fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5490 ]

[ SECRET POST #5490 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5490 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #786.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Book blurbs that do the "FOR FANS OF" thing. I understand why they do it, but it always makes me assume that the book is incredibly derivative and a cheap cash-in on something that happens to be popular. And also, if everything is "for fans of The Expanse", then nothing is (can you tell I've been looking for a lot of science fiction recently?).

I am still angry, forty years later, for buying 'The Sword of Shannara' because of the blurb that said it was like LoTR. And in a way it is, i.e. a total ripoff. And in other ways, ,like in quality - definitely not.

Diana Gabaldon blurbed Rivers of London as "What if Harry Potter grew up and joined the police". And, yes, technically it is about a wizards and the police force, but in every other way possible it is nothing like Harry Potter. It was one of the dafter X meets Y descriptions that book publishers have daubed on a cover.

Yeah, that blurb is very "tell me you've never read another book with a student wizard."

LMAO that's incredibly wrong

(also, Diana Gabaladon seems like a really weird choice to blurb that book - is there anything she's ever written that's remotely close to contemporary fantasy police procedural?)

Aaronovitch mention on his twitter that Gabaldon just spontaneously offered and he figured that the sales boost he would get from a blurb with her name would be worth it no matter how wrong it sounded.

Hah! That's funny. Maybe it's the Doctor Who connection.

Ironically, Aaronovitch hates his time on Who, has refered to the production team as "a bunch of gibbons", and refuses to even talk about doing anything with the show anymore.

God, I hate this as well as blurbs that are just reviews. I want a summary of the damn book, not a bunch of glowing reviews for it (or worse, glowing reviews for the author’s previous book).

The only time one of those reviews made me buy a book was when the Daily Mail insulted Terry Pratchett "A complete amateur, doesn't even write in chapters" and Terry had his publishers stick that line on the back of all his books. He knew his audience.

This is the best thing I've read this week. Man he is so siorely missed.

I understand that the latest edition of LoTR, with illustrations by the author, has a bunch of glowing reviews on the back. I mean, it's like producing fine editions of Jane Austen with her best reviews on the back cover. We know it's a good book, sheesh.

I agree. Also book blurbs that are actually just reviews. Tell me what the book is about, for goodness sake. I want to know enough to know if I"m interested. If I want reviews, I can find them easily. Use your blurb to explain your book.

(Cozy Werewolf Anon)

I hate this too. I do. And I have TRIED, and I do mean TRIED to shout from the rooftops what a blurb ACTUALLY is to indie authors. To no avail. (And look, I just got something in my inbox about 'would you review my book it's like X and Y' instead of a goddamn SUMMARY, way to make me grind my teeth. No. I haven't checked the first five chapters yet.)

Comparison books/shows, reviews of the book, if it won an award, I don't care, it goes to the bottom of the dang blurb. (I mean, we have to have log line, then blurb now on Zon, geez.) I want to know Character X faces down Situation Y, with Stake Z on the line IN SPACE. (Or something.)

Because if your book is for the fans of Harry Potter, it better, by god, be a magical school fantasy starting in the MG area and you put that at the bottom or I don't want to see it. Seriously, the only one I saw remotely accurate was Big Bang Theory meets Star Wars and I STILL had to go "okay this story stops halfway through it AND skip the prologue, otherwise, fun."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #5490 ]

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