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Giveaway: A Bookstore Gift Card For Your Help

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50 Amazon

 

I shared this image on social media last week after I did my monthly review session on Amazon. I’ve made it a real point to go there each month and drop a short — seriously, short — review of the books I’ve read and enjoyed. This practice has become a habit, and knowing now from the other side that those reviews really DO matter, I like to think I’m doing my part as a reader and supporter of the book world by leaving a few words.

Most of the response to the image post was positive. But of course, there was a comment that rubbed me wrong as both a reader and an author/editor: why should the responsibility fall upon readers to do this work to help authors?

That was followed by another question/comment about how unfair the burden is but that they enjoy the reviews other people leave since they’re helpful.

While certainly, the onus IS on the reader to do the work in writing a tiny review in order to boost a book’s profile on Amazon (and Amazon is the one we’re focusing on since it’s the largest and most based on the all mighty algorithm), part of the support and success of a book comes through non-financial opportunities like short reviews. Like checking out the book from the library. Like talking about the book with people you know and saying how much you love it.

It’s called word of mouth (or in the case of library check outs, circulation numbers, which culminate in statistics and data). We live in a world that data matters, which means we also live in a world that the responsibility CAN fall on those who are consumers to do a little work. Fortunately, it costs nothing to leave a short sentence or two review.

You don’t even have to have bought the book to do so.

All of that is an introduction to a giveaway.

Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World has been hovering below the 30 reviews mark for a couple of months now, and I’d love some help getting it to that 50 review hump. And this is more than just a way to get my book over that magical number. It’s about putting into practice a tiny habit that helps a whole reading community — if you love a book and share your thoughts on it on Amazon, you’ll help other readers who don’t know the book find it and fall in love. The book world is much wider than those of us who talk online and on social media, and those are the readers for whom reviews are so valuable. It’s not the mega readers. It’s those who are a little more selective, tighter on time, and/or who really don’t have a whole book community in which to derive their recommendations.

So here goes.

Up for grabs is a $30US gift card to the online bookstore retailer of your choice. It can be Amazon. It can be B&N. It can be Indie Bound or your own local indie. It can be Book Depository. As long as I can buy it online and get it to you, that’s fine. Which means this giveaway is open worldwide, as well.

How to enter: write a review of Here We Are on Amazon. Ten words is fine. Ten sentences is fine. I am hoping they’ll be positive reviews, but I’ll be honest: I’m not going to read them, since reviews are not for me. They’re for other readers who have yet to discover the book.

Simple, right? After your review goes up, come back here with either the link to your Amazon review OR to the name you used to sign the review.

If you’ve already taken the time to review the book and want to enter, just drop your name/link in the form. It’s open to you, too.

Want to be entered multiple times for this giveaway? Leave a review for another book you’ve read this year and loved. This giveaway will allow up to 5 entries per person, meaning you can review Here We Are and up to 4 more titles for a grand total of 5 entries into the giveaway. They can be titles with 50 or fewer reviews or titles with over 50 reviews. Ideally, they’d be for books published in 2017, but I’m not going to police it. Use your judgment and follow your passion.

For a little frame of reference, if it’s helpful, when I sit down to do this every month, it takes me 10 to 15 minutes. If you write reviews on Goodreads, you are welcome to copy/paste the relevant info right into the Amazon review.

If there are more than 200 entries for this giveaway, I’ll sweeten the pot and add a second $30 gift card giveaway.

This giveaway runs July 1 through July 31. I’ll accept entries through midnight on the 31 and draw a winner (or winners!) on August 1. Winners will have 48 hours to respond and let me know where they’d like their gift card.

 

 

 

5 Book Dive

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Recommended and required summer reading lists created by schools and school districts are pretty hit and miss. In a town I used to live in, the teachers and administrators would routinely select books that were out of print each and every year, making it impossible for the public library to meet demand for those titles. This continued to happen despite communication from the public librarians that obtaining enough copies in good enough shape to add to the collection was not going to be possible. I suppose those teachers just really, really liked The Pushcart War (incidentally, back in print since 2014).

By contrast, I’ve been really pleased with the Austin Independent School District’s lists. This is the second year they’re doing a program they call the 5 Book Dive, which encourages kids to read at least five books of their choice and provides lists of recommended titles organized by language and grade level. But as the main page states, these lists are ideas – the selection of the books is ultimately up to the student. It’s targeted at preventing the summer slide, rather than preparing students for a particular curriculum, and the lists are some of the best I’ve seen.

I wanted to write a little bit about what makes the lists so good, and I’ll focus on the ones for grades 6-8 (middle school) and 9-12 (high school). One shortcoming of the lists is that there’s no Spanish lists for these upper grades; those end at grade 5. Hopefully, the Spanish lists will expand in future years as the program gains more steam. And as Austin continues to grow more and more diverse, I wonder if we may eventually see other languages included as well.

Something I always look for in a good summer reading list for kids is currency. If it’s a book you studied when you were in school, it’s probably too old to belong on the list. In fact, I’d say books from the past five years are ideal. Most of the books on these two lists fit this criterion. The ones that don’t are perennial favorites that are timeless, still in print, and widely available (Feed by M. T. Anderson, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin, among a few others).

There’s a good mix of award winners (Ghost by Jason Reynolds, March Book Three by John Lewis, among others) and super popular bestsellers that will be on kids’ and teens’ minds already due to their tv or film adaptations (Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy, among others). The books range from highly literary to more of what teachers and other gatekeepers might call “brain candy.”

While most of the books fall underneath the contemporary realistic umbrella, the lists also include a good amount of genre fiction, including historical fiction (Shame the Stars by Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, among others), fantasy (Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor, Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older, among others), mystery (The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson), and science fiction (Feed). And within that contemporary realistic umbrella, there are some books that are sad, some that are funny, some that are exciting, and some that are a mixture of all three. Importantly, there are a few nonfiction titles as well: two out of the 20 on the grades 6-8 list and three out of the 20 on the 9-12 list.

The lists are also diverse in format. There’s at least one verse novel (Booked by Kwame Alexander) and two graphic novels on each list.

Perhaps most importantly, the lists are diverse in terms of representation. At least half of the titles on each list are about or feature prominently kids and teens who are not straight, cis, white, or able-bodied. Some are about immigrants or kids of immigrants. Some are about kids and teens living in poor or violent neighborhoods. The books are also pretty evenly divided among gender lines, both in terms of writers and protagonists.

I really like these lists. I like how diverse they are in all areas, I like that they emphasize choice, and I like that they can be easily found at libraries and used bookstores. It’s such a refreshing change from some other lists I’ve encountered; kudos to the school librarians and language arts teachers for their great selections.

 

Backlist July

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Backlist July

 

Last year, I finally put into process a thing I’d been wanting to make a tradition in my reading life. I dedicated an entire month to reading nothing but backlist titles. Backlist titles seem to fall to the wayside, especially when it comes to blogging, since so many new and upcoming titles hit my doorstep everyday. I want to read them and talk about them, since that’s part of why they show up in the first place.

But there’s a special place in my heart for backlist titles. Backlist, as I define it, is anything published a year ago or further. I prefer to go deeper than a year, but a year is a good yardstick, as it allows for some “catching up” on the reading of big books from not-too-long-ago.

I dedicated last July to rereading (or as it turns out, first-time reading) the entire “Little House on the Prairie” series. The fact that I gave myself a month of no-pressure reading let me dig into the books in a way that’s often harder for me with new books. Since much of my reading life is public, I am less emotive than I am critical. That’s not to say I don’t express love or distaste, a moment that made me happy or angry. But rather, I don’t necessarily give a blow-by-blow of what I’m thinking or considering as I read. But going with backlist, especially digging into a series, allows me to have a totally unique experience in reading. I’m more emotive, as well as more willing to toss out theories and ideas, as well as share some harsh assessments of the characters which represent little more than my feelings about the characters on a reader-response level. It leads to thinking about and enjoying books in a different way. This, for example, pretty much sums up how I felt about the “Little House” series last year.

The backlist reading started a little earlier this summer for me, as one of my goals was to finally read all of Harry Potter. I’ve read the first three books before, but after that, I let the series go. This year, I wanted to go all in, start to finish, and have the experience I hadn’t yet let myself have — whatever that experience might be. Without the expectations upon reading The Series Everyone Has Read, I’m getting to enjoy what I like, hate what I hate (Ron), and have those ups and downs in a no-pressure way. As July rolls nearer, though, I’ve realized I might be mostly done, if not completely finished, with the series by then.

So it’s onto thinking about a series which would make an excellent Backlist July read, alongside the pile of other books on my list.

This year, it’s “Ramona Quimby.”

I remember reading these books as a kid and loving them. But I’ve been told again and again, for years, that they’re worth revisiting not only because they hold up, but also because they’re SO GOOD and there’s so much that, as an adult, resonates really strongly. I scored my copies off Etsy for really cheap, and am eager to take that ride.

My July list also includes a little bit of fantasy, some nonfiction, and a few YA titles I keep meaning to pick up but haven’t yet. I’ve been reorganizing and weeding my personal bookshelves, and stumbling upon some of these older ARCs has been motivating. I want to read them, then recycle them. And without the pressure to talk about them in any meaningful way, I am eager to see if what I think matches what was said about them initially, and I’m curious if there’s anything new I can add to the discussion.

From the writing perspective, it’ll be fun to find those tiny threads or sparks that encourage a whole post. Little things that might get missed during that pressure reading often make for some of the most interesting research projects which may or may not manifest into a blog post or two.

I always read backlist, but there’s something really rewarding in doing nothing but reading these older titles. It’s slower, more leisurely, and, as I discovered last year, actually encourages me to read more than I normally do. Maybe it’s the long, lazy days of July. Maybe it’s also knowing I get to be a reader first, then someone who talks about books second.

Backlist July is one of my favorite new reading traditions, and I’m excited to see where it takes me this time.

Tell me: do you dedicate specific time to backlist reading? What have been some of your favorite backlist binges lately? What should I consider for my list for this coming month and/or for future series reads? Let’s talk backlist traditions, since backlist always deserves more time and attention.

This Week at Book Riot

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book riot

 

Over on Book Riot this week…

 

 

 

  • A simple post but one I am a little sad more people didn’t jump in on — a round-up of things I love about books and reading. Will you share some of yours? It’s a literal literary love fest.

 

 

Going to ALA this weekend? Here’s when and where you can see me:

 

See Me at ALA

 

 

I’m also beyond honored to share that Here We Are: Feminism For The Real World was named one of the titles as part of the Girls of Summer reading list.