50 Shades of Confusion

I follow quite a few book bloggers on Instagram. In addition to reviews, some of them post some really clever things. Two of the things that are currently very popular are:

Reels (videos) where the "bookstagrammer" pretends s/he's reading a really smutty scene in a novel and then captions it with something like, "My face when I read that one-liner that makes my jaw drop." Because apparently smut is what sells and secures literary agents. Aesthetically-pleasing screenshots of images/captions promoting fictional boyfriends (aka, male characters in works of fiction).

Yesterday I thought to myself, "Self... your characters (not just the male ones, but all of them) are pretty great. Why can't you create some aesthetically-pleasing screenshots and images/captions promoting Bas and Bert and Juli and the rest of the gang?

I decided that I could.

I got Mary to help me and we promoted the sh*t out of Bert. And I posted all of Bert's wonderful traits on social media (Instagram and Facebook) and do you know how many people care? Like... sixteen. It's so disheartening. Bert would rather talk to a woman and get to know her. He values friendships and feels lousy if he hurts someone. He's a genuinely kind person... and the majority of readers would apparently rather be reading about a man who ties his woman to the bed and gives her a safe word and treats her like a piece of meat rather than a human being.

Anyway. If you're someone who would rather be treated like a person and enjoys reading about men (and women) who treat one another like people, then you might be interested in checking out a novel in which Bert Robinson makes an appearance. (He makes a BIG appearance in Running Through the Words since this is his book.)

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