Author Alka Joshi will speak in Baton Rouge at the Main Library at 10 a.m. Aug.
24. Author Alka Joshi will speak in Baton Rouge at the Main Library at 10 a.m.
Aug. 24. It was originally set to be published March 3, but they shifted it to March 10.
At that point, nobody knew the World Health Organization was going to close down the country. Fortunately, my publisher had lined up radio interviews which allowed me to do phone interviews. Then the libraries shut down and the bookstores closed.
At least Amazon was still delivering. But, if you remember, reading behaviors really changed to digital format during that time, which has continued. Then, Amazon stopped shipping out physical books.
Remember when we thought COVID could be transmitted via paper? It was a nutty time. I thought, "How can I help my publisher sell this?" I started talking on social media and telling people about the recipes and posting photos of my mother. I would talk about the jewelry and saris, both of which I love.
Through that, I started feeling connection from readers. People started responding, "We have a book club and we just learned how to use Zoom." So, I went on a huge Zoom book club tour.
Sometimes I would talk to a group with four people. Then they started getting larger. I would do a book club at 5 p.
m., 6, p.m.
7 p.m. and 8 p.
m. in one night. "The Henna Artist," released in March 2020 was Alka Joshi's debut, breakaway novel that has met with huge success in the publishing industry.
By the end of .