Case study - Whiskey, words & a shovel II, r.h Sin

Whiskey, words and a shovel II is a poem book by R.H (Reuben Holmes) Sin, consisting of his emotional experiences capturing the raw truth of what living and loving is. The book does not have illustrations or photographs, simply only the powerful stanzas and dramatic words. The artist's intention of creating the book being a place to document thoughts, along with allowing his audience to relate to his own experiences, as indicated through the use of certain poetry in second person. The audience built and overall response has been positive, as this book is the second in a series. The first being Whiskey, words & a shovel I, followed by vol II and III. I have chosen to research the second book as I feel it's an interesting part of a series to embark on in terms of audience development and artist thought development. The book heavily explores the theme of love and heartbreak and living through this with powerful symbolic features, e.g, the poem titled "stubbornness" (image)
 The broken structure reflects the language used, "broken," "stubborn," "sadly." An overall target audience of young adults, and late teenagers, that age group being the prime demographic relating to similar emotions.
 Layout wise, the front cover of the book is simply black and white with a triangle and abstract shape in the middle of the page. The idea of a shape in the foreground is similar to the composition of Note to Self, though this front cover has less colour. The text is again simple, though the back cover text is dramatic, consisting of just the poem, "I'd kill the distance to get to you" isolated. The power this has is a reflection R.H Sins impeccable and powerful vocabulary. I have not yet considered the back cover of my book, however Sin's work has sparked this. The book uses formal yet recognisable language, and the overall style of writing links to the romantic and poetry genre.
A poem I have read in particular and in which I would like  write similar to titled "resolutions" is "Changing for the better,
ready for something better." this exploring the welcoming side of our project theme, open to new and better things happening within the borough of culture, Along with "the future" -
"I hope your heart discovers the truth about the type of love that you deserve. " This exploring the fellowship side of the theme, incorporating more love / relationship elements.  The data and official word analyse of "the future" consists of 15 words as one whole sentence, with 21 syllables (https://www.online-utility.org/text/analyzer.jsp) Sin's intention of writing the poem explores events that he has experienced, and letting the audience know and realise they can relate to something similar.  The language techniques themselves that have been used include smilies and formal language, however I have not found an example of personification - this being a technique I would like to add within my language book, as its definition includes giving a natural element of something such as the sun, a human attribute. - "the sun smiled at us" Using this technique will also reflect and act as a symbol to the natural element of the theme.

Continuing, the audience as stated may be young adults who can emotionally relate, or have an interest in the themes explored. The product has been marketed on social media sites, such as Instagram. Sin has had advertisements of black and white pages in his book, along with his own clothing products with engraved wording from the books on the app. This has been marketed to the target audience as young adults use Instagram frequently, the most ironic being the poetry about relationships and love projected onto the site where the idea of having a perfect relationship and consistent viewings of others personal lives is visible. The irony of this makes the poetry even more successful,  and has been successful due to the followup of Whiskey, words and a shovel III. Sins journey to becoming a writer also involves social media, his spark that got into writing being the joy of trying to express emotion or something to say under 140 characters when Twitter had an 140 word limit. In terms of advertising for my product, I would follow similar social media sites, such as Instagram due to the aesthetic stigma users have, along with We Heart it, where there is an audience for the books I have researched due to the visual pleasements of them.
The book has been published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, a large company who have also published similar poetry books such as the sun and her flowers (Rupi Kaur) and the witch doesn't burn in this one (amanda lovelace) the company also specialise in issuing comics, calender's and toys. (http://publishing.andrewsmcmeel.com/our-company/submissions) the reach is universal. Audiences can also buy calender's directly from the site. Issues that the company may face includes copyright or submission processes, with thousands of submissions daily.