Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Bonus： Pay the Bookstagramers!

00:00:00.900 Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check.

00:00:04.520 Waiting for Glynis.

00:00:06.620 I'm waiting for Glynis.

00:00:09.960 Oh, there she is.

00:00:11.940 Is this video being recorded?

00:00:14.460 No, the video's never being recorded.

00:00:17.200 You look so pretty.

00:00:18.900 I know, don't I?

00:00:20.100 It's the Botox and the eyelashes.

00:00:22.440 I cut all my hair off.

00:00:23.480 Have you seen me since I did that?

00:00:25.000 Mm-mm, mm-mm, let me see.

00:00:27.600 It's still wet.

00:00:28.520 Hold on.

00:00:30.000 Oh my gosh. It's very short. I like it. I'm into it. So you're going to debut your haircut at my

00:00:38.180 book launch party this week. Oh, so many outfits to wear. I can't even, I, I know the difference

00:00:44.600 between this book launch and every other book launch that I've ever done is this is clearly

00:00:49.840 a book launch for Instagram. Like I bought a shirt that matches the book because of the Instagram.

00:00:57.400 That's interesting because I remember a lot of our book tour in 2018 that we convinced Simon and Schuster to foot the bill for.

00:01:05.240 Our argument for a number of those stops was, even if people can't show up, these bookstores have a large Instagram following.

00:01:14.220 so Glynis and I in addition to being podcasters together and friends also went on book tour

00:01:27.920 together for my last novel in 2018 and yeah I think that a lot of that that we did on our book

00:01:34.300 tour we did it for us but we also did it for the gram like we book toured for the gram and I

00:01:40.460 actually think it worked. I'm just curious that you feel that Instagram is more influential now

00:01:45.540 because I get emails about my book on a weekly basis still and I see nothing come through

00:01:50.860 Instagram. Yeah, but your book is nonfiction and I think that Instagram has been a game changer

00:01:58.640 for fiction. I'm still seeing so much coverage of my book and I'm just not seeing it coming from

00:02:04.460 where you're seeing it coming from. It's fascinating to me that I'm missing that.

00:02:08.380 Well, then it's a good thing that we're doing this episode.

00:02:16.460 Welcome to yet another bonus episode of Under the Influence.

00:02:20.140 Now, I'm not going to lie.

00:02:22.260 This episode was made because I am a monster. 0.97

00:02:25.680 I am a disgusting monster who is shamelessly plugging my new book, We Are Not Like Them, 0.89

00:02:31.680 because it is hard. It is hard out there to be an author and to get books in people's hands. 0.92

00:02:38.640 And I just, I want people to read this book. I love this book and I want people to talk about it.

00:02:44.740 So here I am just shamelessly using my influence, see what I did there, to promote my book. I am,

00:02:52.960 I am. But you are also getting a really good bonus episode of Under the Influence about how

00:02:59.180 important bookfluence is. Bookstagrammers and celebrity book clubs can make or break

00:03:07.340 an author's career. So let's do this. I'm Jo Piazza, and you are under the bookfluence.

00:03:21.260 I'm Tracy Thomas, and I'm the host of The Stacks, which is a podcast all about books.

00:03:26.020 It's a books podcast, people. A podcast about books. And it's so good. And I can say that

00:03:31.880 because I've been on it. I've been in Tracy's house.

00:03:35.240 You were the first ever author on the podcast. Do you know that?

00:03:39.640 No. Really?

00:03:41.000 Yeah. A distinction. An honor. The first ever author.

00:03:44.640 Oh, my God.

00:03:47.760 I asked the Bookstagram community to tell me who recommends books to them. And so many people

00:03:54.860 said you oh and i think that is so cool because for so long in human history it was male book

00:04:04.780 editor and reviewers who decided who decided which books were worthy of screaming about from the

00:04:12.560 rooftops and now first off we get to hear about so many different kinds of books because there

00:04:21.340 are so many different kinds of bookstagrammers. And we have women, women like you, who are out 1.00

00:04:28.440 there telling us what to read. For the first time, I think there's a democratization of book content

00:04:33.520 where women get to tell other women what they should be reading right now.

00:04:39.980 Yeah, I think that's right. And I think it's great. I think it's interesting. I've been on

00:04:45.120 bookstagram, so I'm sort of like the mid-tier. I came on in 2018. So I feel like there's some

00:04:50.560 people who have been around a little, like, definitely longer than me. But since I've been

00:04:55.740 on, I feel like it's really exploded. And there's so many people in this space, like, who have small

00:05:01.860 followings, but have such intense communities, who if they say, I recommend this book, everyone

00:05:08.060 that follows them will go get it. And I think that's really cool, too, because it means that

00:05:12.360 books that, like you said, the New York Times doesn't think is the greatest book ever could

00:05:17.500 still be the greatest book ever. Now, your bookstagram is very pretty. How important is it

00:05:23.140 for bookstagram to look visually appealing? So I think there's sort of two sides. There are people

00:05:30.400 who have really gorgeous photos who have captions that are like, what are you reading today? And

00:05:35.580 they get a lot of likes and they have big followings. And I have to admit, I follow some

00:05:39.840 really gorgeous accounts. And then there are some people who I also follow who have fine photos and

00:05:46.000 incredible captions. These reviews that are just so gorgeous or these thought-provoking ideas about

00:05:53.560 who gets to tell what story or what does representation mean and all of that stuff,

00:05:57.980 but the photos aren't great, which is interesting on a photo-sharing app,

00:06:02.620 which would be Instagram. So I feel like I follow a mix of people, but I think if you want a huge

00:06:09.620 following, your pictures have to be nice. Yeah, I think you have to do both. You have to have a

00:06:13.640 beautiful picture of a book and then a beautiful review and caption of the book too.

00:06:19.400 Yeah. But some people have beautiful pictures and I don't think they've ever reviewed a book.

00:06:22.940 Yeah, that's fair.

00:06:23.380 Like there's an account I love, Clumsy Words, I think is her name. And she has the most insane 1.00

00:06:30.100 photos, but I don't know that she reviews or if she does their like mini reviews. I don't think

00:06:35.180 of her as a reviewer at all, but her page is stunning.

00:06:38.980 I'd like to interject here that the New York Times did not think that my book was the greatest book

00:06:45.840 of all time or a good book. I had a very lukewarm New York Times review, but damn near every

00:06:56.340 bookstagrammer fucking loves my book. And Good Morning America fucking loves my book. So New 0.99

00:07:02.580 New York Times, you have become the Julia Roberts of newspapers to me. That's all I'm going to say

00:07:09.240 about that. When we were doing Under the Influence and talking about mom influencers,

00:07:15.060 it was a pretty white world. It was not just white, like blonde lady, white world.

00:07:22.280 I am definitely within community with many, like I said, Black, queer, people of color.

00:07:29.880 that's the bookstagram community that i'm a part of but the bigger accounts are all white i mean

00:07:36.800 i think i have like 50 something thousand followers and i think i'm one of very few

00:07:43.260 black bookstagrammers who have that many followers and then when you look at white

00:07:47.600 bookstagrammers are so many who have are over the 50 000 threshold or you know are larger accounts

00:07:53.280 like that um i think bookstagrammer is overwhelmingly white i just have tried to

00:07:58.880 get out of that space because it's full of icky stuff. You could have insanely gorgeous content

00:08:06.040 and be a Black woman and have 100,000 followers, and you could have mediocre content and have a 1.00

00:08:11.140 million followers and be a blonde white lady. Fair point, my friend. Fair point. Just like 0.99

00:08:19.220 everywhere else, Bookstagram could use a little more diversity. Yeah. Or there are plenty of

00:08:26.920 people of color in the space. I just think that it, you know, I know someone who has inside

00:08:33.820 knowledge of some of like the bigger book clubs, like the celebrity book clubs. And they were

00:08:37.760 saying how whenever the celebrity book clubs pick a book by non-white authors, they do worse

00:08:43.860 in sales and on the New York Times bestseller list and all of that. And that's something that

00:08:50.440 I feel like I knew. But hearing this person with inside knowledge say that, I was like,

00:08:56.140 sure that sucks that sucks yeah like it's a really small group of people who i think are over 50k who 0.95

00:09:03.740 are black on bookstagram yeah okay so if you could tell people one thing about bookstagram 0.98

00:09:09.780 that maybe they don't know or if there's someone that doesn't take it seriously what would you tell

00:09:14.740 them well i'll talk about the thing that i have been crusading about for a while now which is

00:09:20.240 that bookstagrammers basically make zero dollars, which is pretty crazy considering the fact that

00:09:27.220 I know that we sell books. And I know this because the one of the ways that I make the

00:09:31.840 money that I do make is through affiliate links through bookshop.org. And they, you know, pay a

00:09:38.220 percentage through links clicked. And I won't say how much money I have necessarily made dollar

00:09:44.140 amount from them, but I know that I have sold upwards of thousands of books through them.

00:09:50.240 I know that we sell books. And in the last year or so, I've been part of a group of people

00:09:57.260 who've been pushing to get publishers to pay Instagrammers like other influencers would be

00:10:02.420 paid by brands. If you want me to post about this book on a certain day at a certain time,

00:10:07.760 you know, and write about the book or whatever that you should pay me. And I think a lot of

00:10:12.860 people assume that the larger Bookstagram accounts are being paid a lot. And what I know for sure is

00:10:19.180 that some people are being paid ever so often I have not been paid by a publisher to post since

00:10:25.440 I think for over a year now wow yeah I think and I talked I I've talked about this with a lot of

00:10:34.500 people free books do not pay the bills man no no and that's the other thing books like the thing

00:10:41.620 that's crazy it's like oh you get a book for free I'm like yeah but I'm obsessed with books I would

00:10:44.940 buy the book. You know, like I would go to my library. I still do. I still buy books. I still

00:10:50.260 go to my library. And $30 is the cost of a hardcover book, right? That is not the cost of

00:10:58.380 a post for a bookstagram, for an influencer with 50,000 followers, right? Like, you know, that's

00:11:03.840 not the rate. $30? Are you kidding me? There's more eyeballs on your bookstagram posts than on

00:11:11.260 in one of the articles that I write 1.00

00:11:13.180 for one of the online women's sites, probably.

00:11:16.500 And I'm sure you're paid to write those things, right? 0.97

00:11:18.300 And I'm paid to write those things.

00:11:20.040 Not as much, not as much as I used to be.

00:11:22.180 But I get paid when I write for columns or things,

00:11:25.480 which I hate to do, I hate writing,

00:11:27.100 but I do it because I'm not being paid for the work

00:11:29.620 that I actually think is good that I put out.

00:11:32.060 Yep, we've got to get bookstagrammers paid.

00:11:33.880 And we've got more on that later in this episode.

00:11:36.060 We're gonna take a quick break after we end with Tracy

00:11:38.460 and really dig into why bookstagrammers deserve to be paid

00:11:43.200 if they're creating content that you're enjoying.

00:11:54.500 The next bookstagrammer that I talked to was Charnay Gordon of Here We Read. 0.99

00:11:59.760 She has 360,000 goddamn followers. 1.00

00:12:03.780 That is a lot of followers. 1.00

00:12:05.460 That's more than a quarter million followers. 1.00

00:12:07.260 and she's also a black woman. So walk me through how you've been able to turn this into an actual

00:12:14.620 business, how you've been able to monetize Bookstagram. This is your full-time livelihood,

00:12:19.480 the Bookstagram universe plus content creation. You can make a living off of this.

00:12:24.680 And writing books, right? All of it. So tell me how you created this aesthetic. And essentially

00:12:30.880 what I say all the time is that every Bookstagrammer out there is creating their own

00:12:36.100 magazine about something right you're making your own magazine about books if you have a blog to go

00:12:42.700 with your instagram you're writing a book every day or however uh often you post content well and

00:12:49.220 that's the thing too i mean i think that we do we do a lot of unpaid labor we put in the work we put

00:12:55.040 in the hours and then eventually that does pay off i think the hard work that you put into this

00:12:59.800 in on social and then also on the page as writers it pays off yeah yeah what i also think is so

00:13:08.320 wonderful about bookstagram is no matter what kind of reader you are you can find your people

00:13:14.140 so you can find your romance people you can find your vampire romance right you can find

00:13:22.060 your space alien vampire romance people and so what is what is your niche yeah so my uh mine

00:13:29.620 is diversity so and it's primarily children's books is what I primarily talk about diverse

00:13:36.840 children's books because I didn't see anybody else doing it on Instagram I was like

00:13:40.660 how is this going to be received I don't know I might as well stick with to do doing what everybody

00:13:46.580 else is doing and so I didn't want to be like this person like sticking out in the crowd but

00:13:53.020 then I said you know what let me just try it and see what happens it didn't take off right away

00:13:58.920 it took me probably three years to start gaining traction on like some real traction right I would

00:14:08.100 get you know a couple of followers here and there but in the beginning I didn't know anything about

00:14:12.520 that you could even make money doing any of this I was so naive right and I didn't really care

00:14:17.060 because I had my full-time job I was busy but then like I said maybe about year three year four

00:14:23.720 I started having more publishers reaching out to me saying, hey, can you post this book?

00:14:31.220 And it was like, oh, yeah. And I was so excited, like, oh, publishers are reaching out to me,

00:14:35.420 right? And sending me books. And now we get books all the time, which is great. And I'm

00:14:39.360 so grateful for it. But, you know, back then I was like, wait a minute. Okay. So I'm posting this

00:14:43.880 book and I was doing it for a while and it didn't really dawn on me. And I don't know why,

00:14:51.920 again, maybe just super naive, that I should be getting paid for this.

00:14:58.960 So then I started to kind of push back a little bit.

00:15:03.320 And I was like, do you have a budget?

00:15:08.840 I love, I love, I want to, I want to do like a record screech right here.

00:15:13.380 You're like, oh, do you have a budget?

00:15:17.340 You know what?

00:15:17.620 I don't know if I want to be paid in free books.

00:15:20.380 Right.

00:15:20.820 And I'm like, books don't pay bills.

00:15:24.340 And that has become my motto.

00:15:26.800 Books do not pay bills.

00:15:31.140 The interesting thing was when I joined Instagram, I started to build a community.

00:15:37.260 And what people don't realize is that all of us book scammers, we talk behind the scenes.

00:15:42.100 Oh, yeah.

00:15:42.640 Oh, yeah.

00:15:43.000 Oh, I've learned.

00:15:44.020 Yeah, right.

00:15:44.700 And so we all like, you know, it's like this chat group or whatever.

00:15:48.680 and I, you know, I kind of figured there was one bookstagrammer that I just knew. I just had an

00:15:56.320 inkling that she was getting paid, but we didn't know, like, should we approach her? Should we

00:16:01.960 ask? Because there's this, there's this thing. It's just like when you're working a corporate

00:16:05.180 job, right? You don't go around, you're not sitting around the water cooler saying, well,

00:16:08.960 how much do you get paid? What's your salary? Like we don't do that. And so I think that same

00:16:14.080 mentality exists in the content creation, Instagram world, right? We're not talking

00:16:21.180 about this stuff. And we should, especially as women. I mean, all like we, I really think that

00:16:28.020 we have to help each other. We have to be transparent about what we're making and how

00:16:31.260 we're making it. Otherwise we are not like more of us are just not going to rise to the top.

00:16:35.020 And that's what we want. You know, I truly believe that everybody can win.

00:16:38.800 And so I got to this point where I was like, pay me or I'm not doing it.

00:16:48.080 And what was the reception?

00:16:49.780 You know, now, because I don't want to jeopardize anything that I kind of have going on.

00:16:57.660 But I will say, you know, that I am being paid by some publishers to do some campaigns and stuff like that.

00:17:05.620 Yeah, well, and I want to talk about that, too.

00:17:07.520 I mean, I'm in it, right?

00:17:08.580 like this is my 10th book so and over the past 10 years so I watched from publishers not knowing

00:17:15.580 what Instagram was like literally not knowing to now publishers are doing paid influencer campaigns

00:17:23.020 finally but the paid influencer campaigns are really only in the past three years ish and like

00:17:30.340 I mean now for this book launch it's pretty much all Instagram and we are doing normal like the

00:17:40.240 normal press stuff but like the focus is Instagram that is that is where readers eyeballs are and

00:17:46.980 that is where literally we are putting all of our energy and so to and to say that now as an author

00:17:54.680 I think that has to give like we have to talk about the power of that that's right yeah we have

00:17:59.600 We have to acknowledge that there is power in this thing that we call bookstagram.

00:18:05.620 There just is.

00:18:06.960 We can't argue and say, well, we don't know if those sales mostly came from it.

00:18:12.080 Like, if you didn't like how because how else do people find out about books?

00:18:18.480 Like, let's just be real.

00:18:19.840 Right.

00:18:20.340 How do people find out?

00:18:22.100 There's no commercials.

00:18:23.420 We don't see commercials on TV.

00:18:25.260 Oh, this book is coming out this week.

00:18:27.100 We don't see that.

00:18:28.140 there's no magazine advertisements it's all social except for like two books there's literally two

00:18:34.780 books that get like an advertising in a magazine so where are they seeing it they are seeing it on

00:18:39.560 instagram yeah and and that has to be acknowledged that has to be put into publishers budgets

00:18:45.720 if you want to work with influencers i think they should be paid so on this show we've interviewed

00:18:54.340 a bunch of people that have created

00:18:55.560 influencer networks, you know,

00:18:57.340 like, you know, to get the influencers paid

00:18:59.020 that the brands work with.

00:19:00.360 Is there any network for the bookstagrammers?

00:19:03.060 Like a management agency firm

00:19:05.560 that manages bookstagrammers

00:19:07.400 and disseminates the books

00:19:08.840 and organizes the deals

00:19:10.680 like that, like, like to know it for fashion?

00:19:13.740 I don't know.

00:19:14.540 That's a great question.

00:19:16.180 I've never seen it.

00:19:17.380 Should we make it?

00:19:18.200 We could.

00:19:19.420 I mean, I know.

00:19:20.100 So I work with different PR groups

00:19:24.340 agencies, right? Firms who, and then the publishers are their clients, right? But I don't know of an

00:19:32.400 exclusive agency that just works for, that does with books. I don't know of one.

00:19:38.940 Yeah. I don't know of one either. And I don't want to bash publishers. I also know how hard

00:19:42.660 it is for publishers, the bottom line of publishing, right? Like, sadly, it is celebrity

00:19:46.460 books that keep them afloat because we need more people to see books and discover books. And it

00:19:50.120 It has always been a challenge to get books in readers' hands.

00:19:53.780 But now we kind of know how to do it.

00:19:56.180 And so, like, what I'm saying is if it's just a little more organized instead of, like, just getting, just throwing books out to the wind to bookstagrammers and seeing what happens.

00:20:04.380 But if there's, like, actual organization and if we're making sure that we're seeing the value in bookstagram, because I think bookstagram still lags behind, like, the fashion industry and the beauty industry in that, like, they saw the value.

00:20:17.740 and like publishers know the value it's hard to see what makes a person convert to a book buyer

00:20:24.100 and so it's like oh did they see it on this instagram or did they hear this interview

00:20:29.340 like what was it but i do think the defining factor is now the instagram yeah and and you

00:20:36.140 know i was listening to an influencer before and she was saying like i don't feel bad like men don't

00:20:41.700 feel bad about making money for their families, right? They don't. So it's like, even if Bookstagram

00:20:51.280 were a male-dominated thing, right? You better believe they would be getting paid.

00:20:59.640 Yeah, of course, they would be getting paid. Yes, yes, 100%. But I also think it's not just

00:21:04.920 that it's women, but it's about books, which are, you know, to us, like, supposed to be art. Like, 0.77

00:21:10.040 it's not just it's not fashion or beauty they're books and books are something you're supposed to

00:21:14.260 do because of love and like and people don't think about it as the business that it is and

00:21:20.660 it's a business we're doing work right right and I think there's also this thing where people

00:21:25.540 think that if maybe books to grandma started getting paid they're not being honest when

00:21:32.620 they're writing these reviews they're writing a review because they got paid to do it right

00:21:39.400 my my thing has always been I don't take on a book and I don't take on any campaign if I'm not

00:21:46.780 passionate about it and if I don't really like it and I don't really enjoy it period and I

00:21:51.320 I've always been very transparent about that so you know in the past I've gotten books from

00:21:56.780 publishers or from you know authors themselves I didn't really like it but I didn't really like

00:22:01.180 the book and so I didn't post about it that was just it but yeah I I hope that people don't start

00:22:06.720 to think well you know maybe not try because it's it's the same thing with fashion right like if you

00:22:12.420 oh look at my you know look at my look at my top and I love it and it's so you know I love the

00:22:18.280 color it's this that but but if if we turn around and do that with a book people don't want to see

00:22:24.720 for whatever reason people don't want to see someone getting paid to write a book review

00:22:30.540 because they think it's disingenuous.

00:22:33.540 So what's crazy about, and I get it, right?

00:22:35.960 It does feel disingenuous.

00:22:37.760 But do people really think that Reese Witherspoon

00:22:40.220 doesn't get paid to run her book club? 0.99

00:22:43.680 That she, oh wait, no, 1.00

00:22:45.040 she just made gazillions of dollars off that book club. 0.99

00:22:48.480 So she's getting paid.

00:22:50.500 And so if she's getting paid, 1.00

00:22:51.920 then why shouldn't the average woman 1.00

00:22:55.100 posting to Bookstagram get paid? 1.00

00:22:57.380 And that's the argument for it.

00:23:00.540 And that's it, guys. That's our bonus episode. We touched on all the things. We touched on how

00:23:07.220 Bookstagram has changed the way books are sold, how the Bookstagrammers are all doing their

00:23:11.780 unpaid labor and they deserve to get paid. And I think that I might have just created a new company.

00:23:17.100 I think that maybe I'm building a platform to get Bookstagrammers paid, which is good. That's

00:23:21.400 a good side hustle for me. All the things, my friends, all the things. Brand new episodes are

00:23:27.000 coming your way, and really soon. I really need to get writing those episodes. Emily's

00:23:33.800 going to kill me if I don't. Enjoy your day. Buy the book. Follow the bookstagrammers.

00:23:39.620 Use your bookfluence. Use it.

00:23:44.360 This bonus episode was written and created by me, Joe Piazza. Our executive producer

00:23:50.900 and sorceress is Emily Marinoff, and we received production help from Abu Zafar. 0.99

00:23:57.000 Amen. 0.74

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - October 08, 2021

Bonus： Pay the Bookstagramers!

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