Blood & Rhetoric

Yesterday on Pub Rants, Agent Kristin blogged about book trailers and posted one for her client’s new book Private Arrangements.

Now, this is a book that I do intend to read, and despite that, I managed only 41 seconds of the trailer.

Book trailers have been generating some hype lately, with many new books (especially in the Romance genre) putting up mini-movies.

I can just imagine the marketing genius that came up with this.

Marketing Genius #1: Dude, book sales are like, down. Waaay down. At least that’s what some statistics are saying.

Marketing Genius #2: For realz. People aren’t reading like they used to back in that mythical time we keep convincing ourselves existed. It’s the TV man, and them movies!

Marketing Genius #1: Totally. Oversaturation of a particular trend, and generally shitty novels being published en masse have nothing to do with it. But what do we DO about this problem?

Marketing Genius #2: I know! Let’s make a trailer! A BOOK trailer! People will be fooled into thinking it’s a movie, but really we’re promoting book buying! OMG!

Marketing Genius #1: Holy shit motherfucker, that’s brilliant! Let’s do this thang. Look out world! We’re about to blow your fucking minds!

Yes. I’m sure that’s exactly how the conversation went.

Except it won’t work. And I’m positive about this. Books are not movies, they’re books. And as revolutionary as that concept is not, I wish that whomever makes these marketing decisions on the behalf of authors (or the author’s themselves) would spend their marketing dollars elsewhere.

I read about 100 books per year. Some are recommended to me, some are loaned, some are bought. But before I make the decision to buy a particular book, the first thing I do is go on Amazon and read the reviews. Than I Google it, and read more reviews.

I do not go on youtube and search for a book trailer.

I only watch videos online for music, stupid people getting hurt/acting crazy and/or funny, and for sick, twisted barely-legal, porn. That’s it. And you have 10 seconds to catch my attention before I hit the Stop button.

Cheap marketing gimmicks will not sell a book to me.

Earlier today as I was having a conversation with a friend about writing, the topic of the dreaded writer’s block came up. See, I’m one of those people who believe that writer’s block doesn’t really exist.

I do believe life can be overwhelmingly stressful and busy.

I do believe a particular scene(s) or character(s) can be challenging.

I do believe you can be a victim of your own fear.

And I’m firmly convinced that the last point is the one writers are often suffering from when they claim to be going through a bout of “writer’s block.”

You have this beautiful scene or image of a character in your head, or this great idea for a story; but after picking up that pen it can suddenly become as if you’ve forgotten even the basics. That beautiful thing in your mind’s eye turns awkward and daunting. You’re afraid of it, because you feel like you cannot do it justice.

As a general rule, my first drafts of anything and everything suck donkey balls. I cringe inwardly every time I reread a work in progress as it’s usually rife with common spelling and grammatical errors and cliches.

And I find it hard to quell that nagging inner critic which demands I stop my flow of writing and go back to edit the hell out of that paragraph. I have this inane fear of allowing this hypothetically less-than-perfect prose to continue existing in its deplorable state because somewhere along the line, I got this ridiculous idea into my head that it must be perfect right away. If it’s not flowing beautifully; if the character isn’t a fully developed, living and breathing entity, than the work itself is simply not good enough. Not now, not ever.

But I’m slowly learning to let go. I’ve discovered that it’s more important to get the words out, no matter how clunky the prose. It’s more important to not stop up that flow of ideas, because if you stop, the momentum can be lost forever. Get the words out on paper before attacking them line by line with Elements of Style.

So absolutely no editing until the work is done. It still drives me crazy. My left eye still twitches with the wanting. But I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that the first draft will never read the way I want it to.

And that’s just fiiiine! Really.

*twitch*

A friend sent me this link to Joshua Palmatier’s LiveJournal and his Plot Synopsis Project.

Published authors have posted about their own plot synopsis writing teqniques; citing real examples. Very, very cool.