For the second time in days I got the notification that my latest book, Dr. Vishnu Bisram: A Guyanese Globetrotter, was placed among Amazon’s Top Picks of recent publications which when explained to me by the software company Hub Spot, implies it is a top seller.
Although I have no actual evidence to that effect, no cheque that says I am causing the cash registers to rattle and crash courtesy spiraling sales from my book, I am still upbeat that my book might actually be a top seller at Amazon.
Narcissism apart, this is a book that has the potential to attract the attention of a wide readership – especially among the Guyanese people for whom there is history of their country under the oppression of the dictator Burnham as it is about a well -known Guyanese who lifted himself to become a celebrated person regionally and internationally.
Dr. Vishnu Bisram has distinguished himself in so many spheres of endeavour that his name alone might be responsible for the growing popularity of his biography. Then, also, the fact that the author has to his credit 17 books – five of which were published this year alone – makes it an added attraction to readers who out of curiosity about this prolific writer who had already written two books about Guyana might also get a copy.
Biographies have a wide readership and so there is a built-in market for this genre and with there being thousands of Guyanese in America whose chauvinism is very intact and are forever proclaiming Guyanese are the greatest, this book might just energise that ego-centricity.
Trinidadian Dr. Arnold Rampersad won a $500,000.00 genius prize some years ago for a bio he wrote on some obscure American poet we do not knoweth which confirms that interest in this genre is not taken slightly in America.
So there I go again blowing my own trumpet as I have no access to a literary Herb Alpert or Kenny G to do it for me. Just how Dr. Rampersad inspired me to find interest in bio-writing, I hope I might inspire others who have a story to tell.
L. Siddhartha Orie