Monday, November 14, 2011

My First Book Blues

Don't get me wrong; I'm really thankful that I was fortunate enough to get my book The Black Arts Enterprise published, especially "during these times," as we're obliged to say...during these times.

As a writer, you tend to want as many people as possible to read your book, right? The problem with making that desire more of a reality at this point has to do with the price of my book, which is officially $60 (It's possible to get the book at an 11% discount on amazon and an even better 40% discount from my publisher.).

My facebook account tells me I have quite a few "friends." But of those friends, not many of them are friendly or interested enough to purchase a book about African American literary history for that much ($60 or $36).

Understandable. 

It's also understandable for my publisher to set that kind of price since they are primarily interested in selling my book to libraries. No libraries have "friended" me on facebook, but those institutions are more likely, it seems, to purchase my book.

Whatever the case, I have a certain feeling of the blues that my book is not more in the price range of folks who might be interested. But hey, such is life. Or the book publishing industry. Or something like that.

2 comments:

evelyn.n.alfred said...

Sorry to hear that. Are you planning on doing a book tour to get your work out there?

H. Rambsy said...

Thanks for stopping by. It's actually not a totally bad feeling--a blues feeling that is. Besides, it takes a while for an academic book to circulate.

No full-fledged book tour. But I'll keep pushing here and there.