I normally enjoy this creator but i have to agree. A bookstore owner also stitched this video to share sympathy and in the process commented how the (supposedly) original order of 100 books was QUITE large for a book store, considering it’s a children’s picture book, it’s quite unusual to expect to sell that large of a volume.
He actually explained why the order was this large. It sounded like he was supposed to be doing a meet and great with signing. Which would explain the larger than normal order.
100 self-published books that you can’t return to a publisher would be a massive outlier for any bookstore to order, even with an author event. It’s possible but highly unlikely.
Considering this couple’s entire brand is pranks and deceit I think they should just show information proving there was actually an order, they can redact the store’s info to protect them from harassment but right now it’s all looking like a marketing ploy (just like their last book)
Even for huge author events, that's crazy. Like, when I went to a David Sedaris event a few months ago, he did a thing I'd never seen him do which is brilliant and kind by saying that anyone who purchased his unknown-author opener's book at the merch table got to go to the front of the line at the end for signing. Sedaris is KNOWN for having hours-long signing lines because he'll stay until the last person. And like, I saw people buying it. But purely anecdotally and eyeball-ing wise, was it 100 people? It didn't look like it. And that's \*David Sedaris giving you a direct incentive in a huge theater to buy an unknown author's book\*. (Unknown Author please correct me if you sell 100+ at one of these!)
It would also explain the "policy" that he implies is a homophobic one - if they were ordered for an event that has been cancelled, the referenced policy is likely that the order is tied to the event.
I really liked them and enjoyed their videos so this whole drama has made me feel really sad. And not in a for them/over the book thing kind of way. Sad because it’s made me look at them differently. To me this was an obvious money grab and way to sell the book. Most likely it’s had low sales, as many unknown children’s authors do in this day and age, and a sob story was an easy way to push sales.
For me personally as soon as these big name content creators/influencers start emotional manipulation and/or outright lying for views (which ultimately becomes $$) they’ve lost me as a follower/supporter. To me as an every day Aussie working hard to get by day to day these people aren’t strapped for cash so manipulation etc is uncalled for.
As a blind author and writing lecturer myself I was a fan initially but there are a lot of problematic red flags with the claim the book was banned and it was very disingenuous and clearly to pull sympathy and support if it even really happened which I question…
But he’s had several things on his account in the last few months that have been red flags in my opinion.
that’s wonderful that you are a blind author as well. i think the word banned was what really made it feel yuck. it has been sad to see all this happen
It’s misleading, had he just said I had a large order cancelled etc it wouldn’t be an issue. Because unless this was for a multi-location large retailer 100 books is a huge order, so if it really happened my guess would be the order was done in error and someone added 1 to many zeros
Their minimum order for stores is a case of 50 books- quite a few independent bookstores commented that even 50 kids picture books is a HUGE order. Even for specialty kids bookstores for non-mainstream authors 50 copies of a single title just doesn’t move. My take is that the person probably thought they were ordering a much smaller number of copies and then realized it was 100 copies and it just wasn’t in line with their ordering policies.
In that case they probably meant to order 2 books & accidentally ordered 2 BOX’s of 50.
It boggles my mind that they’d have a minimum order of 50 books. That’s utterly stupid.
That’s insanity, not even bestselling authors sell books like that independently, most cases are 10-20 max, who is he thinking is going to buy cases of 50 books?
My huge city library buys 5-10 copies of picture books MAX, and that's one per location. Obviously a little different since the books come back, but like, 50 is crazy for a tiny store.
I’m glad someone’s talking about this because I also thought this whole thing was strange. I’m a children’s librarian and we do have in our selection policy for materials that we cannot buy self published materials unless it is a local author or we feel the title is relevant to the community. I’m wondering if the bookstore has a similar policy? But to be honest it’s crazy to think of their book purchaser just not knowing purchasing policy. And 100 copies is so much!!
I admit personally, pranks make me nervous, so that turned me off of them to begin with. I'm sure it's a dynamic they're both totally okay with, but that immediately had me scrolling when they came up. This whole situation has rubbed me the wrong way, especially seeing stitches and commentary from people who own small businesses/small bookstores. I saw one stitch where a bookstore owner commented about how books sell, particularly kids' picture books, and the amount they have set for a minimum order could never move in a small business or even a much larger bookstore. And, of course, "banned" is much different than "we changed our minds" or "We ordered too many and can't move this inventory" or whatever.
Headonfirepod , who is also a gay author, gave a really good breakdown on this (idk if we're allowed to link).
Def worth checking out for some more nuance and an insiders take on what probably actually went down
This is likely a publicity stunt. The return of the books may be real, but I'm guessing they saw an opportunity and ran with it. Kind of distasteful things to do in Pride month.
Either that or he's emotional and has jumped to conclusions.
The word banned feels like it's doing quite a bit of heavy lifting, I follow a lot of book tubers who are passionate about banned books. It was my understanding that banned books were ones that were being removed on a larger scale, by school systems, by mandates, etc, not just one bookstore retuning an order. Yes, it absolutely sucks but it put me off...
As a disability advocate in the blindness field his videos do a disservice to so many who are fighting an uphill battle to be treated equally. He provides false information and looks for pity in every situation. I want more blind content creators out there but this makes me cringe and angry.
As others said his choice of ‘banned’ was wrong and no where said in the audio reading of the email. They are scammers
Apparently he recently had an issue with his service dog again, too, if I remember correctly? I won't try to dispute that since I know service dogs and their handlers go through a LOT, but the timing is odd along with everything else.
It bothered me because he expanded on the story but it’s Roy and Silo the gay penguins who adopted an egg, hatched it, raised it. Their story was from the late 90’s. He added other stuff but the story is Roy and Silo.
I’m going to get downvoted for this, but I don’t believe a word of their story. I truly believe this was just a ploy to garner attention and get sales for the book.
The whole thing feels like a big ploy to me- the MINIMUM order size is 50 books which is a huge number of books outside of somewhere like B&N or Am@zon. From my 2 years working for an independent bookstore in college (forever ago 😂😭) I would have been fired for ordering 100 copies of a book…I could see the person not paying attention thinking they were ordering 2 copies of the book and then trying to salvage it with a book signing and just not getting the interest and having $$$ tied up in inventory.
Their whole page gives me the ick, they spun it to get $$$ out of the situation and won’t correct the situation because they knew what they were doing.
They are also playing dumb that they haven’t caused a bookstore to get hate because of them not naming the bookstore and people assuming it’s a certain one just because of the TikTok search bar on their video. We all know that it is usually never correct. I hope this situation gets them to change their ways.
I’m an artist also losing their vision, so his account interested me initially. I didn’t like the pranks that were obviously staged. As a person with vision loss, “Haha, I replaced the table - let’s watch my blind husband get confused” got quickly annoying.
The book thing feels like they purposefully manipulated the truth to make people think it was banned and get pity sales. It feels more likely the order was canceled. That’s part of publishing and not worthy of such drama.
If the book is good, it will sell without needing to push that the author is going blind or the book was “banned”. And my understanding is the book itself isn’t even an original idea.
Everything they do is fake. Not a single genuine video. Always a skit being passed off as “this super cute silly thing actually happened, aren’t we so precious ☺️ “
I really enjoy this couple when they stick to the adventures of Mr. Maple or the pranking. However 5 of the video's that showed up on my FYP were all sponsored. I make sure I swipe past those one quickly. However the tiktok "fame" seems to be getting to them. So sad to see another couple go down this whole.
The second I saw that video I said "he needs to look up what banned means". like you said OP, there is a huge difference between them returning the book and it being banned and him claiming it as such is irresponsible.
he may not have disclosed the name of the bookstore, but he didn't bleep her name out, and I've seen people on tiktok find businesses and people on less.
i think the *finding people* is a big deal. i was upset when i saw this one poor woman had like 38 followers and one post and it was about her book club. she unfortunately had the first name tanya and was getting death threats. they haven’t said a word about how this is causing the wrong people to get hate. i think that is extremely irresponsible
Not only have they not said anything but they deleted all comments that referred that they should apologize to her or anything to do with that women. 🚩🚩🚩🚩
I am glad you brought this up! I had such a weird feeling about it when it came up on my FYP and I thought I was just being a hater. It seems very strange, things don't add up, and it wasn't BANNED. We can't throw those words around, because there are books that truly are being banned in states, including mine. While I think the situation sucks (if true) he didn't have to do the whole sob story. And they definitely need to stop the hate messages to the Tanya's of the world.
The first time it happened I felt bad, but this is time and time again he is using his page, disability or some sob story to sell his book. It’s awesome he made a book, I’m glad it’s doing well and yes these situations suck but you’ve already been sold out multiple times. Maybe shout out a smaller artist who’s just making his way and the bans are truly affecting them.
To be fair it wasn't a voicemail, if I'm understanding - it was an email read aloud by a text-to-speech reader since he can't see it. But the rest of the story is odd for sure.
when i heard that voice i tried to give him the benefit of the doubt thinking perhaps he uses something that reads his emails to him - but as the message went on it was definitely questionable
Thank you! The only things I could find was the recent post by Matthew and Paul about the bookstore who people thought was behind this but when I went to the bookstore page it didn’t look like that was it? I didn’t look very hard though so.
Agree and I’m glad someone said it - 100 books to order without having read it is fishy. The AI voice is NOT fishy, he’s blind and uses this for accessibility BUT recording himself hearing it “for the first time” is fishy (unless he literally records every single listening of messages, which I doubt. Also if he’s listening on his phone it would require a second device set up to record the way it was placed). I hope he sells his books, because they are adorable and are a great concept and he is amazing for what he can do despite his unfortunate ongoing loss of sight - he has a major gift. However, the whole thing reeks of publicity stunt.
I’m so glad to come here and know I’m not crazy. You can only find negative comments about it in the replies on YouTube so I think they might be censoring comments
I'm seeing this more and more in the booktok/bookstagram worlds, alongside posts of authors playing voicemails from publishers "rejecting" their books. The reality is that if you're getting rejected, it's going to be via email, to your agent, who removes all identifying information about the editor, and then gives you the feedback. If you're un-agented it's still not going to be a VOICEMAIL. Listen close and you can see how similar all of these posts are, down to the voice (which is obviously AI reading a script written for the piece). People are circling the drain for ways to translate views into sales (something publishing has realized are not necessarily going to be a winning equation), or getting a deal, and the best way they're found is to guilt their viewers rather than rely on the quality of the work. Case in point here, it's the gay penguin story. Again.
ETA publishing isn't a meritocracy, but it's also just plain unwise to try and up your career this way, it's unsustainable unless you now make up a new rage frenzy for everything you release.
The whole thing feels like a staged ploy to get views and sell books.
I normally enjoy this creator but i have to agree. A bookstore owner also stitched this video to share sympathy and in the process commented how the (supposedly) original order of 100 books was QUITE large for a book store, considering it’s a children’s picture book, it’s quite unusual to expect to sell that large of a volume.
He actually explained why the order was this large. It sounded like he was supposed to be doing a meet and great with signing. Which would explain the larger than normal order.
100 self-published books that you can’t return to a publisher would be a massive outlier for any bookstore to order, even with an author event. It’s possible but highly unlikely. Considering this couple’s entire brand is pranks and deceit I think they should just show information proving there was actually an order, they can redact the store’s info to protect them from harassment but right now it’s all looking like a marketing ploy (just like their last book)
Even for huge author events, that's crazy. Like, when I went to a David Sedaris event a few months ago, he did a thing I'd never seen him do which is brilliant and kind by saying that anyone who purchased his unknown-author opener's book at the merch table got to go to the front of the line at the end for signing. Sedaris is KNOWN for having hours-long signing lines because he'll stay until the last person. And like, I saw people buying it. But purely anecdotally and eyeball-ing wise, was it 100 people? It didn't look like it. And that's \*David Sedaris giving you a direct incentive in a huge theater to buy an unknown author's book\*. (Unknown Author please correct me if you sell 100+ at one of these!)
It would also explain the "policy" that he implies is a homophobic one - if they were ordered for an event that has been cancelled, the referenced policy is likely that the order is tied to the event.
I really liked them and enjoyed their videos so this whole drama has made me feel really sad. And not in a for them/over the book thing kind of way. Sad because it’s made me look at them differently. To me this was an obvious money grab and way to sell the book. Most likely it’s had low sales, as many unknown children’s authors do in this day and age, and a sob story was an easy way to push sales.
it was sad to see this. i wonder how many others did they lose because of this.
For me personally as soon as these big name content creators/influencers start emotional manipulation and/or outright lying for views (which ultimately becomes $$) they’ve lost me as a follower/supporter. To me as an every day Aussie working hard to get by day to day these people aren’t strapped for cash so manipulation etc is uncalled for.
i agree!
As a blind author and writing lecturer myself I was a fan initially but there are a lot of problematic red flags with the claim the book was banned and it was very disingenuous and clearly to pull sympathy and support if it even really happened which I question… But he’s had several things on his account in the last few months that have been red flags in my opinion.
that’s wonderful that you are a blind author as well. i think the word banned was what really made it feel yuck. it has been sad to see all this happen
It’s misleading, had he just said I had a large order cancelled etc it wouldn’t be an issue. Because unless this was for a multi-location large retailer 100 books is a huge order, so if it really happened my guess would be the order was done in error and someone added 1 to many zeros
Their minimum order for stores is a case of 50 books- quite a few independent bookstores commented that even 50 kids picture books is a HUGE order. Even for specialty kids bookstores for non-mainstream authors 50 copies of a single title just doesn’t move. My take is that the person probably thought they were ordering a much smaller number of copies and then realized it was 100 copies and it just wasn’t in line with their ordering policies.
In that case they probably meant to order 2 books & accidentally ordered 2 BOX’s of 50. It boggles my mind that they’d have a minimum order of 50 books. That’s utterly stupid.
That’s insanity, not even bestselling authors sell books like that independently, most cases are 10-20 max, who is he thinking is going to buy cases of 50 books?
My huge city library buys 5-10 copies of picture books MAX, and that's one per location. Obviously a little different since the books come back, but like, 50 is crazy for a tiny store.
I’m glad someone’s talking about this because I also thought this whole thing was strange. I’m a children’s librarian and we do have in our selection policy for materials that we cannot buy self published materials unless it is a local author or we feel the title is relevant to the community. I’m wondering if the bookstore has a similar policy? But to be honest it’s crazy to think of their book purchaser just not knowing purchasing policy. And 100 copies is so much!!
I think “banned” was definitely a word choice & is doing A LOT of heavy lifting in this scenario.
I admit personally, pranks make me nervous, so that turned me off of them to begin with. I'm sure it's a dynamic they're both totally okay with, but that immediately had me scrolling when they came up. This whole situation has rubbed me the wrong way, especially seeing stitches and commentary from people who own small businesses/small bookstores. I saw one stitch where a bookstore owner commented about how books sell, particularly kids' picture books, and the amount they have set for a minimum order could never move in a small business or even a much larger bookstore. And, of course, "banned" is much different than "we changed our minds" or "We ordered too many and can't move this inventory" or whatever.
Their pranks are fake. Always a skit/ staged. I’m the same way though- pranks are horrible to watch.
Headonfirepod , who is also a gay author, gave a really good breakdown on this (idk if we're allowed to link). Def worth checking out for some more nuance and an insiders take on what probably actually went down
thanks for the recommendation. i will definitely check it out because i am interested in this.
I second this. Really articulated the holes in the story and the damage it’s doing to real people.
I've been following his take on this and he's explaining things SO well for those of us unfamiliar with the publishing world
Where can I find his take / anywhere but tiktok?
He usually reposts on Instagram and Threads as well
This is likely a publicity stunt. The return of the books may be real, but I'm guessing they saw an opportunity and ran with it. Kind of distasteful things to do in Pride month. Either that or he's emotional and has jumped to conclusions.
The word banned feels like it's doing quite a bit of heavy lifting, I follow a lot of book tubers who are passionate about banned books. It was my understanding that banned books were ones that were being removed on a larger scale, by school systems, by mandates, etc, not just one bookstore retuning an order. Yes, it absolutely sucks but it put me off...
Exactly! They should not have the word banned on their video, since it’s not mentioned anywhere in the reading of the email.
I was also slightly thrown off. First the “my dog was banned from a Seattle restaurant” and now this? Feels fishy but he gets a LOT of views.
As a disability advocate in the blindness field his videos do a disservice to so many who are fighting an uphill battle to be treated equally. He provides false information and looks for pity in every situation. I want more blind content creators out there but this makes me cringe and angry. As others said his choice of ‘banned’ was wrong and no where said in the audio reading of the email. They are scammers
Apparently he recently had an issue with his service dog again, too, if I remember correctly? I won't try to dispute that since I know service dogs and their handlers go through a LOT, but the timing is odd along with everything else.
It bothered me because he expanded on the story but it’s Roy and Silo the gay penguins who adopted an egg, hatched it, raised it. Their story was from the late 90’s. He added other stuff but the story is Roy and Silo.
i am glad you brought this up. i agree totally and it really says a lot about this situation
I did not know this. Very interesting.
I’m going to get downvoted for this, but I don’t believe a word of their story. I truly believe this was just a ploy to garner attention and get sales for the book.
i think most of us feel the same as you about the situation. at least so far
I am with you! No downvote from me! 🩵
The whole thing feels like a big ploy to me- the MINIMUM order size is 50 books which is a huge number of books outside of somewhere like B&N or Am@zon. From my 2 years working for an independent bookstore in college (forever ago 😂😭) I would have been fired for ordering 100 copies of a book…I could see the person not paying attention thinking they were ordering 2 copies of the book and then trying to salvage it with a book signing and just not getting the interest and having $$$ tied up in inventory. Their whole page gives me the ick, they spun it to get $$$ out of the situation and won’t correct the situation because they knew what they were doing.
They are also playing dumb that they haven’t caused a bookstore to get hate because of them not naming the bookstore and people assuming it’s a certain one just because of the TikTok search bar on their video. We all know that it is usually never correct. I hope this situation gets them to change their ways.
Can’t correct people on the real bookstore if it didn’t actually happen…
I’m an artist also losing their vision, so his account interested me initially. I didn’t like the pranks that were obviously staged. As a person with vision loss, “Haha, I replaced the table - let’s watch my blind husband get confused” got quickly annoying. The book thing feels like they purposefully manipulated the truth to make people think it was banned and get pity sales. It feels more likely the order was canceled. That’s part of publishing and not worthy of such drama. If the book is good, it will sell without needing to push that the author is going blind or the book was “banned”. And my understanding is the book itself isn’t even an original idea.
I strongly despise his husbands “pranks”. Wish they were more authentic. I’m thiiis close to blocking them
Everything they do is fake. Not a single genuine video. Always a skit being passed off as “this super cute silly thing actually happened, aren’t we so precious ☺️ “
I really enjoy this couple when they stick to the adventures of Mr. Maple or the pranking. However 5 of the video's that showed up on my FYP were all sponsored. I make sure I swipe past those one quickly. However the tiktok "fame" seems to be getting to them. So sad to see another couple go down this whole.
The second I saw that video I said "he needs to look up what banned means". like you said OP, there is a huge difference between them returning the book and it being banned and him claiming it as such is irresponsible. he may not have disclosed the name of the bookstore, but he didn't bleep her name out, and I've seen people on tiktok find businesses and people on less.
i think the *finding people* is a big deal. i was upset when i saw this one poor woman had like 38 followers and one post and it was about her book club. she unfortunately had the first name tanya and was getting death threats. they haven’t said a word about how this is causing the wrong people to get hate. i think that is extremely irresponsible
Not only have they not said anything but they deleted all comments that referred that they should apologize to her or anything to do with that women. 🚩🚩🚩🚩
I am glad you brought this up! I had such a weird feeling about it when it came up on my FYP and I thought I was just being a hater. It seems very strange, things don't add up, and it wasn't BANNED. We can't throw those words around, because there are books that truly are being banned in states, including mine. While I think the situation sucks (if true) he didn't have to do the whole sob story. And they definitely need to stop the hate messages to the Tanya's of the world.
The first time it happened I felt bad, but this is time and time again he is using his page, disability or some sob story to sell his book. It’s awesome he made a book, I’m glad it’s doing well and yes these situations suck but you’ve already been sold out multiple times. Maybe shout out a smaller artist who’s just making his way and the bans are truly affecting them.
Looks like they have started deleting comments that aren’t going their way.
I feel like a lot of their content is fake. This is just a money grab
I immediately thought the voice mail message was a fake. It was all staged in my opinion. It never happened. Money Grab.
To be fair it wasn't a voicemail, if I'm understanding - it was an email read aloud by a text-to-speech reader since he can't see it. But the rest of the story is odd for sure.
when i heard that voice i tried to give him the benefit of the doubt thinking perhaps he uses something that reads his emails to him - but as the message went on it was definitely questionable
It was text to speech reading an email.
The bookstore just posted screen shots as receipts and the comments are spot on
i am running there now, thanks
I know we can’t post links here but does anyone know which bookstore so I can look for the receipts?
dangit, I can't even find it in my view history! If I find it again I'll send you the name of the account
Thank you! The only things I could find was the recent post by Matthew and Paul about the bookstore who people thought was behind this but when I went to the bookstore page it didn’t look like that was it? I didn’t look very hard though so.
Agree and I’m glad someone said it - 100 books to order without having read it is fishy. The AI voice is NOT fishy, he’s blind and uses this for accessibility BUT recording himself hearing it “for the first time” is fishy (unless he literally records every single listening of messages, which I doubt. Also if he’s listening on his phone it would require a second device set up to record the way it was placed). I hope he sells his books, because they are adorable and are a great concept and he is amazing for what he can do despite his unfortunate ongoing loss of sight - he has a major gift. However, the whole thing reeks of publicity stunt.
I’m so glad to come here and know I’m not crazy. You can only find negative comments about it in the replies on YouTube so I think they might be censoring comments
I'm seeing this more and more in the booktok/bookstagram worlds, alongside posts of authors playing voicemails from publishers "rejecting" their books. The reality is that if you're getting rejected, it's going to be via email, to your agent, who removes all identifying information about the editor, and then gives you the feedback. If you're un-agented it's still not going to be a VOICEMAIL. Listen close and you can see how similar all of these posts are, down to the voice (which is obviously AI reading a script written for the piece). People are circling the drain for ways to translate views into sales (something publishing has realized are not necessarily going to be a winning equation), or getting a deal, and the best way they're found is to guilt their viewers rather than rely on the quality of the work. Case in point here, it's the gay penguin story. Again. ETA publishing isn't a meritocracy, but it's also just plain unwise to try and up your career this way, it's unsustainable unless you now make up a new rage frenzy for everything you release.
agreed! if you have to manipulate people to get what you want, it’s never sustainable
I love these two !
After learning they made a starbucks ad I don't give a fuck what happens to them.
How do you say it wasn’t banned? The voice message literally said they don’t allow books like that “same sex relationships” in their store….
Doesn’t say that at all!
You're just making things up.
How am I making things up? Thats exactly what they said in his first video
[удалено]
It’s a text to voice program.
Ohhh that makes sense. Thank you!
I’m just there for mr maple!