This week we here at SFF Seven are trying our hands at creating bookstagrams: staged photos that feature our books for the purposes of posting on Instagram. I've seen these things floating around, and it would be so flattering to have one made for one of my books. But by and large they haven't been, and in any case, I wouldn't be the right person to do it.
See, I'm not a visual person.
In the edit letter for my first book, I remember my editor asking basically what my characters looked like because the book was sparse on physical -- read: visual -- descriptions. I was like, hmm, Mari's a south Texan from Whataburger country and Heron lived in Egypt before his mamas adopted him, so probably they both have brown hair and eyes, medium brown skin. Mari's tallish and Heron's lanky. And... that's about it?
Apparently it was not enough for a cover designer, and honestly, not quite enough for readers either. They wanted a "he's so hot" long description of my hero's pulchritude. But I guess I had a hard time delivering what readers wanted because that's not what really gets me going. I lean hard into textures and smells and sounds and tastes, because those are the senses that move me emotionally.
To me, visual is seeming, which is not the same thing as being.
Visuals rarely convince me to buy a book, so if I created a bookstagram for my own book it wouldn't feel authentic or right. Which is probably why, although I have an Instagram account, I mostly post pics of my pets and stuff that I find in the garden.
Though, all that said, these cakes that match book covers are super cool. And naturally, if somebody ever made fanart for something I'd written, I would lose my shit. That would be amazing.
