Author Dean Cocozza successfully sold his debut book without having to convince a publishing house about his work first. Most of his readers come from social media, where his short poems and quotes tend to be shared frequently.
He’s not the first to have entered the market in this way. Still, not every writer is able to create a brand for themselves and successfully sell a book. The reason lies in the mix of actually quality writing, as well as the ability to adapt to a crowd with very different behaviour than that of a conventional bookstore.
Most people are shocked when they find out how much time they actually spend on the phone every day. Not to mention the time actually being on a call or replying to emails and messages – but the time spent solely scrolling through social media. In contrast to that amount of time is the minimum of attention we actually pay to an individual posts. The things that seem to capture us most are naked skin or, as in Cocozza’s case, short messages that provoke an emotional reaction within us. A psychology often used by media, here organically helped an artist’s work to popularity.
Though with time he surely received more freedom to share more complex or wordy writings, it was such simple lines as “on the same pages, at different times” or “night suits us well” that helped him get to that point. The imagery one-line poems have been shared and liked thousands of times, by bloggers and personalities with a much bigger social media following than the artist himself, as well as plenty of brands using his poetic aesthetic for their online mood boards. A better book promotion than any classic publishing house could have offer an artist these days.
Cocozza’s ‘zero dark thirty‘ captures desire & passion, and is often a lot dark than a modern ‘pop-poet’ would be expected too. But maybe that’s not what he is anyway. Comparisons to greats such a Jack Kerouac might be flattering to the writer, but his style is very different to that of the famous Beat Generation. Especially, when these times are having their very own movements.