Two.
1. Why do high profile authors lend their names to blurbs for books that are not worthy of praise (or even of promotion)?
2. Why is so much physical impossibility sneaking through in published works?
Answers? You supply them – I haven’t got any.
Elucidation follows.
I’ve read several high profile author’s musings on providing blurbs (which in this case really amount to providing promotional copy).
It used to be (at least in the SF/Fantasy genre) that promotional copy for someone else’s works were found in fanzines, in the mags and rarely, if ever, on the back of books (and hardly ever on the first few filler pages).
The blurbs you did see were from highly respected review columns, usually newspapers that had gained a reputation.
These days it’s hard to pick up a book that doesn’t have at least half a dozen come-ons from other writers in the same field (along with review column praise).
Some of these blurbs are carefully extracted and massaged to give the impression of praise (”This would be a truly great book if the author could write“) (word to reviewers: if you’re panning something, try to avoid inadvertently giving the promoters sound bites). Others are obvious throw-aways from someone who felt obliged to say something.
My real question is: why don’t high profile authors seem to think that their own reputations will suffer when it has become obvious that they’ve recommended a stinker to their following? Why do they seem to give their own name little if any value?
Are these guys getting paid to say these things? Is it in the multi-book contract? (Promotional clause section of multi-page contract: Author will provide positive blurbs to any and all product submitted to author, whether read or unread, throughout the period of the contract, said positive blurb to contain no less than three of the adjectives provided in Attachement J) or are they concerned about future retribution when negotiating other contracts? Are their agents pressuring them? Or is it just one of those boys clubs things? (Better say nice things, this guy might be bigger than me some day…)
The physical impossibility thing is REALLY STARTING TO BUNCH MY PANTIES!
Look. I know that so far as fiction is concerned, I’ve only got two (unpaid) pieces of flash fiction out there, so when it comes to stacking up published credits, I’m way down somewhere in the muck with the other things you can see moving around but aren’t quite sure what they are.
That might tend to make you discount anything I say about the craft of writing publishable fiction – and I’d understand (those who can’t do, criticize or some such) but still.
When writing fiction, I spend a LOT of time making sure that what I’m describing is at least physically possible (with the exception of things like FTL). If a character sees something, they ought to be able to see it. A two year old standing at the kitchen counter can’t see what’s up there. They may know what’s up there, but they can’t see it. Unless they get up on a chair, or jump up and down, or look at the mirror on the ceiling.
If the writer forgets to mention the chair, or the hopping, or the mirror, well then, I’ve got a problem with the story. And anyone else who’s job it is to get that story ready for publication ought to be having a problem too.
My ire is raised an order of magnitude when it comes to ‘action’. GET UP OUT OF THE DAMN CHAIR AND BLOCK THIS STUFF OUT! If you need to, get a friend to help you. Or find a movie with a similar scene and watch it, because, damn it, when the picture in my head starts going all kablooey because someone performed a feat that not even the love child of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan could pull off, I stop enjoying the story.
Give me something to use as an excuse and I’ll be happy: genetic enhancement, the whole thing was really a dream, it didn’t really happen – the psychotic character is just imagining it. Give me something.
~~~
Budding Pet Peeve.
What’s up with the new paperback format? An inch longer? Wider spacing between lines? Larger font size?
Why is everyone stretching their books to be ‘thicker’?
I’m looking at a ‘new’ paperback and an ‘old’ paperback. The new one looks to have 10, maybe 11 point type, nearly double-spacing on the lines, a half-inch margin all the way around. This results in an average7.8 words per line and 29 lines per page, or an average of 229 words per page.
The old paperback has what appears to be 8 point type, quarter inch margins resulting in an average 9.45 words per line, 40 lines per page and and average 378 words per page.
A difference of 65%.
This means that an ‘old’ book rendered in this new format would take 65% more pages. The typical old SF paperback usually came in somewhere around 220-280 pages. In the new format, we’d be looking at 360 to 400 pages.
The new paperback I’m using as an example has 620 pages. It would be reduced in size by 60% if rendered in the old format and would come in at 372 pages.
Are things really that bad that “thicker means better”?
Great questions. I used to buy books based on a favorite authors blurb, for a different author. I don’t anymore. Why? for all the reasons you listed. Getting a promotional from a big name author, doesn’t mean the content is worthwhile. I finally decided the blurbs were simply money oriented. I think they get a small cut, an advertising incendiary for the effort. I wonder if they even bothered to read what their name was going on.
Not only are books larger, they cost more for less than what we used to get. (Hugs)Indigo
“I finally decided the blurbs were simply money oriented. I think they get a small cut, an advertising incendiary for the effort.”
This is total nonsense, and people are really irresponsible if they “decide” such matters rather than just ask any of the thousands of people who know.
“What’s up with the new paperback format?”
Are you referring to the trade paperback format, which publishers have been shifting to for the past forty years, since most paperbacks are no longer sold at the POS in racks, or what?