Mark Your Calendars, I’ll Be Presenting on Medium Day
My talk is titled “Creating a landing spot for independent book authors”
Hey Everyone!
Please circle August 12th on your calendars because my presentation submission was accepted for Medium Day. They haven’t assigned me a time yet, so I’ll post that when I get it.
What is Medium Day you ask?
Well, it’s an opportunity for the editors of various publications to say a few words and field some questions. I like the way that Medium is always launching new ideas and I’m curious to see how this is going to go.
Here’s where you have to go to reserve a free ticket for Medium Day. It’s free as in no cost. Did I mention it was free?
What am I talking about?
At first, I thought I could go and discuss Cultured. Years ago, Allison Wiltz made me an editor for that publication. Allison is a PhD candidate and she regularly posts highly informative articles that put the modern transgressions of white nationalists in their historical context.
To make a long story short: the stuff going on now with trump and the militant, authoritarian Republicans has been going on in one shape or another since the slave era.
Yeah, there’s a reason that the lunatics are trying to ban CRT from classrooms. The forces of evil don’t want us looking at the playbook that covers everything they are planning to do.
I didn’t join Medium with the intent of becoming an anti-racism writer, but any form of activism in the United States eventually takes that shape. As of right now, I’m listed along with Allison and a few others on the Medium Racism tag page, so I hope that means I’m making some sort of positive impact.
It would have been natural to send in a submission for a spot on Medium Day to discuss racism. However, Cultured is Allison’s publication, so I thought I should defer. Also, I prefer to have a few editors filter my thoughts on racism because it’s a difficult subject and I appreciate having a few sets of eyes go over my work before it goes live.
I’ll be talking about reviewing independent books
The other thing I’m passionate about is reviewing the work of independent writers. Honestly, I feel there’s a major problem in our society that doesn’t get enough attention: distribution channels are blocked.
This means that certain types of stories will never see the light of day. That applies to books that contain narratives that are perceived as a threat to the dominant class of oppressors (see how I said that all activism becomes anti-racism eventually?).
Within my first few weeks of joining Medium, I started up a little publication called Write and Review. This page doesn’t make me any money and I do a not good enough job of promoting independent writers.
Are you sold on its importance yet?
In a newsletter called “make money writing,” you shouldn’t be talking about the publications that don’t make you any money. Nevertheless, I feel it’s VITAL for writers to dedicate a certain amount of time every month to engaging with independently published books (small press or self-published).
But Walter, why is that important?
Because how else are you going to have any exposure to the narratives that are deliberately suppressed? It’s really that simple.
I mean, for one thing, there’s NOTHING in my life that really helps me develop any awareness or understanding of the LGBTQ+ community. Yeah, every now and then there will be a gay character in a major Hollywood release, but it’s rare that any characters like that ever reveal anything about the obstacles they’ve had to overcome in our society. You’re not going to watch a MARVEL movie where one of the characters goes on a five minute tirade about the violence that’s been directed at her that’s a direct result of the hate speech and self-righteous chest thumping that regularly comes out of the Catholic church.
Right? Right? They’d have Ron DeSantis breathing down their neck. All you get from the mainstream is the appearance of inclusion, but not real inclusion. A good example is how Disney bragged about having a black princess and then they turned her into a green frog just a few minutes into the move.
That kind of thing is infuriating and it happens all the time!
A few weeks ago, a small publisher sent me a book that was advertised as a “gay vampire” story. I mean, yeah, it was in the context of vampires, but it was still obvious that plenty of the events of that story were informed by real life. That kind of thing is interesting! I love to be a fly on the wall in a room where an actually authentic conversation is taking place.
What I do
It’s pretty simple, I try to engage with 3-4 independently published books every month and write an entertaining article about them. I came to the conclusion that I’m not really doing reviews because I have to be mindful of my readership. Instead, I call them “engagements.”
People subscribe to my newsletter because they expect a certain kind of writing. So, I have to be true to that expectation or I’ll lose whatever small influence I have to promote anyone. Still, I think it’s vital to discuss a couple unknown writers every month.
Typically, I put a book on my Kindle app, then I walk around reading it when I’m in line or whatever (not when I’m driving). I’ll put hours into every book I review, and then I write something about it.
This is what every writer wants. They want you to just spend some time with their work and offer an honest response.
What I’d like to see happen
When I founded Write and Review, my objective was to create a kind of round robin book review site. I was hoping people new to the site would pick up some of the works that have already been reviewed and offer additional reviews... you know, to get an actual conversation started.
But independently published writers are like a horde of zombies. They see “book review” and they immediately get hyperfixated on, “How do I get MY book reviewed?” and never once do they even consider writing a review for anyone else.
Shame on you independently published authors.
But at this point I have to remind myself that independently published authors got like this because they’ve been abused. They’re like a dog that cowers in the corner at the local pound. You have to be nice to them.
It’s okay little independently published author. You’re in a loving home now. You can come out and play....
Basically, it’s my objective to adopt every independently published author in the world and completely transform her/his behavior. It’s not really working yet.
Come for the talk
This will essentially be my talk on Medium Day, so if you have questions either offer them below, or come and ask them at my presentation.
Also, be sure to check out the other presentations as they become available. I’m certain that many of the presenters will be much more entertaining and informative than I am.
What I’ve learned (here’s the make money writing advice) is that you need to take every opportunity that has the potential for legitimate, large exposure (this is 40 minutes of my time so it’s not one of those “work free for exposure” deals—plus it’s real exposure). The idea of promoting independently published books is something I’m passionate about, so this seemed like a good place to give this talk.
Hopefully I’ll see you there!