. I think it made me sad and frustrated at the end so I put it out of my head. “But Emma,” you might say. “The book was supposed to evoke feelings!” Okay, cool, but my child-self did NOT like sad books and as such I said “Thank u next” to whatever that lesson was.

Life of Pi? A child deals with the trauma a series of unfortunate events evokes by referring to everyone as animals and takes a really depressing sea voyage. Obviously that’s been paraphrased within an inch of its life, but you get the idea. A bunch of people thought it was an important enough story to make it into a movie, so that’s cool. I don’t know, I’m not sure what they were trying to teach us with this one. Maybe just deal with your trauma as much as you are able?

The Catcher in the Rye? I have no idea. Some kid skips school and wanders around and thinks about things. It’s supposed to be a ‘coming of age’ story. I can’t decide if the coming of age is just an outdated concept within the narrative, or if I didn’t get it because I’m a girl.

One Flew Over the Cucoo’s nest. This doesn’t even get a question mark at the end. Did it make me think? Yes. It made me think about how terribly we treat other people, how terribly we have treated other people, and how shitty it was to have any kind of “mental illness” in the past.

Animal Farm? This one I got. I thought that it should have been taught in social studies/humanities/history; whatever it’s called where you’re from. Where should it have gone in the curriculum? Right before you learned about the holocaust and all the terrible things that were done there. Or right before you learned about residential schools and all the terrible things that were done there. Or right before you learned about any other genocide! Cultural, racial, religious, I give 0 fucks which. Too many people have the “Well it wouldn’t happen here and now” mentality, but surprise! It’s happening right now! Giving a plain example of the small changes and slimy pitch tactics required from politics to completely change a country’s mentality will never stop being important.

Where was I going with this? Oh right. Sorry, I got on a little tangent there. Let me just get down off of my soapbox.

Books. You might be looking at the above and thinking to yourself “Well this girl hates reading if she has such a low opinion of those books.”

BUT JUST WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

I stumble upon lists with dramatic titles such as “100 books to read before you die” and “10 most popular books of 2023, how many have YOU read?” and “You can’t count yourself a lover of classics if you haven’t read these 50 titles!”.

Normally, I don’t really pay attention to these outrageous claims. I don’t really care what I ‘should’ and ‘should not have’ read and what I should have taken away from each experience. Do you want to make someone hate reading? Give them a huge list of titles that were written between 1800 and 1920. Tell them that if they don’t make it through the list, they can’t say they’re a reader. Boom. Resentment.

This year, I decided to take a look at the books that were currently being harped on as ‘must reads’ and you know what? I was pleasantly surprised. I think the last time I looked at similar lists was in 2008. Spoiler, back then 95% of all the titles were written by old white male Europeans. The other 5% was a white Englishwoman and like… 3 people of colour from Europe. This year? I saw a lot more diversity. It’s a good trend people, keep it up.

One more thing I should probably go over is that I’m white. I’m SO white. I have a Ukrainian background, but I was born and raised in Canada. My parents were born and raised in Canada. Half of my Grandparents were born and raised in Canada. My Great Grandparents were from Ukraine and surrounding areas. But I’m still white enough to make mayonnaise jealous and I’m not connected enough with my heritage to claim to be anything aside from Canadian. That DOES NOT MEAN I want to read a whole bunch of old white guy literature. It may be really good stylistically or thematically, but if you only ever get one sociopolitical, socioracial, or socioeconomic viewpoint, how is reading supposed to broaden your horizons?

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, hosted out here remotely on the hill I will die on.

So you’ve stuck with me to this point, I’ll deliver the goods. I picked 12 books that showed up repeatedly on ‘should read’ lists from multiple sources, and I assigned them all to a month of 2023.

MONTHTITLEAUTHORYEAR PUBLISHEDPAGE COUNT
JANUARYThe Count of Monte CristoAlexandre Dumas18461250
FEBRUARYFahrenheit 451Ray Bradbury1953250
MARCHThe Master and MargaritaMikhail Bulgakov1967430
APRILThe HobbitJ. R. R. Tolkien1937310
MAYMemoirs of a GeishaArthur Golden1997450
JUNEDon QuixoteMiguel de Cervantes16201100
JULYThe Time MachineH. G. Wells1895100
AUGUSTOne Hundred Years of SolitudeGabriel García Márquez1967410
SEPTEMBERMoby DickHerman Melville1851430
OCTOBERCirceMadeline Miller2018400
NOVEMBERJane EyreCharlotte Brontë1847540
DECEMBERPride and PrejudiceJane Austen1813430
2023 book a month reading list

Yes, there are still a lot of white men on this list. Yes, there are some titles on there that I personally feel I should have read by now. Take, for example, Pride and Prejudice. I’ve only had a copy sitting on my bookshelf for 10 years. Have not read it yet.

At the time of writing this, I somehow managed to make it through the Count of Monte Cristo in January. Fahrenheit 451 is in my hot little hands and things are looking good to be done in February. The Master and Margarita has a huge waitlist in my local library, so we’ll have to see if I manage to get it for March.

I’m simply not going to write a review about the Count of Monte Cristo in this blog. It’s not going to happen. The rest of them I’m hoping to cover in an alternating fashion with grammar advice and other writing tidbits.

Why does the Count of Monte Cristo get the boot? Honestly, I started to write one up, but it went all over the damn place. There’s so much that happens. To talk about any one particular part that’s not strictly structure, thematic timing, and/or literary style, you have to set up the whole damned plot. At the end of the day, you can go read a review for this book that covers the structure, timing, style, etc from someone much smarter than me, or who has a fancy degree from a nice university. Spark Notes or Wikipedia will provide you with the plot. Myself? If I know people who like Sherlock Holmes, I’ll tell them to read it. Otherwise, I probably will just wear my badge of honour for getting through 1250 pages in 3 weeks while working a full time job and also not becoming a hermit.

I’d love to hear other people’s reading lists for this year, or suggestions of things I should check out!

If you have the time or the brainpower, leave me a comment about it!

Posted on by seasonsshadow

Did Not Many People Apply For This Or…?

A small window into anxiety and imposter syndrome

Well hi.

It’s been a hot minute.

Why might that be?

I got a job.

Well, another job.

That turned into my main job somehow.

And this, after five months of freelance and another three and a half months of full-time salary – STILL feels like I’m being punk’d. Okay, okay, bring out the cameras. I’m ready to face the fact that I have to go back and get a real-person grown-up job that crushes my soul. Anyone? Hello? Ground control to Major Tom? No? We’re still doing this? Perfect.

A quick look into how I got here and why the title.

Everything that I’ve read says that to get published in today’s market you need an agent, especially for the fantasy genre. To get an agent, you need to have prior published works. To get published works, you need to have a writing resume. To get a writing resume, you need to get things ~out there~ in the social sphere. Thus the Linked In connection, thus the Instagram connection, thus the blog, thus the whole bit.

So there’s me, trolling around with Linked In, trying to figure out how I can connect with pages and people that I can use to start exploring freelancing opportunities. What comes across my page instead? An advertisement for a job opportunity writing in the video game industry.

I looked at it and shrugged. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, right? Someone in pop culture said that right? Or maybe it was hockey? I’m Canadian so lets be real, it was probably hockey.

With what felt like a crayon in my hand (it was a keyboard) and a piece of construction paper (it was my computer) I scribbled (typed) my bid for why I, a gaming industry noob, should be considered to write speaking lines for video game characters. Chuckling under my breath at the sheer audacity I had found tucked in the deepest reaches of my soul, I clicked ‘send’.

I assumed that the HR department doing the hiring would likely have a bit of a laugh at my expense. I wondered if I could put the fact that I applied for it on my writing resume?

Then they called me.

An interview.

Another interview.

A job offer.

Continuing to write things with my crayon (keyboard), I submitted a script. They liked it. I submitted another one. They liked that too. At this point, they were paying me too much for it to be a joke, right? And if it was a trial, why would they have offered me full-time employment? I did more work. More submissions. They are saying they like my stuff and to provide evidence, it’s actually going into the game. It’s not sitting on some shelf for them to consider at a later time. (Well some of it is but that’s not the point I’m making.)

Let’s circle back to the subheading of this post.

First, for those of you who may be reading this and don’t know, Imposter Syndrome, as defined by the good ol’ Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the psychological condition where you have persistent doubts concerning your abilities or accomplishments accompanied by the fear of being exposed as a fraud, despite evidence of your ongoing success.

One thing that I would like to interject is that – I’m not afraid of being exposed, I feel like I’m already exposed and I’m just currently ‘the best they can do’.

So, like, did I get this job because no one else in the universe applied? Or I’m one of seven that applied with a fundamental grammar ability? Knows how to use spell check? Has pursued one or two extracurricular writing classes? Remembered to actually attach a writing sample?

Imposter Syndrome is bad enough as it is, but it often comes to people who are already suffering from some sort of anxiety problem. I’m not here to tell you you can or can’t have one, both, or multiple. What I am here to do is let you know the current mathematical and completely scientifical equation that is guiding my life right now is as follows:

SOCIAL ANXIETY + IMPOSTER SYNDROME = REPLACEABLE AT THE DROP OF A HAT

I really quite like this job, and I am already grieving for it. I haven’t even lost it yet! I’m waiting for them to receive an application from an actual writer and they’ll celebrate, throw a little party with some cake, and boot me.

Now, the logical thing to do here, would be to touch base with some of my coworkers and ask if there are any concerns that I can address, any areas that I can improve on, any work that I can do so my work better aligns with the vision of the company. I have already done this.

Poll to the room:

How many times can you ask someone if they still like you before the fact you’re asking them makes them not like you, whereas they would have continued to like you before you started to compulsively ask them if they liked you?

Asking for a friend.

References

Posted on by seasonsshadow

The Beginning of a Blog

My Mom’s favourite story is that I wanted to be an author before I could write. Apparently I would bring her a marker/crayon/whatever and a piece of paper and say “Mummy write?” and I would give her some really well thought out and grammatically sound babble to write for me.

My favourite story is not that.

Why?

At this point in my life, it’s connected really haphazardly to the rest of my writing journey. Took a few creative writing classes in grade school. Then a few literary classes to fill my options in university. Tried to get published with my first complete manuscript and have the rejection letters to prove that I truly did give it a shot.

Fast forward almost ten years. I considered freelance. I looked up the process of self-publishing. I took some more courses, one about editing. Another about plot and creating a “good” story. A third about content marketing and how to sell yourself. What was one of the things that kept coming up?

Write a blog.

Now, my first reaction to writing a blog is “No, I like to read books. I like to look at books and touch them and feel them and fold their pages and get a little high off the smell of the ink and paper breaking down in old bookshops. A BLOG!? ME!? No. Yuck.

Books in the Sherlock Holmes Museum, Baker St. London, England

Firstly, I am not that funny. Or personable. Someone who has the social skills of a paperclip should not be running a blog. Second, what the heck am I going to write about aside from the things that I am doing in an attempt to get myself published? That isn’t going to fill the website with relatable and shareable content that I can be proud of.

The more I thought about it the more I realized that my anti-blog stance was really a fear of rejection. Getting rejected by a publishing company was one single big rejection and any writer proud of their work can site things like “Harry Potter was rejected by 12 publishers! Dr. Seuss was rejected 27 times! I’m only on rejection 8!”

A blog and freelance work though? That’s a handful of little daily rejections and I wasn’t ready to face that.

Well, it’s 2022 and everyone is tired. I myself have become so tired that any reservations I had about “What if the iNtErNeT doesn’t like me!?” have died with the last of my patience for this pandemic.

So Hello World – let’s give this a shot.