Many of my readers are already aware that I help administer a monthly book chat. For those that don’t, the Steampunk Virtual Book Chat (More formally known as Temporal Textual Talks) exists to help promote steampunk and steampunk-adjacent books and their authors. It started as a response to the global pandemic; so many steampunk authors depend on selling their books at conventions to promote their work that when things like conventions were shut down during the pandemic, those authors were left with no viable way to sell their books and to find new readers.
I was discussing this at the time with Madame Askew, whom I’d recently met for the first time at TeslaCon a few months before. We agreed that Something Must Be Done, and, as two people with, apparently, time on their hands, we started a monthly online book chat group. Madame was no stranger to this process: she had been running a monthly, in-person book club out of one of her local bookshops, so she had a solid list of people to contact about getting involved. Our first official Book Chat was in April of 2020, held via Zoom, and we haven’t looked back. The number of Book Chat attendees grew, and I took it upon myself to post about it in all the steampunk-related Facebook groups I could find. More people found us, and today, while we’re not a huge group, we have a solid core of members and a fair number of folks who drop in occasionally. Madame Askew is a fantastic host, skillfully keeping the discussion moving while also offering each attendee and chance to speak, whether it be asking a question or gushing over their new-found favorite book or author.
One of the hallmarks of our Book Chats is that we invite the authors to join us for the informal discussion, allowing each of the readers attending to ask questions and to compliment them on their work. We’ve had numerous delightful experiences, and many of our authors have complimented us on how we run our events. Several have even become regular attendees.
Recently, a new online scam has made its appearance—one that preys on authors. Scammers are offering to promote authors’ books through a “book club” and requiring payment of some sort—or possibly just operating a phishing operation to steal personal information or credit card data. Word has spread, and authors are now very reluctant to become involved with any sort of book club group at all. This has put quite a damper on our little event; we’re used to not having authors join us every time—schedules conflict, and folks can’t always be available on the day when we meet. We’ve also been ghosted a few times by authors who agreed to appear then did not reply to any contact and didn’t show up for the event. In a few instances we’ve been asked to pay an appearance fee for the author to participate. While an appearance fee is a completely reasonable thing to require, we do this on a voluntary basis, and don’t charge our attendees or our auhtors anything to participate, hoping that the sales of books might help make the effort a bit more appealing. Neither Madame nor I are rolling in cash, so we’re not able to pay authors to join us.
Fortunately, we have enough authors who’ve had very positive experiences with us that we now have a small group who will vouch for us with their fellow authors. It definitely helps, and we’ve had several authors for whom contact was difficult—either though their lack of online presence or through layers of publishing bureaucracy preventing our message from getting through—that got a message from a colleague and contacted us.
I’ve posted our schedule for the year to give everyone time to find a copy of the book and read at least some of it beforehand. We never REQUIRE attendees to read the book (though spoilers may happen during the course of the discussion) and while we also don’t require folks to purchase a copy, we do ENCOURAGE everyone to obtain a copy, whether through purchase or borrowing the book fro a friend or out of a local library. Libraries are often willing to get a book they don’t have (if the budget allows them to) so checking far in advance is a good idea. Note that the date for the May discussion will be May 10 (Mother’s Day), and the November discussion covers a graphic novel. This list for the coming year is posted in late November/early December, to offer as much time as possible for folks to arrange for their copies and to mark their calendars.
We’re deeply proud of our Book Chat, and proud that we’ve been able to help out steampunk authors when the publishing world has, for the most part, abandoned them. We meet every month (except December) over Zoom, and for folks that only want to watch without participating directly, Madame Askew also simulcasts the Chats on her YouTube and Twitch channels, and archives the chats on her YouTube channel for later viewing. We hope that our efforts have helped promote authors, publishers, and their work, and hope too that you might consider joining us for one of our future discussions.
I shall be forever grateful that we decided to host this little adventure! What an incredible experience it’s been!