blurbs – The Writers in Residence

I don’t know about you, but I have too many books on my TBR stack but instead of reading them, I just keep adding more. I can’t help it. Often I buy books because I’ve read a tantalizing review or it’s a recommendation from a bookseller or I just want to support a fellow writer. One reader confessed to having over 4,000 books waiting to be read on her Kindle. I found that unnerving. Have we always been so cavalier?

When I was growing up, my reading source was always the library. I would pick my four books which, in those days, was the maximum you could check out at one time. This was a cherished Saturday morning trip with my Dad who was a great reader (and, years later, suffered from Alzheimer’s which broke my heart). We would spend at least an hour or two drifting among the bookshelves carefully making our selections. For me, it started with an eye-catching cover, a flick to the back to read the blurb and then a glance in the middle. It was serious stuff. When I got home and started to read one of my selections and hated it, I would still persevere and finish it. I don’t do that now.

Just speaking for myself – and apologies to those who may disagree – but having access to books at the click of a button, or arriving by Amazon Prime within twenty-four hours, has taken away some of my joyful anticipation. There was a sort of reverence to starting a new book when we all had more time and less distractions. Now, there is no commitment – at least, not from me. If a book doesn’t grab me in the first fifty pages, it’s out. Not exactly disposable, but close.

I don’t know about everyone else but I am increasingly overwhelmed by the choice and sheer number of books out there. How do we choose?

I posed that question on my Facebook page showing three different book covers of my first mystery with the original 2008 American cover, the 2012 British cover, and the 2023 French cover. Each cover appealed to a different reader but a few said if they hated a cover, they wouldn’t even bother to read it. Back cover blurbs don’t always present a true picture of the content either. Case in point – the blurb written by M.C. Beaton appears on every one of my books even though it was originally earmarked for the first.

So how do we sort the proverbial wheat from the chaff?

Enter the infamous P.69 test. This is not a new concept. It’s been around for years and was a test created by Marshall McLuhan, (The Gutenberg Galaxy, written in 1962), who suggested that book browsers turn to page 69 and read it. If that page drew them in, then read that book. The idea being that by that point in the story, the inciting incident has happened, the characters are settling in and the plot is trundling along with plenty of conflict and consequences.

Without pointing out the obvious flaws to this idea i.e. a large print edition would have a different P.69, I decided to put it to the test with three different novels.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The narrator has just arrived at Manderley and on P.69 we realize she is narrating in flashback, imagining how her life with Maxim could have been, “growing old together” and fantasizing about their “boys. ” She reminisces on meeting the formidable Mrs. Danvers who will show the newly married pair their suite in the East Wing … not the master wing which – as those who know the story – was Rebecca’s suite of rooms that were never touched following her death.

There is a menacing foreshadowing about P. 69. I don’t know about you, but I must know what happened!

Anne Frank’s Diary by Anne Frank

I was fortunate to visit the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam a few years ago. It’s almost incomprehensible in today’s world to be able to imagine the fear and horror of those dreadful times.

P.69 falls in the middle of a diary entry for Wednesday 10th March 1943 when Anne writes of her terror of hearing the night-time anti-aircraft gunfire, of listening to the rats in the attic and of not being able to light a candle. Anne speaks of a character who lived there “before we went into hiding.” Her courage shines through the page which makes the ultimate outcome more devastating. Anne’s diary is utterly compelling because she takes us into her present and it’s impossible not to stay on her journey.

Tigerlily’s Orchids by Ruth Rendell

Full disclosure! I have not read ANY Ruth Rendell books and selected this one when I went to the library to put P.69 to the test. And it worked! On P.69 the protagonist – Stuart – is fascinated by a beautiful Asian woman who has an overbearing father. Stuart has followed them to a greeting card shop. When Stuart buys cigarettes and turns away just for a moment, she has gone. “To lose her now was the most appalling thing he could think of. He rushed out of the shop, staring wildly about …” The girl doesn’t know she is being watched which is chilling. The page finishes with “He couldn’t let her go. He must follow her.”

I took that book out and it’s on the top of my TBR stack!

So here are my questions: do you choose a book because you like the cover or the blurb? The first line? Do you read the first three pages before buying? Have you tried the P.69 test and what did you think?

Oh … and there is another test called the P.99 test, but that’s for another time.

Hannah

P.S. For more examples of the P.69 test, visit Marshal Zeringue’s fabulous blog: The Page 69 Test

By Bonnie Schroeder

Unlike many of my colleagues, including several Writers in Residence, I’m a novice at self-publishing. My first two novels were published by the late, great Champlain Avenue Books (CAB), but they’ve closed up shop—which means those books are no longer available, not online, not in bookstores, not anywhere except in the boxes stashed in my linen closet.

It has therefore fallen to me to get those books back out into the world for people to find and—I hope—buy or at least read.

As I embarked on this journey, the best advice I received is this: “get professional help,” and they didn’t mean psychotherapy (although that may be necessary on down the road.) I took that advice and enlisted the wonderful Paula Johnson to guide me, answer questions, tolerate my whining—oh, and design the cover and format the manuscript for uploading to print and e-book formats. Thanks to Paula’s hard work (and a little of my own), it looks as if Mending Dreams, my very first published novel, will be resurrected later this month, first as an e-book and eventually in print as well.

Even with a pro steering me through this, I’ve had to manage some issues myself and make a few decisions. CAB really spoiled me—all I had to do was write the book and turn it over to them. But now …

First came the cover image. Paula sent me ideas for a basic concept, and I found an image I liked, which Paula then massaged and added the text. Here it is.

Yep, it’s a radical departure from the First Edition cover, and I confess that neither Paula nor I loved-loved-loved the image itself. However, it does speak to the heart (pun intended) of the story, it’s eye-catching, and it will tell the potential reader/buyer what kind of story this is.

This is an important consideration when choosing a book cover, as Miko Johnston observed in her recent post here.

Once the cover was set, and before we could proceed with formatting the manuscript, I had to manage those business issues. Fortunately, the copyright I registered for the first edition still applies, but I had to procure new ISBN numbers for both formats, plus an LCCN number. Those initials, as you probably know, stand for International Standard Book Number and Library of Congress Control Number respectively. The former is your book’s unique identifier, which you can purchase from Bowker. Some self-publishing platforms will offer to provide them for free (they’re not cheap!), but I wanted my own so I could take it with me to other platforms in the future if I wanted. And you don’t absolutely-positively need one for an e-book, but I went that route because I’m just a total control freak. The LCCN number tells libraries or any other interested party specifically where your book is located within the hallowed halls of the Library of Congress. Registration is free, although the website isn’t the most user-friendly, but they were quick to give me a provisional number, which will become official only when I send them a copy of the published print book. An LCCN number is not mandatory, but if ever I hope to get my book into libraries, I need one.

Paula did a fine job formatting both the print manuscript and the e-book, which I then had to read over for any weird section or line breaks and other things like that. In theory I only needed to scan the files because the text itself was straight from my triple-proofread manuscript, but that process wasn’t as easy as I expected. This was mostly because I got caught up in reading the text, and there were times when I came on sections where I went, “Wow, I don’t remember writing that!” In the end, I found very little to correct.

I learned a couple of new terms during this process: “Front Matter” and “Back Matter.” They are just what they sound like.

Front Matter comprises the title page and the copyright page, where those pesky numbers are shown, along with the usual copyright notice and typically a disclaimer about this book being a work of fiction, etc., plus any credits or dedication you want to include.

Back matter is where you place any Acknowledgements and the author bio. And here’s where professional help’s value is evident. Paula suggested I include some book club-type questions AND an excerpt from Write My Name on the Sky, my second novel. She also included my website url and a request for reviews at the end of the bio. These are things that would never have occurred to me.

The final touch is the back cover, where I put a short summary of the story that, with any luck, will entice a prospective reader to open the book and read more. It helps to have one or two “blurbs” by published authors, praising my book, and my good friend G.B. Pool stepped up and wrote a lovely blurb for the back cover of Mending Dreams. “You gotta have friends.” So true!

I’m still traveling along that learning curve. Next stop: distribution—how to get the book into readers’ hands. There’s a dizzying array of options, and I think I’ve narrowed the choices down. But that’s another story, for another day.

The bottom line is this: yes, it’s a lot of work to publish your own books. It’s scary and sometimes confusing. But for a control freak like me, it’s also exhilarating. And I want to emphasize that the path I’ve chosen is not for everyone. Many of my colleagues have gone the self-publishing route totally on their own, with great success. Several of them have shared their experiences, as well as tips for my own adventure—along with support and encouragement. However, such skills as I have are verbal, not visual. For a novice self-publisher like me, having a partner has made the journey less confusing, and I know the end result will prove I made the right choices.

Good luck on your own publishing journey, however you go about it, and thanks for reading.