[bksvol-discuss] Re: A Plea For Romance

  • From: "robert tweedy" <roberttweedy@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 06:03:22 -0500

One thing I tried to do is say if it is romance or if it is a series, where the book falls and the back or book jacket in the longer field for the book. It is confusing due to the shorter field is 200 characters but I agree. There was one yesterday with romance/suspence too.

Skype contact bobwichitaks phone 316-524-5454
----- Original Message ----- From: "Monica Willyard" <rhyami@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Bookshare Volunteers" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:04 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] A Plea For Romance


I know that by posting here I'm only reaching some of our volunteers. I
am writing to ask those of you who submit or validate our romances to
take a moment and write a short synopsis of the book you're working on.
If the submitter didn't provide a synopsis, the validater is not only
free but is encouraged to write a synopsis for the book. I have seen 3
books on today's new books list with descriptions that say things like
"Christian romance" or "Harlequin romance." There is no indication of
what the book is about, and that's not really fair to the author or to
our members. It's not happening nearly as much in other categories, and
it almost looks to me like our romance submitters and validaters don't
care about their books. I know that's not true because they're still
being scanned and validated. When I went into the romance category, I
found literally over 100 books with either no synopsis at all or the
phrase "Harlequin romance" or "Christian romance" as the description. If
I introduced you to a friened of mine but I didn't say anything about
you, what would that feel like? I could introduce you as "just some girl
I know" instead of actually using your name. An introduction like that
wouldn't make the new person really interested in talking to you. When
we don't bother to describe our books to our members, they have nothing
to go on to know whether they'd like to read the book or not. So after
all your time scanning or validating, people are probably passing your
books by in favor of ones they can learn something about. The synopsis
doesn't need to be fancy. Something like "a romance set in a Victorian
castle" would at least let us know something about what the book may be
like. A great short synopsis might be something like "Lady Emily is
engaged to a rogue but her heart belongs to Lord Sedrick." Or how about
"sexy romance set in the fashion world in Paris." You can look at the
back cover of the book for inspiration and then use your own words to
describe the book. If you get stuck, try posting to the list and asking
for help in making up a synopsis. There are a lot of people here who
would be glad to help you.

Monica Willyard


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