With this Internet age came increased access to audiences for many writers-queer, trans, disabled, women, writers of color-who had been kept out of traditional media. The Internet had taken over, and the public refrain was Why buy a book when you can download a hundred articles on any given subject for free? It seemed archaic to drive to a bookstore to buy a heavy piece of dead tree to lug around when you already had a phone that could provide you with all the information you needed. When I started writing professionally, print media-even the written word-had already been declared dead.

I didn’t say this because authors get minimal information about book sales until about six months after publication-even though that’s true-but because I knew that the measurement I would use to gauge the success of this book would have little to do with numbers or enthusiastic book events. W HEN THIS BOOK FIRST CAME OUT ONE YEAR AGO, almost immediately people began asking me, “How is the book doing? Is it successful?” I knew what they were asking-was the book selling a lot of copies, was it making bestseller lists, were audiences filling book events? But every time somebody asked me how the book was doing, my answer was almost always, “I don’t know.”

' ― Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of You Can't Touch My Hair Read Excerpt 'Simply put: Ijeoma Oluo is a necessary voice and intellectual for these times, and any time, truth be told. In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from police brutality and cultural appropriation to the model minority myth in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race, and about how racism infects every aspect of American life. How do you tell your boss her jokes are racist? Why did your sister-in-law hang up on you when you had questions about police reform? How do you explain white privilege to your white, privileged friend? Still, the task ahead seems daunting, and it’s hard to know where to start. The stakes for transformative conversations about race could not be higher. Protests against racial injustice and white supremacy have galvanized millions around the world.

In this #1 New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a revelatory examination of race in America

So you want to talk about race author