reading

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Judging A Book By Its Cover

Posted by george on May 9, 2011
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , , . 6 comments

Image from Kentram.org

That saying has been around so long and has become such an everyday expression in our society that I think the meaning has been lost. I think most folks interpret this as meaning that even if a book has a crappy cover, the inside may be a delight. Well, I guess I won’t argue that too much. It could certainly be the case after all. These days though, there could be a flip-side meaning.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you know that self publishing – either electronically or through DIY publishers  - is on the rise. As a writer I can see distinct advantages to this. As a reader, it makes my job a tough one indeed. I recently got a hold of a book that professed brilliance prose, filled with delightful and well true to life characters. The back cover contained quips from other authors raving, raving, raving. I was excited to start reading the book. A few chapters into it and I’m less than impressed. The characters are flat and in one case I just wasn’t able to get a visual on a particular character. I went back over what I had already read and the reason became clear. This character who holds a primary spot in the cast has not been physically described. I don’t need to know nose hair color but a generalphysical helps to visualize who this person is.

The point here is that if I was in a bookstore and purchased this based on the cover info I would have been duped. Since I obtained the book through other means, this ended up a non-dupe situation.

When I worked at the library, I processed the new  books coming through. Hundreds a month, so I was exposed to a lot of salesmanship vis-a-vis crafty covers. I ended up checking out a stinker or two based on cover info.

Today, I can purchase a book for download straight to my Kindle from the Amazon site. Aha, you say. Problem solved. No cover material to sway me. Dang. Not true at all, and possibly worse than just a book cover to make my judgment. Do I believe the description provided by the author or publisher? Hee-hee. That’s a good one. Oh, how about the blurb from Publisher’s Weekly? Okay, there is a bit more credibility there. However, it is still written by a critic. Any of you head for the hills when you hear a movie is “critically acclaimed?” Yup. me too.

As well, I generally don’t trust the book reviews that are on the Amazon page. Unless there are hundreds of reviews that are all 5 star and I’m still a bit suspicious of those. I (tried to) read a book that was lauded with 5 star paragraphs for its brilliant pov. It sucked and was totally unbelievable. 5 year olds don’t relate to things the way this book would have you believe.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a naysayer who thinks that everything sucks. In fact, I have a tendency to “5 star” stuff that I read if I even remotely like it.

So where do readers go to get accurate and objective information about what is out there to read? One of the places I’ve found that seems to be growing in popularity is Goodreads. I’ve found the reviews there to be generally thoughtful and accurate. I highly recommend checking it out and signing up.

Readers these days have more options than ever. In some ways the many options have made our life more difficult in terms of not taking a stinker home.

As a reader, how do you determine what to read?

I think the Editor was asleep

Posted by george on July 7, 2009
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , , , , , . 19 comments

I pulled this up from the archives today because there is some relevance and new info to discuss.  When I wrote this post back in October of last year, I blamed the editor.  I’ve learned a lot and after painfully working through yet another poorly written book, I’ve decided the blame does not belong to the editor.  Well, okay.  Maybe they have some of the ownership, but I think the whole darn publishing system is to blame – including the writer.

The book that prompted this latest rant was written by a relatively known writer with more than 30 novels under his belt.  I’ve not read anything else by the author so this one may be the exception, but somehow I don’t think so.  here’s the scoop:

  • He moves the entire story along though dialogue almost exclusively.  I don’t have a problem with that necessarily but I think a balance of narrative and dialogue works best.
  • His dialogue rings hollow and seems stilted and untrue.  I could overlook moving the story with just dialogue if the conversations had some kind of substance.  Part of the problem is that it makes any foreshadowing stick out like a sore thumb.

With that said, I’ll let you folks get back to the original post:

As a writer, I also read.  That’s what writers do.  I mean, besides the whole writing thing

I ordered up some books from the Mystery Guild Book Club to replenish my reading material for what should prove to be a long, cold, dark winter.  I chose the books based on little more than the one or two paragraph description.  I wasn’t familiar with most of the authors but I figured that was ok.  After a week or two, the ubiquitous pale orange parcel slip from my friends at the Post Office was hanging out in the ol’ mailbox.

I love books.  I’m always excited to see a new batch arrive.  I got this bunch home and spent a little bit of time reviewing the jackets and the first few pages, trying to decide which to delve into first.

With my first selection in hand, I cozied up in the chair and prepared my self for a good reading session.  At least, I thought it would be good.  I ground through the first dozen pages.  The story line was ok, but the writing style, well it sucked.  Much of the dialogue was done in sentence fragments.  Now, I think for dialogue that’s ok, because that’s how a lot of folks talk.  The problem is that it was peppered throughout the narrative as well.  And I don’t mean a light peppering either.  Darn near every paragraph had a non-sensicle fragment.

That’s cute and effective if used a few times throughout the book, but it was apparent in this case that it was part of the style.  Frankly, it did more than just irritate me.  It pissed me off.  How could an editor believe for an instant that this was acceptable for publication?  The style is so distracting that the story line is lost.

I’ve put the book up on the shelf and I have no intention of opening it again.

That got me thinking about social norms and book reading.  How many of you have slugged your way through the first chapter of a book and then just walked away?  I’ll bet most of you have.  Library books don’t count because you’ve no vested interest.    Now, how many of you have ever walked out of a movie theater ’cause it was terrible.  I’ll bet if you looked at the ratio, you’ve suffered through a lot more movies then you have books.

Why is that, I wonder?  Is it because it’s considered rude to walk out of a movie theater?  Maybe.  After all, ditching a book can be done under the cover of night, when no one is watching.

So that’s my query to you.  Do you book ditch?  If so, what makes you give up?

Oh, and I don’t want to slam the book I just tromped all over in public, but if you’d like the author/title then just comment or shoot the moose an email.  (I can’t believe I just wrote, “shoot the moose”)

Look at what HarperCollins is doing

Posted by george on October 12, 2008
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , , , , , . 2 comments

In my last stumbling session I came across a site from HarperCollins that knocked my socks off.  It wasn’t impressive because of flash or brilliant CSS, in fact the layout is rather simple and ordinary.  It wasn’t the content either.  No, what hooked me was the concept.

Authonomy is a new concept site that allows authors to post their work.  Readers have the opportunity to review and rate the same.  So maybe that particular concept is not so unique, but what is astounding is that the developers of this site are very clear that the intent is to discover new writing talent for HarperCollins.

Here’s a quote directly from the faq page:  “We hope the authonomy community will guide publishers straight to the freshest writing talent – and will give passionate and thoughtful readers a real chance to influence what’s on our shelves.”

Amazing.  Think about it, really.  A true opportunity to bypass the slush pile and heave one over the transom.  This kind of access is truly unprecedented.

How it works

After signing up, an author can build a personal page to promote their project.  The author must make at least 10,000 words available for viewing and the author has the choice of posting the minimum or the entire manuscript.  How much are you going to pay for this privilege?  Nada.  Zip.  Zeeee-ro.

Visitors to the site then have the opportunity to read the book and post a review to the community.  The Book Chart tracks what has been the most popular over the last month.  Readers also have an can also place up to five selections on their Bookshelf to showcase the works that they have rated positively.

The best part

Every month, the top five books from the Book Chart are delivered to an editorial board comprised of HarperCollins commissioning editors who will read and comment on the selected books.

One more quote pulled from the faq page that should pique the interest of any aspiring author:

“We’ve set up authonomy in the hope of finding new authors for our various publishing lists, so we’ll certainly be looking for promising books – as will other publishing houses and agents.  We only buy books we really believe in – as such, we’re not guaranteeing to publish anything submitted to us. In this way, you can be sure that any books picked off authonomy will have been chosen because we really love them.”

Oh, yes – there will be work

All writers know that nothing is ever easy.  Authonomy is no different.  Don’t think that you can just upload your rag-tag manuscript and wait for the publishing contract to arrive.  It is a community and active involvement will be a prerequisite to success.  You will have to spend time reading the other authors works.  You will spend time reviewing and rating.

If you’re banging your head against the wall with your manusrcipt in multiple places and trying all kinds of gee-whiz methods and sites, then stop.  Slow down.  Think about this.  If you put most of your efforts into this community, the potential for payback is huge!

What about my rights?

You give up absolutely none of your authorship rights by posting your book at Authonomy.  HarperCollins will ask for a very specific license to put your manuscript on the site but all of your rights of ownership remain in tact.  You may continue to submit to agents and publishers through traditional means.

If you have a self published book, you can create a page for it on Authonomy and even set up links in the profile page directing readers to the purchase site.

This idea is cutting edge.  It should inspire those who have not completed their book to get on with it.  The publishing industry has undergone many changes over the past few years.  Let’s hope this one is here to stay and that other publishers follow suit.