Zenith

Cover from book's
Goodread's page.

Zenith is an upper YA/NA SciFi story.

My Goodreads review can be found here.

My Amazon review can be found here.

As per usual, anything that is a side note or not directly on topic will be written in this blue.

Ok guys, buckle up; it's gonna get rough.

This post is going to be a little bit different than my normal review. I believe that this book is being held to a different standard than any other book that would be in its situation. 

Because of this, I want to take three of the main arguments against it (some from people who have read the book and some from those who refuse to do so) and discuss a possible middle ground, or even just explain why this is something that is to be expected in case this situation happens again.

How to read the book quickly

One of the complaints against this book is that it is too long/has too many characters. While I understand how the book got to that point (and understand reader complaints about it too), I don’t necessarily agree that there are too many characters.

Whatever side you fall on, I noticed that some of the characters’ chapters are not important to the overall part of the story. There are six different characters that have been given main voices; by skipping half of the characters’ chapters after a certain point, you can save yourself quite a bit of time (and make the book seem the size of a regular YA novel).

The character role call: Androma – Chapter 1

Klaren – Chapter 3

Dex – Chapter 4

Lira – Chapter 10

Nor – Chapter 11

Valen – Prologue/Chapter 15

Between chapters 15-68, you can skip the chapters told by Klaren, Nor, and Valen as they give backstory and depth to their reasons, but do not really serve any purpose towards the book’s plot. This will save you time by skipping seventy pages.

You can also skip Nor’s chapter 72, as it’s just the prelude to the final section of the book. This saves you seventy-six pages, which makes a five hundred and thirty-four page book become a four hundred and fifty-eight page book.

This book, though pretty big, is nothing to be scared of. Taking out the pages makes it a more focused and more manageable read.

Why is it so long to begin with?

I’ve been following the progress of this story as soon as it was announced and watched the different variations that started from the indie e-book and ended with the hardcover published by  Harlequin Teen. 

One thing that they had originally planned was deep world building. The two really wanted the Mauraders to be able to travel as much as possible and explore different worlds to give the readers the most immersive read as they possibly could.

This was not edited out from the novel, even though there wasn’t as much as I thought there was going to be, as I guess everyone felt that this world was a character of its own.

This next, and probably most important reason, is that this was supposed to be longer than a duology; I believe the plan was that the series was supposed to be four books long. The authors had a plan for how they were going to spread out the plot and give the information and history of the characters fluently and not in a way that would be annoying or repetitive.

Once it sold to Harlequin Teen, that plan was unfortunately taken away and now we have the book that is long, and unfortunately repetitive with the characters’ details.

The problem really comes from those who are complaining about the length who have no problem reading other long books. Sarah J. Maas, who did the cover blurb for Zenith, writes really long YA books. Her last book has a page count of 980. 

Nope, not a typo, that does say 980.

There’s a weird hypocrisy about this book, but it doesn’t just end here.

Why they (specifically Ms. Alsberg) got an awesome deal out of this

One big thing that has been repeated about this book is that this was an unfair deal, as there are many people who are deserving of a book deal because they had been working just as hard, if not harder; they also add that she just got the deal because she’s YouTube famous.

So what? Let’s break down why these are important and how one can change it if they really hate it.

The publishing world is a very, V E R Y, difficult industry, not to mention an expensive one. There is a lot of competition in the publishing industry and advertising for a book is where the expense really comes into play.

There isn’t that much mainstream advertising for books, like TV commercials and even magazine ads, because that advertising comes from things like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter posts that come from readers, and for the hard-core readers, Goodreads ads. There is also Amazon recommendations, but that tends to change very often and is unreliable.

Because of this, publishing companies have to be very specific in how they market the books; they send books to Youtubers, famous Instagrammers, and send ARCs (advance reader copies) either directly to the people mentioned before or to people requesting them through companies like NetGalley.

Also, when they send the ARCs, there is sometimes theming/other things in the package to make it a fun experience so that the person receiving it is excited and will promote the book more than usual.

Publishers will also send representatives/workers to man booths at different conferences, such as BookCon (a conference specifically for books) and even SD ComicCon and NY ComicCon. Publishers will also send authors on a tour to sign books and meet readers to promote the book.

Guys, all of this is extremely expensive.

So when someone such as Ms. Alsberg is put on the NYT best-seller list with an INDEPENDENT BOOK, you better believe publishers are going to take a look, and possibly sign a contract.

Why? Because Ms. Alsberg brings in the numbers: On Youtube (where she gained her followers) she has 372,449 subscribers (as of the day that this was posted), on Instagram she has 210,000+ followers, and on Twitter she has 65,600+ followers.

Not to mention, she has a co-writer, Lindsay Cummings, who has written six other books and has a slightly smaller, though equally loyal, following of her own.

These numbers are important; they help ease the marketing that the publisher will have to do and also help the marketing be more authentic.

I was able to attend a talk by literary agent Mandy Hubbard through GoScribbler, and one of the things that she said was that the brand/following is not extremely important. But when she did mention numbers, she said a couple of thousand is a pretty good following.

And Ms. Alsberg has that in plenty.

Where do we go from here?

So, how does one go about making a change/getting more variety in the book world?

My best advice is to get involved in the indie publishing world and read some of those books. I can connect you with some that are Christian/religious, clean books. Though I’m not as familiar with this style, I also know a few New Adult, non-religious authors and I can direct you to them (Feel free to DM me on Twitter/Goodreads, or you can use the message box on the right-hand side). You can see who the publisher is on the Amazon page. Look up the publisher, see how big they are, and if they’re smaller and publish the types of books you like, support them.

One other way that directly involves big publishing companies is to leave a review for the books you read on Goodreads and/or Amazon. If you don’t like the book BE NICE ABOUT THE AUTHOR but point out why you didn’t like it so that the publisher knows what would sell. If you loved something, point it out on the review for the same reason.

Finally, follow smaller authors directly on different platforms. This way you can help them build their platform and make them more appealing to publishers, which in turn brings new people into the publishing world.

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Next time on the blog, I'm going to be reviewing The Queen's Rising by Rebecca Ross.