[bksvol-discuss] Re: more questions, my how things change

  • From: "EVAN REESE" <mentat3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:55:28 -0400

I don't know whether there is any way to find out in advance if you would have 
to write your own synopses or not. Bookshare gets the info from some company 
whose name I heard once but forget at the moment, and this company does not 
have prewritten synopses for all books. When you submit your ISBN, Bookshare 
looks up the book and fills in whatever data it gets for the various fields on 
the submission form. Sometimes, there is not data for all fields for all books. 
Sometimes, there is no data at all. And I'm sure that data for books is being 
added from time to time as it is obtained. To know in advance whether you would 
need to write a synopsis, you would have to be able to enter the ISBN and get 
back whatever data is available on that book at that particular moment. Then, 
even if you knew there were synopses, short and long, you would want to be able 
to look at them so as to make sure you didn't get one of those bogus short 
synopses like the one I mentioned earlier. I don't know whether Bookshare would 
be willing to provide that info for you. Even if they did, it may change 
between the time you inquired and the time you submitted the book--unless it 
was the same day or not long after that.

Personally, what I do is not write a short synopsis in advance. I see what is 
filled in, and if I don't like it, I write my own right then. For the long 
synopsis, I always scan the dust jacket; and, if I don't like the long synopsis 
that is filled in automatically, I insert the dust jacket info in that field. 
That is not a major change for me because we always used to have to fill in 
both synopsis fields ourselves, so now I don't have to do that all the 
time--just some of the time.

Evan

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Donna Goodin 
  To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 10:23 AM
  Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: more questions, my how things change


  This is helpful to know, Evan.  I probably wouldn’t have deleted content that 
Bookshare had added, so thanks for letting me know that you do this.  I’ll 
definitely keep it in mind, and pay attention to whether the synopsis that is 
filled in is helpful or not.  I still think it’d be nice for this to be more 
standardized, i.e. for the submitter to know whether a synopsis will be needed 
prior to submitting.

  Donna

   

  From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of EVAN REESE
  Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:40 PM
  To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: more questions, my how things change

   

  Basically, what I've found that they sometimes do is just put in whatever 
part of the long synopsis will fit into the short synopsis. This is not very 
good because the long synopsis is written to explain what the book is about in 
a longer form; so just snipping out part of it for the short synopsis often 
creates something that is much less informative than one that is written with 
the length limit for the short synopsis in mind. Sometimes, it makes for a 
short synopsis that is not informative at all. I always delete those and write 
my own short synopsis. I did that on the last book I submitted because all they 
did was insert the beginning of the long synopsis, which was about how great 
the author was. (I happen to agree that the author is great, but that doesn't 
tell anyone what the book is about. So I wrote my own short synopsis, and I 
also removed the "how great the author is" section from the long synopsis 
because I think it should be more about substance than publisher hype--even if, 
as I said, I agree that the author is great.

   

  Evan

   

    ----- Original Message ----- 

    From: Jill O'Connell 

    To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

    Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 6:32 PM

    Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: more questions, my how things change

     

    The problem that I had with my last submission which is quite common was 
that both the short and long synopses were exactly the same. In my opinion it's 
not fair to the future reader; therefore I create a long synopsis. 

      ----- Original Message ----- 

      From: Donna Goodin 

      To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

      Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 10:11 AM

      Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: more questions, my how things change

       

      Thanks, Georgina and Roger.

      Best,

      Donna

       

      From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx
      Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 12:20 PM
      To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
      Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: more questions, my how things change

       

      If the synopsis is already filled in you do not have to write another 
one. You can if you want to though. You may delete the already filled in 
synopsis and write your own or you may modify the prefilled synopsis. To hold a 
book type the words hold for name of person right before the title.

                                                         "I find capitalism 
repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes 
war, hypocrisy and competition." Fidel Castro     

      The Militant: http://www.themilitant.com/txtindex.shtml Pathfinder Press: 
http://www.pathfinderpress.com
      Granma International: http://granma.cu/ingles/index.html
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      Subj: 
      [bksvol-discuss] more questions, my how things change   
      Date: 
      6/3/2009 11:57:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time  
      From: 
      goodindo@xxxxxxx  
      Reply-to: 
      bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx  
      To: 
      bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx  
      Sent from the Internet 
      (Details) 
      table end

      Hi all, 

      Having just submitted a book, I have some more questions 

      1.        When the book was submitted, I noticed that the synopses were 
not what I had written, or rather that what I wrote had been tacked onto the end
      of other text.  Do we still need to fill in the long and short synopsis 
fields?

      Second, How do we indicate to Bookshare that a book should be held for 
someone?

      Thanks,

      Donna


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