Often, when I have a few moments of free time, I'll cruise over to SmashWords to scout out new offerings to read and possibly review. I read a great deal -- it's my foremost pleasure -- and I feel a duty to assist other independent writers in whatever way I can. Reading and reviewing their works is the method I prefer, as it serves both my need for diversions and theirs for feedback on their efforts.
But there are fatal mistakes to be avoided if you want me to read your stuff. Some of those mistakes should be obvious. If you make it plain that you hate America, or freedom, or capitalism, or Christianity, I'll have nothing to do with you. You're too obviously severely defective to be worth my precious time and energy. But alongside those, there's another big "don't" that seems not to be apparent enough to some indie writers:
There is never, ever a justification for that, no matter how proud you may be of your story, your talents as a writer, or anything else!
So when I run across a promotional blurb like this one:
After the destruction of their planet, three men find a future in a nearby star system full of danger and surprises. The last thing that Jason expected was to fall in love. Everything seamed to be going fine until an old threat reappears to put everyone's lives in chaos. The sacrifice is a Science fiction romantic comedy that will have you laughing one minute and then crying the next.
...I mutter "The period belongs after the word 'comedy'" and pass on. Similarly:
In this snowy city there is a man from another place, another world. In the city there lives a boy and his mother. The man is duty-bound to perform the task set before him, but he finds himself at a crossroads. This is a story about making a choice. This is a story about love, and what people might do in its name.
...the author has told us too little about the meat of his story and too much about what he expects the reader to "get" from it. Solly, Cholly: no sale. And though I have a certain sympathy for the difficulties involved in promoting an anthology, a blurb such as this:
Featuring some of the best science fiction and fantasy being published by the small presses, this issue marks the first issue released by Nomadic Delirium Press. In this issue, you'll find fiction from Robert Hansen, Milo James Fowler, and Kellee Kranendonk. You'll also find poetry from John Grey, Shelly Bryant, Leonard Roller, and WC Roberts.
...leaves me equally cold. But none of the above challenge the nadir of self-congratulating blurbs:
A novel of improbable proportions, 'Dancing the River Lightly' takes you on a nonstop ride through the magical world of the Pacific Northwest, where dreams unfold, friendships are forged, and lives are changed forever.
...which I first encountered in 2011, so perhaps indie writers are refining their promotional skills, albeit slowly.
Don't, don't, DON'T praise your own work! It's beneath amateurish. It makes you look arrogant, which is the death knell for a writer who wants to be taken seriously. At the very least, it will cost you readership and revenue -- and if those things don't matter to you, why are you doing this?
Praise should always come from others, whether in the form of positive reviews or the sort of promo quotes from other writers that traditionally-published writers include on their back covers and flyleaves. That sort of praise allows you to retain the mantle of modesty: to represent that what you really want is the approval of your prospective readers. All else is folly, and costly folly at that.
BEWARE!
4 comments:
Ah, you should thank them for not wasting your time. Do you think their stories will be much better than their promos?
I disagree, of course.
A blurb is a blurb is a blurb. I never read a blurb anymore that makes me want to buy a book.
Yes, it's nice if others endorse an author's efforts, but most quotes from other authors are usually quid pro quo and unreliable, too.
Reader reviews are best of all, for the most part, but you won't have any until you've published yourself, and a lot of the first ones are from family and friends or "salted".
Books are usually sold by people picking them up, reading the blurb and opening it up and reading a few lines here or there.
I don't see any difference between writing your own "effusive" blurb, and having someone else do it for you. The intent is the same: hype something up, create expectations, and sell the the sizzle.
It's nice if the book lives up to the blurb, but that's pretty rare.
No matter what soap you're selling, you're going to put "NEW!" and "IMPROVED!" on it, no matter what.
For me, every compression of a complex tale into a few cliched phrases of a stereotypical 'pitch', the so-called 'logline' of a movie or book always reduces the story into a travesty of plot and character; but that's what you have to do.
Ever read the logline of Hamlet or King Lear in a TV Guide? A blurb is likewise, and there's nothing you can do about it. Even the best blurb is still a blurb, a sketch of a few lines, and not even Raphael can make those few lines suggest a far greater whole.
A blurb is always a caricature. usually bad as Francis points out, but even if well done, still a cruel distortion of the matter.
Disagree all you like, Mark, but you're still wrong. Tragically and demonstrably wrong: your habit of lavishing praise upon your own books has cost you readers, as a number of them have told me directly.
Humility is a much more attractive trait than self-adulation.
Heck. I can't even "like" my own facebook comments. If I'm going to make a blurb, I'm going to say what I think my readers would find laudable about my work-- then stand back and let them decide for themselves.
Yes, I have humility disease-- but I also worked retail for a while. I was very good at it, but couldn't stomach it for the long term. Effusive praise just gets you the hairy eyeball. Straight shooting gets thoughtful looks. Explanations on how the thing can do good in *their* lives and concerns means your customers are out the door with arms full of packages they willingly paid for. Fiction, while not practical, isn't that different. People still want quality, and think that if you are effusively praising, you are obscuring a perceived lack.
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