Discover African Authors #FridayFiveChallenge Would you BUY or PASS? BAHO by Roland Rugero @Phonememedia

Today I’m looking at African Authors

This fun feature is a mini workshop. We look at book covers just from their thumbnail pictures at online selling book sites and make quick fire buying decisions. We look from a READER’S Point of View and this exercise is very EYE OPENING.

From the book cover we will browse the book description, price and some of the reviews BUT we only have 5 MINUTES.

WE PLAY POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS

Join in and see where it leads.

Grab a coffee and spend 5 Minutes on this exercise.

Every since I read about THE AFRICAN READING CHALLENGE I have been meaning to take a serious look into African authors, so this was my search term for this week’s #FridayFiveChallenge. When Amazon threw me thousands of African/ American authors I decided to search elsewhere first. I found this FANTASTIC article on the Literary Hub, 25 New Books By African Authors check it out if you fancy something different to read. It inspired me to choose the following book.

Baho by Roland Rugero is due to be published in English from March 15th 2016

Pre-order a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Book Description

When Nyamugari, an adolescent mute, attempts to ask a young woman in rural Burundi for directions to an appropriate place to relieve himself, his gestures are mistaken as premeditation for rape. To the young woman’s community, his fleeing confirms his guilt, setting off a chain reaction of pursuit, mob justice, and Nyamugari’s attempts at explanation. Young Burundian novelist Roland Rugero’s second novel Baho!, the first Burundian novel to ever be translated into English, explores the concepts of miscommunication and justice against the backdrop of war-torn Burundi’s beautiful green hillsides.

Price; This is going to be published only in paperback at first priced £11.49 or $16.00

Pages; 160

Would I BUY or PASS?…….PASS at that price, but lower it and I could be persuaded to support an African author.

Analysis

I love this book cover, the running man, the greens, it is a picture to look at and see more parts as if studying a picture in an art gallery. The book description is very intriguing. I’m interested in African authors and part of me wants to ethically support this author, while my Western marketing eyes feel the price is not competitive with saturated book markets. For 160 pages I’m looking at a half price at least.

In today’s online shopping age, readers often base their buying decisions from small postage stamp size book covers (Thumb-nails), a quick glance at the book description and the review. How much time do they really spend making that buying decision?

AUTHORS – You often only have seconds to get a reader to buy your book, is your book cover and book bio up to it?

My Friday Five Challenge is this….. IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES….

1) Go to any online book supplier,

2) Randomly choose a category,

3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which has instantly appealed to your eye,

4) Read the book Bio/ Description for this book,

5) If there are reviews, check out a couple,

6) Make an instant decision, would you BUY or PASS?

(then write a little analysis about your decision)

Share your post, use #FridayFiveChallenge @rosieamber1 and I’ll help share all relevant posts.

Here are links to other bloggers taking part in today’s challenge.

Shelley looks at a war time love story March: A Love Story In A Time Of War by Geraldine Brooks

Cathy found a contemporary read, Imaginary Things by Andrea Lochen

 

Rosie’s Avid Readers #RBRT CALEB’S CROSSING by Geraldine Brooks #HistFic

Rosie’s Avid readers are people who like reading and have a book to tell us about, they are the voice of a friend who says ” I just read this book….”

Avid Reader’s thoughts

A super read.  This book is about how the early settlers mixed with and tolerated, or not, with the native Indians. There was an amazing classical education for the favoured few and some special scholarships for the natives. The story tells of hardships, segregation, and tolerance seen through the eyes of Bethia a protestant Minister`s daughter.  Mainly set on the island now called Martha`s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

Book description

Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha’s Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.

The narrator of Caleb’s Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island’s glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia’s minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe’s shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb’s crossing of cultures.

Like Brooks’s beloved narrator Anna in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves an emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha’s Vineyard and the intimate spaces of the human heart. Evocative and utterly absorbing, Caleb’s Crossing further establishes Brooks’s place as one of our most acclaimed novelists.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

We welcome recommendations especially from non-authors for this feature, and would love to hear from anyone who would like to leave a comment and follow the blog.