The greatest fear I had about writing a book was tied to my early life when I often felt like I was invisible and voiceless. I worried about writing a book no one wanted to read which would reinforce those pesky childhood traumas. Fortunately, there have been people who wanted to read my book, and they have given me a voice, however small in the greater world. So about that greater world…
After riding high atop the illustrious “Religious Fundamentalism New Releases” category on Amazon, Asian American Apostate: Losing Religion and Finding Myself at an Evangelical University has slipped into algorithm obscurity, buried in the rubble of hundreds of thousands of other books looking up at the best-seller lists. It was a good 6-week run slugging it out against a riveting bible study on Enoch and a hard-hitting analysis of the teachings of Paul in Spanish, but we’ve been dethroned and now sit at #2 (audiobook), #3 (ebook), and #6 (hardcover). The paperback has fallen off the chart. Friends and family and Chapel Probation listeners got me to the top of that little list, but they only added up to a few hundred books sold.
Interestingly, as a case-in-point about the greater world ignoring the work of AAPI men in non-fiction and memoirs, I think I may be the only author to have an ad and a full episode on Straight White American Jesus, garnering over 100,000 listens each only to see sales completely stop after they aired. Like completely stopped. Like a couple of ebooks and zero physical books sold. The week after my episode, which was incredible thanks to Brad Onishi, the book slipped off the top of the #1 spot of the obscure “Religious Fundamentalism New Releases” chart and began a steady slide down all the other charts, including “Asian American Biographies/Memoirs.” I’ve been told by several people how powerful the SWAJ episode was with Brad pointing out his favorite parts of the book and then bringing it all home with an emotional story that had everyone crying. This could all eventually lead to sales of some books, but it hasn’t happened in the two weeks since. There is often a delayed reaction when AAPI men say something. Welcome to my life.
But all is not lost. In fact we knew this would happen eventually. Now the hard work begins, as I prepare to spend the next year or two promoting the book. I’ll be hitting up bookstores, colleges and universities, and religious and atheist organizations. I have a couple of different talks I can give about deconstructing faith as an AAPI person. If you have a local bookstore you support, consider ordering your book through them. The way it works, every book sold is huge for an unknown author like me. And every review is gold.
So, if you could consider leaving a review on that hated but necessary Amazon page, that will definitely help shift the algorithms and make the book that much more visible in the recommended lists.
The good news is that I’ve been getting messages from friends random folks alike who read or are reading my book and have loved it. Like with Chapel Probation, it feels good to know that something I made has been helpful or encouraging to people.
So let’s conclude here with an opportunity to spread some love. I have one final request in this post. If you could listen to this week’s Chapel Probation with Jeff Karow and send him a message of encouragement, that would be amazing. He’s a good man who lost everything, family, community, and employment all because he stood up for social justice in the deep South and deconstructed his faith. You can send the message to info@rscottokamoto.com or directly to Jeff at Jkarow631@gmail.com.
As always, more to come.
#AAPIHeritageMonth #ExVangelical #Deconstruction