You probably know that when you have a product to sell you have just seconds of time--whether it's on social media or some other media. People talk about an elevator speech and they often say, even when you have to sell yourself (like for a job), you only have a few seconds. I suppose it's even worse than that when you have to send information online and someone has developed an app that can score whatever it is you have submitted and kill of the statistically unwanted.
When you write a book these days, it's also important to have some clearly defined descriptive lines that you can use to get people's interest. Yet, books are by their nature usually a little more complicated than that. I find it amazing when you are interested in one book or a movie--and then you get bombarded by messages about "like kind" products.
But you know there is a lot of money that gets passed around for products that are cross-sold, so sometimes the programs that exist to connect the dots are not accurate. Most people have giggled a little at times on a list of movies that a provider suggests you may be interested in because you watched something else. I may be wrong, but I have a tendency to interpret the message as "you'll like this because you read that and someone paid us to suggest the connection.
On my book called The Brown and White, writing an accurate description is easy enough:
Forty plus years in the making, The Brown and White is a fictionalized memoir that tells the story of Collin Callaghan's freshman year at a Chicago Catholic High School. Collin is a white boy who is living in turbulent times in a changing city. He clings to his neighborhood and his family as he heads out each day with his classmates on the Brown and White, the ancient school bus driven by free-spirited Willie. Memorable characters abound as this story unfolds. Collin's loveable family, especially his Irish Catholic policeman father and his Irish immigrant mother face life together. Collin and classmates blaze their own humorous and passionate trail through the late 1960s. A unique cast of terrific teachers are there to see the boys through. Laughs and life meet readers head on as they travel on the Brown and White.
I think this done a decent job, but at the same time it difficult with this book. The setting is a changing city, but the book is not focused on civil rights or the conflicts of the day. It's there in the background, but the book is primarily simple and humorous. I was not writing the story of the black experience of the time--I read many books on that in high school and college, but I had to make that clear to readers. I am not a second coming of James Baldwin. I've said that in interviews.
Even my simple book is not so simple to describe.
Also, my book is about a high school boy, but women are more important for the story than someone might surmise. In interviews, I like to mention that fact. I think the chapter on my mom is one of the best.
Another thing that I find interesting (and frustrating) today is that often people tend to place a book into a very specific sub-genre. Many readers tend to want books that are very specific towards their lives and interest. I am not sure if that's a good thing.
I was inspired by John Powers who lived a few miles from house and wrote Last Catholic in America and Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up. These books are in fact about a grade school (Last Catholic) and a high school boy (Patent Leather), his friends and family. The last thing anyone would have said about them at the time is that grade school kids should like to read Last Catholic and high school kids should like to read Patent Leather. I started writing The Brown and White over 40 years ago when many people were devouring John Powers books. In my family, all of us were fans. But today, people want to pound books into a very specific category. Once some people understand the story, they want to limit the book's audience and appeal. My book is about high school, but it really isn't written for high school kids.
Here's the Amazon write up on Patent Leather Shoes:
Growing up on Chicago’s South Side in the 1960s, Eddie Ryan is learning a lot—and not just from the Brothers at his all-boys Catholic high school. Eddie’s world is populated by peculiar adults, oddball classmates, and puzzling girls—the greatest mystery of all. He takes it all in through the prism of his Catholic upbringing, which often deepens the mystery, but sometimes clarifies it, too. Entering Eddie Ryan’s world will delight not only readers who grew up there with him, but also those too young to remember.
I don't think adults were turned off by the description then, but I have to wonder about now and how people might have Pidgeon holed it.
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