Ever wonder what West of Mars means? Why I spend precious hours a day working on Win a Book?
All that and more (but not why I’m about to launch a third blog) can be found at the Self-Publishing Review.
So put on your Martian antennae (read the interview!) and say it’s your costume when you drop on in.
And so back to Booking Through Thursday I come. That’s because I have to weigh in on today’s question. Ready?
“What words/phrases in a blurb make a book irresistible? What words/phrases will make you put the book back down immediately?”
There’s no pretty way to say this, so …
I ignore blurbs.
Well, until I loathe what I’m reading and look at the blurbs and think, “What sort of crack is this famous author smoking?”
Or “No wonder I don’t like this. I don’t like YOUR books, either.”
Or “I’ll remember this when I’m tempted to read YOUR book.”
… you get the idea.
And now that I know how important blurbs are said to be, and how some agents/editors want a list of suggested friends and/or contacts who can be approached for blurbs even before a book is contracted… it seems like a racket. In some ways, it’s false advertising at its best — like when I realized that critique partners had blurbed each other’s books.
Blurbs are nothing more than ads that clutter up the front cover of a perfectly good book. And as such, I ignore them. I choose books for a variety of reasons, but “Because so-and-so had a quote on the front cover” isn’t one of them.
(however, for my book blogging friends whose blurbs magically appear, without their notice on a book, that’s a different story. Those weren’t solicited statements. No one said, “Hey, how about a cover blurb?” And thus, they seem more genuine to me.)
As I ramp up to bring you even more bloggish bookishness, it dawns on me that I talk a lot about books, but my characters? Are books important in my fictional world?
Let’s take a look and see.
1. Trevor famously said: “I tried to read the set list once.”
2. The truth is that he might read something short. If it would hold his interest. (Believe it or not, but erotica would NOT. Why read about something you should be doing?)
3. Mitchell loves his guitar magazines.
4. He’ll also collect coffee table books about guitars, musicians he likes, or almost anything having to do with music.
5. He also reads Sports Illustrated and mountain bike magazines.
6. Daniel’s the reader in the band. Particularly current event non-fiction. Or history. (I have an outtake saved up about this last one)
7. Eric will read. He likes science fiction and military novels. Spy. Espionage. What’s often called MAN fiction.
8. Kerri likes art books. (You’ll actually see this book again. Stay tuned.)
9. Kerri will read women’s fiction, but her real love is stuff like Christopher Moore or Brian Wiprud. Comedy. Satire.
10. Sometimes, the band will pass those books around. You gotta fill those empty hours on the bus or at the venue somehow.
11. Val loves a good romance, or any tear-jerker.
12. Chelle LaFleur doesn’t have much of a life beyond her local music scene and the Trumpet newspaper she writes for. She’s well known at her local library branch.
13. The Deadly Metal Hatchet guys? They’re another Thirteen all their own…
Last night, I finished The Real Minerva, written by Mary Sharratt. It had been on my wishlist for awhile, and then it sat here for an embarrassing long period of time after someone at BookCrossing sent it to me.
It was okay. In a way, it was similar to Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, in that you had a young teenager who runs away, meets a woman who upsets the order of society and is branded an outcast, and learns important things but comes out okay in the end.
Of course, the similarities end there.
This was an interesting book. I think I could have lived without delving into the point of view of a truly despicable character, although I see why Ms. Sharratt wrote it that way. It’s not the choice I would have made.
I’m glad I read it. Yeah, I’d recommend it, but not over some other books I’ve read.
Next up for me: Hank Phillippi Ryan’s Air Time. I’m overdue to start this, in fact — but that’s nothing new.
Your turn. Talk to me about what you’re reading.
Bunnygirl‘s reading The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon.
Alice Audrey just finished the first three books in the Black Dagger Brotherhood, JR Ward’s series. But she doesn’t say what’s next…
Patricia is reading The Ghosts of Belfast, written by Stuart Neville.
Robin is gloriously reading nothing!
“Shame it had to end like this,” Kerri said, looking out at the quiet beyond the stage. Usually, this sort of quiet was reserved for late, after the band had showered and was getting ready to move on to the next town.
Mitchell grunted agreement and squeezed her hand.
“Dumbfucks,” Trevor said, an unlit cigarette dangling off his lip. A breeze blew the scent of scorched sod their way.
“Who?” Kerri asked. “The fans, or Hammerhead?”
Mitchell snorted. “Fucking Howard,” he said. “Get a break like this one and fuck it up. What an idiot.”
“Rub it in,” a voice said behind them. The three turned to look, finding Howard the Hammer standing off to one side. “I didn’t think they’d really do it.”
Mitchell glared at him, a rumble deep in his throat.
“Okay,” Howard said, blowing out a breath. He shook his head quickly, a familiar gesture that utterly failed — as usual — at getting his dark wooly hair out of his eyes. “I sorta wondered what they’d do. But I didn’t think… didn’t believe…”
Mitchell let go of Kerri’s hand and crossed the distance to Howard. He stopped in front of him, chest to chest. “Do you fucking know how much shit you’ve caused here? Who do you think is gonna get charged for resodding this entire fucking lawn?”
“I’ll pay you back,” Howard said, shifting from foot to foot.
“Not good enough,” Mitchell said. “We didn’t even get to fucking play tonight, thanks to you.” He gestured widely, meaning Howard to see, Kerri guessed, the fact that Mitchell should have been wearing skin-tight black jeans and a guitar instead of knee-length baggy camo shorts and a black tank top. “Our manager’s going to have to fucking bend over and grab his ankles for months before we’ll be allowed here again. As for you? You might be done, man. This will follow you around. I bet right now, as soon as you get near that production office, you’re going to be handed a list of shows that’ve been cancelled. Assuming JR hasn’t just decided to pitch you off the tour in the hopes that people will get that this wasn’t my band behind this shit. Because every single news source out there is saying this happened at a ShapeShifter show. That’s what this was. A ShapeShifter show. With special guest, Hammerhead. See how that works?”
Howard winced: face, shoulders, arms. Even his legs bowed with his chagrin.
Kerri itched for a pencil and sketchpad.
Trevor strolled across the empty stage, slowly. He turned to Howard. “I had plans tonight. You fucked me up.”
“I… I’m sorry.”
“This is only the start of being sorry, man,” Mitchell said. “You might have just effed up your career for life. Even if you fold Hammerhead and start another band, you’ll always be the asshole who told a worked-up crowd to set the field on fire.”
“Not to mention the only other person who’s managed to get a ShapeShifter show cancelled,” Trevor called from center stage. “This band doesn’t cancel.”
“I’m in good company?” Howard offered weakly, then bowed his head when he noticed Mitchell’s face. Kerri knew she’d have to get him away from Howard, and fast. Not that she blamed him in the least. It wasn’t supposed to have gone this way. It should have been a routine show, spiced up by whatever Trevor had planned.
Trevor, who suddenly seemed a lot more middle-of-the-road than he could probably stand being. Whose hijinks always had something behind them, some point he was trying to make, a statement he wanted others to get. Trevor pulled his shit deliberately. He’d never encourage twenty-three thousand people to rip up a lawn and set it on fire — if only because they’d be looking at the flames and not him.
Mitchell took her hand again and they crossed the stage to join Trevor. Kerri bent her knees slightly and kissed Trevor on the cheek.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said to her, putting his fingertips over the spot her lips had just touched. There was no wiping off, no screaming about cooties. Kerri made note of that.
Mitchell took a swipe at the back of Trevor’s head. None of his anger at Howard came through. “Come help me fix this mess, will ya?”
Trevor flicked his unlit cigarette off the edge of the stage, into the security area between where the fans should have been and where the band should have been. “I fucking hate cleaning up after dumbfucks,” he muttered.
As they matched Trevor’s speed off the stage, Kerri looked back for one last glance at Howard the Hammer. Head bowed, shoulders sagging, he looked like someone who knew his dreams had gone up in the same flames as the lawn.