What Not to Do If You Want to Sell Me a Book

I’m no expert in marketing, that’s for sure. So I’m coming at this as a reader, because that I certainly am. I read fantasy, love a good quest, and the mention of elves and/or dragons is sure to perk up my catgirl ears. (Shut up. I have them. They are on my head now.)

So when I picked up a bookmark mentioning all of the above, why did I have no interest at all in reading the book? I’ll tell you. I won’t tell you the name or details of the author of this self-pubbed book, or the name of his/her hero, but those are the only facts I’m vagueing up.

Through the magic of present tense, we will now travel back in time.

I’m at a con, in the dealer’s room. At the end of the first row, in a pretty good spot all told, is a self-pubbed author with stacks of books, bookmarks and other swag, and a couple friends to help. Author is a distinguished-looking person, older than me, someone who looks like an author if you know what I mean. I could well imagine this person penning an awesome-reading epic by hand in a charmingly-cluttered firelit den.

He/she is selling a trilogy (of course) and the first two are on the table, with the next coming in a few months.

I want to make it clear:  I am not critiquing this person’s writing.

It may be amazing, for all I know. I am commenting upon this author’s failure to hook me, a reader, sympathetic to self-pubbed, loving fantasy, and standing right there in front of him/her with money in my pocket.

The name of the book? The Quest. No, that’s really it; I didn’t disguise it. I can name it without fear of hurt feelings because it’s highly unlikely you’ll find the book with just that information.† The second and third titles are just as non-descript. The [bland fantasy-ish noun].  The trilogy is the [means nothing to me] Chronicles.

Well, so lots of books have not-amazing titles. The Two Towers, for instance, if you don’t know which towers.

Here’s the blurb on the bookmark.

These are the stories of [name] the wizard and his adventures as he travels to other worlds encountering dragons, elves, trolls, and demons as he searches for knowledge about “The One.”

Seriously? Who is this [name]? All I know is he’s male and a wizard. Oh, and he has adventures, and doesn’t know who The One is, when everyone knows it’s Garion.

What’s the plot? Where’s the conflict? Is there wonder and pathos, sacrifice and joy? Why does he give a damn about Garion The One?

If I’m burying myself in a trilogy, it needs to rock my “I <3 dragons” socks.

Despite all this, I’m still there. Still sympathetic to self-pubbed, still love a good fantasy read, and I hate to say no to any person, particularly an author. I actually want to buy. I do! But I have a small apartment and a small income. I buy as many books as I can, but I have to be very selective. I pick up the book to read the back–giving this book, by this author, another chance at me, which I wouldn’t have done had I wandered by the book in a bookstore.

The back-cover blurb is much the same:  a grocery list of fantasy tropes with not a single thing mentioned to distinguish this book from a hundred others I’ve read.

What if the book, I think guiltily, is as boring as the blurb? I think of Eragon, described by some as the best book ever but by others (who read a lot of fantasy) as a derivative mish-mash of every fantasy book of the last century.

Author’s friend speaks in his/her ear and author glances away from me. I melt into the crowd. Sale lost.

I would have liked to help, but what could I do? It was not the time or the place to be giving advice, and I’m no expert anyway. Everything I know can be picked up on the web for free, and that’s not something I’m going to suggest to a distinguished-looking person twenty years my senior.

The moral of the story?

Don’t ignore the knowledge of professionals. Agents and editors don’t ask for queries, blurbs, synopses and hooks to drive writers into a self-pitying frenzy. They do it because the dang things work to catch readers. Even if you always knew you wanted to self-pub, why in Hades wouldn’t you look to the pros for techniques that work?

Don’t trust your friends. At least, I hope author at least ran the blurb by his/her friends. Either way, there’s a whole internet out there of people who don’t care about your feelings (much.) Ask one of them if the blurb or book interests them. They’ll be far more honest. And please, do it before putting your work out there.

Don’t write anything boring, ever. Or if you do, don’t leave it that way. Shit happens. That’s what editing is for.

I searched on Amazon, and this book isn’t listed. I went to the author’s website, and to order it you have to email him/her personally. That tells me he/she went with vanity-type publishing, not POD (Print On Demand) like CreateSpace. That tells me this author probably sank some serious money into self-pubbing, and now he/she is going to cons, paying for space in the dealer’s room…and yet failing, at that critical moment, to hook even the most sympathetic of possible customers.

Ouch.

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†I didn’t say “impossible,” librarian-friends and others with amazing Google-fu. If you do locate the book, please gloat to yourself. If you need affirmation of your awesome, email me your guess. 😉