Will Fart Jokes Make Boys Read More?

Raymond Bean hopes so. He's writing Sweet Farts books. Media Bistro recently interviewed him.

From the piece...

Ray, what inspired you to write the book?

I wrote Sweet Farts because I wanted to write a book that gave kids a good laugh. As a fourth grade teacher, I am always trying to help students learn to love books. For some students this is natural and they easily find books they love. More reluctant readers have difficulty finding books they want to read. My hope was to reach reluctant readers with a book that was funny and smart without being image heavy. I find that when young readers have fun reading a book they naturally want to read more.

I heard your students didn't even know you were the author. Why'd you keep it a secret?

Prior to deciding to self-publish I had read many comments online about independent publishing. A common criticism I read was that most self-published authors never sell more than a few hundred copies and those copies are generally sold to family and friends. I decided to take that criticism out of the equation and find out what the book was capable of selling on its own. It was a great deal of fun watching the book grow in popularity and knowing it was not being driven by anything more than reader interest.

You can find more about Raymond Bean and efforts to get reluctant readers reading on Omnivoracious.