A rap about my publishing journey

For TikTok.

A couple of years ago, I got really burnt out sitting at my computer. I still wanted to write, but it was starting to be summer and I just wanted to go outside.

At the time, I was listening to a 2Chainz album when I had an epiphany—what if I could “write out loud” while I was out and about? I immediately found an instrumental beat I loved on Spotify and started listening to it while hiking, coming up with a few lines at a time and furiously scribbling them down on my phone as I went.

By the end of the week, I had written a rap about my husband which I performed for him and his friends at his 35th birthday party. It was so fun to use my craft in this way, to speak out loud instead of writing my prose down. I knew I wanted to do it more.

When TikTok came into my life, I knew this was the place to start experimenting. There are music producers who share beats on TikTok using the hashtag #duetthisbeat and rappers can add their own words to them. I found myself exploring beats on TikTok and saving ones I might like to use.

Then last week, when my mind was particularly bored but my body was very busy digging the grass out of my front yard so I could xeriscape it, I decided to entertain myself by writing a rap in my head. In less than an hour, I had written a full song about my publishing journey.

I discovered later that TikTok only allows you to “duet” up to one minute in length so I had to drastically shorten it—and then I had to figure out how to perform it on TikTok which took me a couple of tries. Noted: you have to start doing something within the first three seconds of a TikTok video for the algorithm to pick it up and the song I picked had too long of an intro. I published it twice with only 6 views before I cut it and reposted it with slightly better results.

Over all, though I have much to learn about publishing on TikTok, I loved the process of writing a rap. It’s physical rather than sedentary. And compared to writing a book, or even writing an article, writing a rap took seriously no time at all! To have fully completed a writing project within an hour was completely satisfying and I have the bug to write more.

Here’s the video of me performing my rap on TikTok. (You can also follow me on TikTok at @novelleist for more like this.)

@novelleistI wrote a rap about my #booktok journey. #authorsoftiktok #authortok #author #writersoftiktok #writertok #selfpublishing #webnovel #rapper

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If you want to read my lyrics in full, here are those:

I’m not a rapper, I’m a book writer

Sent the manuscript in but the agents denied her

Wrote the draft, have to laugh, fly the flag at half mast

Because my book won’t sell so I’m writing a rap

Im following my heroes but it’s daunting

Still I wrote a gothic novel, yeah it’s haunting

True blood, Deep South, it’s existential

Published like Charles Dickens it’s sequential

New chapters every Friday on my newsletter

New York Times bestseller? No I know better

Best case, I’m famous when I’m dead

My books left orphan but they’re finally read

Three years, sweat and tears, I’ve got one reader

Wrote this song in one hour, now It’s street theater

You see writing’s not dead it’s been adapted

Turned my prose into a poem and I rapped it