TL;DR: talk a bunch of shit about James Patterson, but the dude puts his money where his mouth is.
My partner is a retired bookseller. There’s a lot of history and context over which I’m hand-waving. But Patterson has an annual [thing] wherein he awards a grant to employees of an independent bookstore for that employee’s cause du jour. I forget the numbers, but it’s significant. Like… life-changing quantities of money relative to the bookseller’s position and proposal.
My partner has won the James Patterson annual award for [some things she was getting into before we met] about five (seven?) times. She is assed out and is not responding to my poking her to ask. Patterson has funded things like my partner’s hand-painted/drawn shelf-talkers, even if they weren’t for his books. Patterson funded my partner’s friend’s launch of an independent bookstore.
Hate on Patterson all you want (oh… and I do). But the dude really gives back.
That’s nice and all, but then there is the fact that he partnered up with Mr. Beast about a book.
Yes it’s real. Apparently it’s not selling well because the venn diagram of “Mr Beast fans” and “people who read” are two circles that just barely touch.
His target audience are minors, so that tracks.
Do minors not read anymore? I read a lot as a kid.
they do. The “kids dont read anymore” come from i don’t know where.
they read books, book tiktok is a thing. Youtuber as well. They read journal articles online or otherwise, they text each other so… they read same for social media. Audiobook is on the rise. In my book it count as reading a book. You are aware of each line of content of the book.
The most “kids don’t read anymore” come from politicians that attribute the closure of library to young people instead of amazon, policies that does not protect or recognize librarians, etc.
What data are you using to come to this scarcely creditable claim? IM texts and street signs would be rather moving the goalpost, I think.
