Picture yourself in a giant bookstore. You enter with some excitement, pause at the door, thinking what a wonderful place it is. You browse through the main aisle, tables of books on either side. Signs above each aisle tell you what genre is contained down its mountains of shelves. You find the row you are hopeful for, then your shoulders slump as you suddenly realize there are too many books to look through.
How do you find the book you want to read? If it is arranged alphabetically by author you have to feel sorry for the ones who’s names begin with W, Y or Z. They are lost somewhere down the dim aisle a gym length away. I wonder how often people even make it down to that end.
You pick a few books by the title and artwork on the cover. Now with your arm full of books you find a table to sit and look through them. Ten books are in front of you, all with cool titles and great covers. You can buy one, how do you choose it?
Do you read the dust cover flap that has a summary of the story? Do you read what the reviewers have to say? I know, you scan the table of contents! Or do you open the first page and see what it says. Does that first page hook you? Do you find yourself wanting to go deeper into it? Or are there names too strange to pronounce in locations that have no meaning to you. Maybe the author tries to summarize what he wants to say.
It doesn’t take long to put a stack of books to one side that will go back on the shelf to collect more dust.
So when I look at putting out a book the checklist that has to be met before it ever goes on the shelf are:
1. Title
2. Cover Art
3. Summary on back cover
4. The opening page
Even then with a last name of Macks, the books will be somewhere in the middle of the row, sometimes on the bottom shelf. Gives you a new respect for short people!
Writing is hard work, from the creation of the dream to the point it enters your reader’s hand. If you were to compare books to fires, then mine has been a well kept campfire with many rows of fire stones around it. J.K. Rowling was a wild fire with a strong back wind in a dry area.
I would love to do a study on the whys of best sellers from unknown authors. The four authors that jump to mind are, J.K. Rowling, with her Harry Potter Series; Christopher Paolini, with his Eragon Series, (he was 19 when it was published.); and Pittacus Lor, with the I AM Number Four Series. All are fairly new authors on the writing scene and all have been successful writers.
The one author who stands out to me is Pittacus Lore. He is the invisible author. His gimmick, you can’t find out anything about him, yet he has three best sellers and a movie. The author of the series is in himself a factious character.
Another unknown author is Wm Paul Young with his book The Shack. When I met the author he had sold over 5 million books and that was several years ago. The first 1 million they sold out of their garage. They even had to create their own publishing company and hire a printer, because no publisher would accept them.
I would like to hear what you look for in a book and why. What makes you pick a book up and read it.
I work with 60 people at my day job, maybe two have read my work. Most don’t even know that I have published and even when they learn, they don’t go run out and get a copy.
