First of all, thank you. Each and every one of you. To those who contributed to “Better Than Good Hair,” bought the book, reviewed the book, and to those who wanted to buy a copy but couldn’t, you’re all a part of this. Thanks for putting up with my incessant tweeting/facebooking/IG’ing. Even I was getting annoyed with myself from all of the promoting. It was a little – atypical.
So let me ‘splain. When I first started writing this book two years ago, it was indeed simply supposed to be a resource for all of you. The publishers were mildly excited and I was just an innocent little Smeagol (Lord of the Rings), happy about being an author. As the project progressed, I quickly realized what the new platform could mean for our community… how it would inspire even more textured women to embrace their natural hair and how it could push us into the realm of ‘mainstream’, getting us ever closer to changing the beauty standard. But for this to happen, we’d have to get attention and the way to get attention in this country through books, is to get on the best selling lists of one of the top five newspapers. And it wasn’t long before I was Golem, vomiting purple and pink all over the blog and bombarding you all with advertising/campaigning in order to get the precious get on the NY Times Bestseller list.
It was early last Wednesday evening when I found out we didn’t make the list, and it was heartbreaking. #UglyCry It didn’t hurt because we weren’t there, ladies, it hurt because through months of research and asking questions, all signs pointed to it actually happening. What do I mean? Long story short: books that sold less than us were on the list. Apparently they use some complicated scoring system whose mystery can only be matched by trying to calculate a FICO score.
Dah well. There is still reason for celebrating. BTGH did make the Washington Post’s Bestseller List (among the Nation’s top 5 circulating papers). We hit the number 4 spot in nonfiction paperback books, right behind Nobel Prize-winning Economist, Paul Krugman #KindOfABigDeal. We also peaked at #14 on Amazon.com’s bestselling list that week, and #TeamEdges is now officially on the map! All thanks to you. People have been telling me congratulations, but the real congratulations goes to US. And I mean that. So walk with your head a little higher today!
So what’s next for me? I’ll continue to bring you the features, information, interviews, and everything else you’ve come to love and expect when you come here. Now isn’t the time to relax – it’s the time to step it up a notch. And that’s just what I intend to do.
Later Gators,
Nik
