DocoftheDarkArts | The Sunday Prescription: July 19, 20...

The Sunday Prescription: July 19, 2026

DocoftheDarkArts\n\nBob Stuntz\n\n• Jul 19

Have you tried annotating?

Yes, I do it all the time!

Yes, I do it occasionally

Yes, and it wasn't for me.

No, but I really want to

No, and I have no interest - I'm not in school anymore!

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Discussion on Book Influencers

Hi everyone, and welcome back to another Sunday Prescription. This week, I want to talk about the discussion going around the book world recently about creators and influencers being liars when it comes to the books they're reading. Most of this has come down to accusations that bookish content creators and influencers are not reading the books they are reviewing, and they're only reviewing books to chase clout when the book is popular/trending, or they have been paid or have been given free books and as such, just promote them blindly. Another one is that there is no way book influencers are really reading as many books as they claim they are. I definitely have some thoughts on this!

First, I am sure that there are people out there who do this kind of stuff, but I genuinely do not feel it is widespread. In terms of the accusations that influencers are paid for good reviews, companies and publishers do their research - when publishing companies have reached out to me asking if I want to try a book, it is typically because they have seen other book reviews I have done that are similar to that book, or that I liked and reviewed that author previously, and that's just research for sending out ARCs or copies of released books. When it comes to financial relationships, I would imagine they do their research even more. Most content creators do more positive than negative reviews because they don't want to trash authors, especially when they are high profile. So to me, it makes sense why you see so many positive reviews from people - the companies are finding the right books for the right people, and creators want to talk about books they love, not books they hate.

In terms of the volume accusations, I had someone recently make a similar comment on my YouTube page, saying I had clearly lied about how many books I read in the first half of the year. I think this stems from people not comprehending how someone could read that much when they maybe read a few books a year. In my case, I don't really watch much TV, and I make time to read every day. That adds up! I gain nothing from lying about how many books I've read.

And as far as whether or not people are reviewing books they have read, I have no idea how you can tell this. We all read for different reasons and at different levels, and we all have different retention abilities. Additionally, with AI and the internet, if you really wanted to fake it you could make as detailed a video as you want pretty easily without reading a book, so I just don't know how anyone can really tell.

My Policies for Reviewing Books

First, if I feel a creator is not genuine or just doing it for the content, I just don't watch, don't follow, and don't engage. Pretty simple. In terms of my own personal policies:

• I will never review a book without reading it. If I DNF a book, I make that clear. I also do not personally recommend books without reading them, and when someone asks me about a book I haven't read, I tell them that.
• If you watch my monthly reading wrap ups, you will notice I'm very transparent about what I have read and in what format (e book, physical, or audio). I do not and have never had numeric reading goals, and I stand to gain nothing from beefing up numbers, so what you see is what you get. That number is subject to change from month to month or year to year.
• I always tell authors that if they send me a book I will do an honest review. Now I won't make a video to trash an author or book I don't like (especially an indie book), but I will always write honest StoryGraph and Goodreads reviews. I have had authors withdraw their request to send me a book when they hear that!
• When I do reviews, video or written, I will always say whether that book was given to me for free or not, and who gave it to me. I think that's important for the viewing public to know so they can take any review with a grain of salt, because there can be subconscious bias there.
• Lastly, I have not entered into any financial agreements with companies in terms of direct reimbursement, but if I do down the road, I would always let you all know (in fact, legally I have to!).

What I'm Reading and Doing

This has been a fun week of reading and hobbies. First, reading has been great. After I finish writing this newsletter I'm going to be finishing up Valour by John Gwynne, and I finished up Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff last night. These have both been great fun! I am going to finish out the month with Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice, and possibly finish up my reread of The Silmarillion.

With August on the horizon, there is some great stuff coming! For our main book club on Bindery and Discord, we'll be reading The Jasad Heir, and for my new Fable Book Club, Dr. Bob's Literary Apothecary, we'll be reading The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman. Our monthly reading challenge is to "read an indie published book." You can read and be eligible to win a $25 bookshop.org gift card by participating in the StoryGraph Challenge page, or on our Discord server. I'm going to be reading The Butcher of Nazareth by David Scott Hay for this.

In terms of hobbies, as you can see above, I'm working my way through the Minas Tirith Lego set that my lovely wife surprised me with for Father's Day. It's a beast, but I'm having so much fun! This is one of my favorite things to do while listening to an audiobook. The weather is nice, and I'm hoping to be able to get out and do some mountain biking as well here over the next few weeks.

And in terms of content, I took the weekend off of YouTube this week, and am working on batch recording some stuff for August since it’s always a busy month. If you make book content or are thinking about it, I highly recommend batch recording - when you have your stuff all set up, recording a bunch of stuff at once and then editing later makes this much easier for me than trying to record a little every day!

Hope you all have a great week of reading and life, and I'll see you next week!