Last week, I ranted about Indie book descriptions that incude grammatical errors or the inane phrase “A coming of age novel…” In keeping with the how-I-choose-books-on-my-kindle theme, today I would like to talk about descriptions that fail to complete the simple and straightforward task that is their namesake, DESCRIBE.
Has this happened to you? You see a book listed in a genre you live for: SciFi, Murder Suspense, Underwater Basket Weaving — if that’s what you’re into… Anyway, you see a book that piques your interest. It has a cool title, like: Harvesting Alien Eyeballs, or Shower of Blood, or A Tisket, A Tasket, and an Ocean Picnic Basket. Underwater Basket Weaving is a thing right? I feel like there’s a genre for everything nowadays… Anyway, awesomely titled book also has awesome cover art: A tree full of green eyeballs, a blood-splattered shower with a hand reaching for help, a basket full of sea horses blowing cute little bubbles; you get the picture…Anyway, you click on it and the description reads something like this:
Somebody lives, but down there? Not for long… or maybe, who knows!
Praise for the Author:
“Dom de Plume is the best author since whoever wrote the bible!” Stupid Newspaper
“This is the greatest story since whatever they talked about the night fire was invented.” Stupid Magazine
“As a matter of fact, this book is the best thing since fire, the wheel, AND sliced bread. And Dom de Plume’s genius far surpasses that of the inventors of fire, the wheel, and sliced bread. Amazeballs!” Stupid Website
Ok, um, one small problem. What the FRICK is the damn book about? That one-line description could easily apply to anything: a book in any of those genres, a soap opera, even a pharmaceutical commercial. And the avalance of praise, as stoked as the author may be about it, is not helpful. Unless of course, the overwhelming praise is meant to convince me that the author is a sorcerer or cult leader that can brainwash people’s opinions of him and his work at will. Then I’m sold.
But you know what’s NOT sold, the book I clicked on….
journeyofjordannaeast 
Agreed! Annoying as hell!
“Amazeballs!”
I lol’d.
Glad my silliness could make you smile.
I know EXACTLY how you feel – it’s one of man things that annoy me about buying books off Amazon… especially the Kindle. I hate that I will have a book buying session then a few weeks down the line I can’t remember what the book was about and there is practically no easy way to access the blurb to remember what the book was about in the first place! I just can’t read like that… Very glad I am not the only one annoyed by this whole issue…. and BREATH. Thanks for that outlet! 🙂
Haha, no you are not alone! Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
Omg, so true. There has to be a happy medium between the above apt example and “This is the story of a girl, the vampire she loved, her inevitable struggle to keep him in her life and their eventual hybrid child” type descriptions that make me think ‘thanks Punks, now I don’t read to spend the money to read this – you told me the entire story!’
Omg, right!
Pingback: “Jerks & Irks” III: No Need to Buy Your Book Now, Thanks « journeyofjordannaeast