Chaos Reading discussion

Friends, please help spread the word about Tom Piccirilli's book launch this coming Tuesday, November 13th at: http://www.darkregions.com/books/the-walls-of-the-castle-by-tom-piccirilli.

Recently Tom Piccirilli discovered that he had a golf ball-sized tumor in his brain. While the surgery was successful, there is still much treatment to be done. Tom is now drowning in medical bills, and we here at Dark Regions Press are doing everything we can to help, but we're asking for your help too.

The Walls of the Castle by Tom Piccirilli is the first book in our new Black Labyrinth imprint, and you can get banners, images and more to help promote the book with the press kit at: http://www.darkregions.com/template/downloads/press_kits/the_walls_of_the_castle_press_kit.zip

We are donating 20% of hardcover proceeds directly to Tom as well as 100% of ebook proceeds. So please help spread the word! The more sales of the book, the more money we can send Tom to help him and his family.

Thank you!

Here's the GR book link for those who want to know what the book is about....
The Walls of the Castle

Holy crap. Much as I think this is a good cause, in fact BECAUSE I think it's a good cause, you might want to consider editing back that synopsis on the book entry, Chris. I can 100% guarantee you: Nobody is reading all that, and it's very off-putting.

Ruby, it's eight paragraphs. Which part of it is off-putting?

I'm serious, I'd like to know your opinion.

Hiya Chris. It's 10 paragraphs, plus the additional two relating to the fundraiser. THEN there's another page and a half of blurbs.
It's waaaaay too long for people to want to read it.

We have a thread about this issue here if it helps: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...

Eight paragraphs under "Description," but now we're splitting hairs.

I can understand your perspective, but certainly think the synopsis reads fine, albeit a little long (as you might imagine this is NOT what appears on the back of the book). I find if you actually read through the entire synopsis it very much makes you want to read the book (although I am a little biased).

I can only speak for my own experience, but I was genuinely considering buying the ebook if it wasn't too expensive, and if it looked like it might be decent. I saw the overly lengthy synopsis and the reams of quotes and decided not to.

I know long descriptions of their book, and quotes from reviewers make the writers happy, but they don't do much to sell a potential reader. It pays to think about why you're writing the blurb in the first place.

Chris wrote: "I find if you actually read through the entire synopsis it very much makes you want to read the book.."

Again, just one person's opinion, but I have to agree with Ruby. I'm not going to read a lengthy synopsis that rehashes the entire plot. This book has a compelling premise, a setting guaranteed to be atmospheric, and very cool art work. I was far more inclined to buy it before getting bogged down in endless summary.

One more quibble, you say above that 100% of the ebook sales will benefit the writer, then I have to wade through all that text to find out the ebook isn't available.

Holy shit that is a long synopsis. TL;DR.

A dozen blurbs are also way over-the-top, IMO, and don't really belong in the description field.

I am definitely taking what you guys are saying under consideration. It's a little bit too late now, but in the future the length of the synopsis is something we will be careful about.

Ebook edition will be available in the beginning of next year. Our collectible hardcover editions are very beautiful, though, and you'd be helping out the author quite a bit :)

Whitney wrote: "Chris wrote: "I find if you actually read through the entire synopsis it very much makes you want to read the book.."

Again, just one person's opinion, but I have to agree with Ruby. I'm not going..."

The Walls of the Castle by Tom Piccirilli is now available: http://www.darkregions.com/books/the-walls-of-the-castle-by-tom-piccirilli

20% of hardcover proceeds and 100% of ebook proceeds to be donated to author in his fight against brain cancer.


Please help spread the word:

Here's a tweet that you can retweet:

https://twitter.com/Dark_Regions_Pr/s...

Here's a Facebook status/image you can share:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...

Here's the URL to the actual product page:

http://www.darkregions.com/books/the-...

You can find the press releases and press kit for the book here:

http://www.darkregions.com/press-rele...


Thank you for any help with supporting Tom!

Chris wrote: "Ruby, it's eight paragraphs. Which part of it is off-putting?

I'm serious, I'd like to know your opinion."

As Ruby said: "quotes from reviewers make the writers happy, but they don't do much to sell a potential reader."

Also, reviews in descriptions are, according to the Goodreads guidelines. From the Librarian Manual:

"The description field is for entering a summary of the work. The best description to enter is one found on the back cover or on the dust jacket of the book. If the book does not have a summary listed anywhere on the cover or pages, you can copy a description from a different edition or you can write your own. The description can be a couple of sentences or a couple of paragraphs describing the content of the book. It should be a generic summary and should NOT include reviews or personal feelings (i.e. "This is a book about sisters. It was good. You should read it"). The summary should also NOT contain any important spoilers such as mentions of characters deaths, how the book ends, major twists or other information that would spoil the story for those who have not read it." (emphasis mine)

As a librarian, I have edited the description to remove the "Blurbs" section.

Thanks.

Good on you Velma. I was tempted to do that myself :)

Ruby wrote: "Good on you Velma. I was tempted to do that myself :)"

:)

Can I also say that I just stumbled across another of this writer's books which is HIGHLY recommended by several people on here that I respect and whose book judgement is good. Kinda makes me think the marketing might not be doing him any favours. I would definitely not have gone looking at his other books based on either the synopsis of this one, or this thread.

Edit: After posting this, I went on to Amazon to see if there was a cheap Kindle version of the book my GR friends recommended. There were a few cheap books by this writer, but the one I was after was $12.99. I don't pay $12.99 for ebooks. Well, that was a fun accidental experiment..

Geesh. Well, in case you'd like to know we've had (according to our analytics) over a thousand people come from Goodreads, several of whom bought the book.

Turns out, some people on Goodreads really are interested in helping to support a very sick author. Go figure.

The way this thread has been hijacked has shown a certain level of insensitivity. Please, mods, by all means delete it.

Ruby wrote: "Can I also say that I just stumbled across another of this writer's books which is HIGHLY recommended by several people on here that I respect and whose book judgement is good. Kinda makes me think..."

Okay, wait a minute, let’s take a breath and back up.

To state the obvious, this is a social site. If you post here, you invite comments, pro or con. All of the comments have related to the original post, you may not like them, but I don’t see how that constitutes ‘hijacking’.

I am happy that so many people are buying the book, that’s great! I hope that Mr. Piccirilli makes lots of money and that his medical issues are resolved as quickly and painlessly as possible. No one here has said otherwise, and to imply people are ‘insensitive’ because they don’t like the way a book blurb is written is ridiculous.

No, it's more insensitive to keep talking about how you would never buy a book because of the synopsis, or because of a higher-than-normal price tag, despite the fact that it's going towards a good cause.

I don't know, something about scoffing at the idea of helping a sick author seems insensitive to me.

Chris wrote: "I don't know, something about scoffing at the idea of helping a sick author seems insensitive to me..."

Okay, with the two and out rule, I will try one more time and then withdraw. NOWHERE is anyone scoffing at the idea of helping a sick author. NOWHERE! They are talking about how they, personally, are less likely to buy the book because of the marketing. And no one has commented on the higher than normal pricing of the book in question, that was a comment about a different book, and one in ebook format for that matter. Special editions for special causes are priced higher, that's a given. I repeat - no one said anything about the pricing of this book.

Let's see if this analogy works for you: I am probably not going to buy a chocolate chip cookie at a school bake sale if I have walk across a muddy football field to get to it. This does not mean that I hate schools, or that I hate children. It means that the marketing of the cookie is failing for me. And any decent bake sale manager would appreciate being told, in a friendly manner, WHY I was not buying the cookie. A crappy manager would turn around and tell me I was a bad, insensitive person for saying I would rather not trek across the muddy field, because the cookies are for a good cause so I should just suck it up.

I will repeat one more time, and I will shout it: THE AUTHOR'S ILLNESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PEOPLE'S COMMENTS. Stop invoking it to imply that you occupy some unassailable moral high ground, and that anyone who doesn't buy the book is an insensitive hater of people with cancer. It is wrong, and it is offensive.

Whitney wrote: "I will repeat one more time, and I will shout it: THE AUTHOR'S ILLNESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PEOPLE'S COMMENTS. Stop invoking it to imply that you occupy some unassailable moral high ground, and that anyone who doesn't buy the book is an insensitive hater of people with cancer. It is wrong, and it is offensive."

This this this this this.

Marketing = fail. Taking offense and lashing out at people who are offering constructive feedback on how you might more successfully market = even bigger fail.

I also find it incredibly amusing that you asked the mods to delete this thread as a direct response to Ruby. Hint: Ruby is the creator and mod of this group, though I realize you might have missed that during your drive-by posting in dozens of groups. Just because it's for a good cause doesn't mean it's not spammy.

Riona wrote: "Whitney wrote: "I will repeat one more time, and I will shout it: THE AUTHOR'S ILLNESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PEOPLE'S COMMENTS. Stop invoking it to imply that you occupy some unassailable moral high ground, and that anyone who doesn't buy the book is an insensitive hater of people with cancer. It is wrong, and it is offensive."

This this this this this...."
So. Very. THIS.

I'd like to repeat my earlier comment:
Can I also say that I just stumbled across another of this writer's books which is HIGHLY recommended by several people on here that I respect and whose book judgement is good. Kinda makes me think the marketing might not be doing him any favours.
I was defending the writer here. Which I didn't (and shouldn't) need to do, particularly against his own marketing.

And no. This mod is not going to delete a thread just because you don't like it.

Chris wrote: "No, it's more insensitive to keep talking about how you would never buy a book because of the synopsis, or because of a higher-than-normal price tag, despite the fact that it's going towards a good..."

Wow, that is so cynical - I'd go so far as to say it's obscene. You were given some VERY good advice to help you accomplish your stated goal of helping out a sick author and you accuse the people who were helping you of insensitivity (though when you promise him 100% of the "proceeds" of the ebooks, but don't actually release the ebook, that seems pretty suspect - I trust by "proceeds" you mean "gross sales").

Personally, I'd rather send the 20% to Ruby for her sick cat (and I'm so not a cat person).

Hehehe. I'll take it! :P

Derek wrote: "Wow, that is so cynical - I'd go so far as to say it's obscene. You were given some VERY good advice to help you accomplish your stated goal of helping out a sick author and you accuse the people who were helping you of insensitivity (though when you promise him 100% of the "proceeds" of the ebooks, but don't actually release the ebook, that seems pretty suspect - I trust by "proceeds" you mean "gross sales")."

Yeah, don't even get me started on the whole advertising an unavailable ebook thing. Extremely misleading.

Since you say only the hardcover is available, the format on the book page should not list multiple formats (even if it was available in multiple formats, those should each be listed as a separate edition and then combined with each other). I'm off to do some librarian-ing.