Which bit of the publishing-business side of this caper would you ditch if you could? Or, which bit of the business side would you happily do for yourself if you had to?
I don't think many (any?) people embark on a book-writing career because they crave excitement, thrive on adrenalin and are only happy in the limelight. So it's hardly surprising that most of us love the bit where we're all alone in a room making up stories and not so much . . . everything else.
the thing I most dislike is wheedling around for favours (she said, using absolutely objective language). Writing to people asking if they would accept an early copy of your book and say something nice about it that you can put on the jacket? Makes me heave.
Thank God for the etiquette that you say "Yes, and I'll try to get to it" and then if no quote appears the author can tell herself you didn't get to it! Only a couple of times have I had to say, "I don't think a quote from me would help". Hey look at that! I hate both sides of such transactions.
Mind you, I did just do this very thing, for next March's THE DEAD ROOM, and the quotes were beyond my wildest dreams. Patricia Highsmith's name came up.
There is a bit of non-writing that I quite like, though, and that's doing jacket copy. Longer synopses are the devil's work but the pithy little 75-word teasers come easily to me, so much so that I've written them for other people who were struggling.
A couple of times, I've read books where I wish I'd got to write the jacket-flap copy - because it's terrible! It gives away something from deep inside the plot, or it mischaracterises the tone of the work, or - my particular bug-bear - it says BIG TWIST. Then you read the book knowing there's a BIG TWIST coming and you keep wondering if that was it. Or is this it? Sometimes you finish the book thinking "Where was it?" I don't mind "twisty", but BIG TWIST can retire, for me.
At least you never read jacket copy as misleading as some film trailers are. I'm interested in the art of the trailer, the changing trends, the dying cliches. And I love a bad trailer more than a good one. You know, those comedy trailers that give up all the best gags? Because there's only five. Or the horror trailers that overuse creepy music and pauses so you're expecting a bigger frightfest than you get?
That's an ironic kind of love, though. Like how I love a non-apology. E.g. "I take full responsibility for those statements, although they may have been doctored." What I sincerely love is a trailer that leaves out a complete subplot, so you get more than you were expecting when you watch the film. And I think that works for jacket copy too. A brief mention of every bit of the book can end up being a mess, like a bad buffet where's there's a little of a lot, rather than a lot of a little.
In conclusion (like there's a thread running through this!), if you're wondering whether it matters what you write on the jacket or say in the trailer, because surely the book is the book and the film is the film: have you ever seen The Shining (romcom version) trailer? I rest my "case".
Cx
No comments:
Post a Comment