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How Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney became the king of COVID-19 book tours Hannah Yasharoff, USA TODAY
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Silver Spring, Md. Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” is blaring on everyone s car radio. It’s 40-some degrees, but water balloons are being tossed, and a lifeguard is blowing her whistle at guests. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” author Jeff Kinney is on standby with a 7-foot pool net.
The coronavirus pandemic has prompted an unusual ask of the book industry: how do you go on tour to promote your work when meeting groups isn’t safe? Some big-name authors, like Barack Obama, whose presidential memoir, A Promised Land, came out a month ago, stuck just to giving interviews. Others have done Zoom events on their own, partnering with other authors or with local bookstores.
December 11, 2020, 12:21pm
Colorado bookstore chain Tattered Cover has been acquired by an investment group that includes Kwame Spearman, who is Black, an arrangement that has led to more than a few stories referring to Tattered Cover as “the largest Black-owned bookstore in America.” This is not sitting well with Black booksellers across the country.
As this thoroughly reported
Publishers Weekly article outlines, for many booksellers, the idea of a “Black-owned bookstore” is about a lot more than just money.
At Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee & Books in Philadelphia, manager Justin Moore said he was reluctant to blame the new owners, but was deeply concerned about the messaging and subsequent media coverage of the purchase. “Being a Black-owned bookstore is more than just whose name is on the ownership papers,” Moore said. “Just a simple transfer of ownership doesn’t automatically qualify you to be a Black-owned bookstore in the same way that almost every Black-owned bo