 You're in my seat, dude. What a bitch. That wasn't really the best start to this particular video. What's shakin', BookTube? My name's Cam, and welcome back to another video. Despite that little display right there, guess what? Wrong. Today is another positive video. Positive. Recently I did a video called Things I Hate About Authors, and that was fun. No doubt. No doubt, no doubt, no doubt. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. We talked about stuff like being a general doucher, to copying, to scamming, but it would also be pretty damn weak if I didn't also make a video talking about the traits of an author that I love. The traits that hit me right in the good spot. My tum-tum. Look, all jokes aside, we do talk a lot of trash about authors. We do. We get away with it a lot more than I think we tend to realize, and we tend to treat authors like a whole different species, really. We feel so separated from them that we are a lot more comfortable saying things about them that we wouldn't normally say about, you know, people in our own community. But at the end of the day, these are people that give us a true gateway into an escape from everyday life, because I don't know if you've realized, but everyday life kinda sucks. They dedicate their lives to giving us stories that change our lives and help us through the dark time. So why not share a bit of love back to them every now and then? And not just by putting coin in the pocket. So first of all, I wanna talk about the charitable authors, and I can't really talk about all of them obviously, because there's a lot. If you got all of the bestselling authors and put them in a room together and then through a stick in there, I'd give it a 99% chance that you're gonna get someone in the eye who has done quite a lot of charity. You know, John Green, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Dean Koontz. And there's also someone that people sure do love to poop on at the moment, J.K. Motherfucking Rowling. J.K. has actually founded quite a few charities, most notable of all being the Lumos Foundation, which has kept just a shh ton of kids out of orphanages and into loving homes. I think that's just fantastic. Like if you searched J.K. on Twitter, the first thing you would find is, you know, stories about a retroactive shoe-warning into a stories and making things can and after the fact. And that's fine. She should be called out on doing stuff like that, even though personally, I think she's always had the best of intentions with it. Like, yes, announcing that Dumbledore was gay after having already written the books was unfortunate and the fact that there was never directly included in the books themselves, because that would have been great exposure for kids around all around my age in that time. That would have been great, sure. But announcing it after the fact doesn't really hurt anything either. All I'm saying is I don't think she's ever done any of these things with malicious intent. But this isn't a J.K. Rowling video. All I'm saying is if we take into account the fact that she has done almost two hundred million dollars in charity, I think we can give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she's trying. And I would say succeeded at being a really good person. It's fine to identify when authors are doing things that you think are harmful, but I don't like the notion that that immediately discredits any good work they've ever done either. And I'm not saying charity should be a get out of jail free card for doing shitty things. Sometimes it feels like the reading community goes more out of their way to find out when authors are doing things they don't like rather than things they're doing that genuinely improve the lives of people. You know, it's even more annoying when there's people who have never lifted a charitable finger in their entire lives. Well, you know, beyond sending a strolling worded tweet like you know, people like that feeling entirely comfortable acting like they're a better person than J.K. Despite the fact that she's literally saved and changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. And you know, it's easier to say like, yeah, that's because these authors are rich. But at the end of the day, still what have you done? Oh, boy, that kind of sorry that turned into a rant. This was meant to be I feel like an idiot. This was meant to be positive positive. I'm not trying to point the finger at anyone. God knows I haven't done nearly as much charity as I could in my life. And I'm always trying to do more. But if you were to take anything away from everything I just said, it would just be that maybe we should start putting a spotlight on the good things that authors do rather than digging through their entire lives at the scalpel, trying to find the bad. That's all. So I'm going to. Switch lanes kind of drastically here to mention something that is arguably just as valuable as philanthropy. And that is a dang nice author photo. Look, I can't tell you why, but there's there's nothing I can appreciate more than when a really respected bestselling author is really unphotogenic. When they're so unphotogenic that they create a paradox, they create a rip in space and time and somehow end up having twice the swagger of someone with a good author photo. Maybe it's just because like the unphotogenic thing I find so relatable. Not saying I think I'm ugly or anything, but I just I suck at photos. I really do bad author photos. Look, we know one one family comes to mind immediately. The King family, the King family is notoriously bad with author photos. Don't get me wrong, I love them. I love the King family. I really do. Joe Hill is my favorite author, but for a group of dudes who write some of the most badass stories and characters, you can't help it feel like a lot of their photos were taken for a 2009 MySpace profile. Hi, my name's Joe, and I really think my chemical romance changed the world. I think I could end the video right here and would be all good. I want to take a moment to pour one out for the authors who do the truth by the who write the truth, the authors that write honestly, the authors that have the guts to write what they feel is true to the story. Yeah, I know that sounds corny as hell. Sure. But I mean it, I really do. I'm talking about authors who aren't scared to steer away from the strict rules that we have for commercial success. There's certain formulas now for like writing a bestselling story. And that's fine if you do that, if that's what the story demands. Sure. But if you don't think that's the direction your story should be going in and you're getting a lot of pressure to do it anyway for the commercial success and you decide, fucking it, I'm going to do it me. I have a lot of respect for that. Basically, authors who prioritize the quality of their work and writing something that they genuinely like above making money. And not just that, but the authors who are also, you know, completely willing to write truly to the story, despite the increasing pressure coming from, you know, the publishers and the outside reader community. I think now not more than ever, obviously. But I do think now more than maybe a couple of years ago or more, there's a lot of pressure on authors about what they can and can't get away with as far as writing goes. And I'm not praising authors who are uncompromising and unwilling to hear from the community about what is respectful. And what is appropriate. I think all authors should be open to that conversation. But flat out sometimes the community demands a bit too much. I find myself appreciating a lot when an author doesn't, you know, flinch at the lynch mob mentality. It's kind of like a whole long conversation in and of itself. So don't read too much in the what I'm saying here. But I think writing like most other creative art should be bold and should take risks and should make people uncomfortable. But a lot of people don't like feeling uncomfortable when they read books and they translate that into, well, the author is a bad person for making me feel uncomfortable. And that's just not the way I think things should operate. Like I said, there is a conversation to be had from book to book about what is appropriate and respectful, but we shouldn't draw too many assumptions from what kind of person the author is just because of the actions of a character or the plot within their story. Maybe they are just reflecting a reality. And as we all know, reality kind of sucks. So, you know, there's authors like Rest in Peace, Toni Morrison. That was a bit of a blow to the book community. Authors like her who had the guts to be blunt, write about her truth and the truth of her culture, despite the very real risk of it at the time being very poorly received. Another author famous or maybe infamous if you like for this is Mark Twain. Anyone who doesn't know Jack about Mark Twain might read a snippet of his writing or something like that and think he's like some just old school racist from back in the day when truthfully it couldn't be any further from the truth. Yes, a lot of the language he uses in his books wouldn't translate appropriately to nowadays. And yeah, I'm going to use that. It was a different time argument. But hear me out. Mark Twain was willing to basically advocate for and write the truth of a culture that he didn't belong to in a time when something like this wasn't just rare or didn't just have a risk of being poorly received. It was a time when this was actively opposed and potentially dangerous. For that time, Mark Twain was one of the most progressive people you would see. And he was constantly advocating for, you know, justice for minorities. And truthfully, he did it fearlessly. He just people gave him a lot of shit. He just didn't give a fuck about Sawyer home slice. Huckleberry fan, white boy goes rafting with a brother. People go lose that shit. So the last thing I want to mention and perhaps one of the most important things we can appreciate in an author is when they're nice to their fans. Pretty easy, right? It seems like an easy notion and I'm not talking from experience. Yeah, don't get me wrong, but fans can suck. Surely we all know this. Like if you have a Twitter account, I know that you know this. But sometimes fans and stands, they can suck. Like, yeah, we the fans get that author the bag. We collectively, we give them a pretty big step up in life. Sure, personally, I don't think that means we're owed anything or entitled to anything. I think that whole, I think the whole idea of like, well, this artist or this famous person is only up there because of us. It's like, I think that completely undermines any of the hard work they've done or any of the talent that they have. But yeah, we get them the bag, but we also kind of leech at them constantly. Where's the next book? Where is it? But despite this, you have authors like Neil Gaiman, who are still actively participating in and engaging with his fans and the community. And he does it every chance he can get. And he's always trying to, you know, raise people up. So he gets a lot of, you know, aspiring authors coming to him for wisdom. And he provides it graciously. He doesn't see these people as competition. He tries to help them. And you watch like any of his videos and it never feels like he's talking down at you. It always feels like he's talking to you as an equal. Like, like writing is just this super difficult thing that we're all in together. Authors like that really are great because there's also, unfortunately, a lot of authors that see us as these little Oliver Twist like gremlins begging for their foot jam. Please, sir, can thou spare but a crumb of attention? So there you go. Those are the things that I love about authors. I think I might have done a little too much ranting in a video that was meant to be positive, positive. But I still feel like we got a lot of the good stuff across too. And you know what? If you're an author who does any of these things. Well, then digits there. Subscribe to my channel. And I'll finally have the courage to confront my dog and tell her to get a job. Catch you.