It seems like practically anyone can become a New York Times bestseller these days. Whether you are a TikToker, musician or even just a social media influencer, anyone can be an author if you have enough connections.
Less trodden these days is the traditional path for authors, where literary success can take years of work and uncertainty. Nowhere is this more apparent than in this year’s New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University.
Lauren Sánchez Bezos spoke in the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University’s Dixon Concert Hall. (Penny Gallagher)
While the festival also featured established authors like Salman Rushdie and Michael Lewis, celebrity figures such as Dax Shepard and Kenny Chesney decided they, too, wanted to test the waters of authorship.
Consider Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who appeared at Book Fest to discuss her children’s book series, “The Fly Who Flew Under the Sea.” Sánchez Bezos, who built her career not as a writer, but as a television journalist, media personality and pilot, published her first book in 2024, which quickly landed on the NYT bestseller list.
The story’s message is an encouraging one: uplifting children with dyslexia, a learning disability Sánchez Bezos has. Still, her sudden emergence and rapid success as an author raise broader questions about the publishing industry and what qualifies as an author.
Her transition into publishing coincides conveniently with her marriage to billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, the world’s largest book retailer. Whether her work is worthy or not, Sánchez Bezos’s connection to Amazon means the book would reach massive global audiences anyway.
Literary success in today’s publishing industry is not solely based on the quality of the writing. At Book Fest, non-celebrity authors such as Jesse Byrd, Misako Rocks! and Gary Alipio, all award-winning authors, lack the same visibility despite years of work.
Attitudes towards the authors were visible in the venues themselves. Sánchez Bezos spoke in the Dixon Concert Hall, designed for up to 1,000 people, while other children’s authors were placed in Tulane’s Navy R.O.T.C. Building on a temporary stage with roughly 50 seats available.
Book Fest reveals the new reality of the modern publishing world. While many authors spend years honing their craft, developing their reputation and building their bibliography, celebrity authors can enter the industry with immediate viewership and commercial success. Whether a celebrity’s work is good or bad is not the point. It is that if you have the platform, then you are guaranteed the audience.