Blurbs and Front Material

 

By Charlotte Hinger

The publisher of my historical novel, Mary's Place, University of Nebraska Press, needs one of my blurbs by the end of this month. Luckily, one of the persons I've asked for comments had one ready to go right away. 

I don't mind being asked to write a blurb, but I hate to ask for them. It used to be my least favorite kind of writing was nudging an editor to respond to a submission. Now, I just cringe when I ask people for comments. But it's all part of the business. 

The business side of writing is minimized by writers. In fact, it's a critical part of building a relationship with one's publisher. I wish I knew at the beginning of my career what I know now.

Prepublication material is very important. It seems to me that the pages grow larger every year. It takes all my wits to write descriptions of the book and catchy phrases that will help the publisher's pre-marketing efforts. Nevertheless, it's an opportunity to help the sales and marketing people get it right. I do my very best to help them understand the thrust of my book.

Fortunately, I've had some great covers. I've never had one I dislike, but I drew a blank this time when I was asked to come up with images. There are two story lines: an old banker who is trying to save his 100-year-old bank and his conflict with his best friend, who wants to save his farm that has been in family since Homestead times.

The most obvious images are fields of wheat, a large house, the prairie, barns, silos, plus banks, coins, storms. Yet, farmyard settings have been used for everything from the Wizard of Oz to The Shack. Plus, practically every calendar with photos of country living.

None of these images have appealed to me. A sweet farmyard setting doesn't have the right tone for a book about the tragedy of the 1980s bank failures that devasted whole communities. I drew a blank. 

Then I found my cover. Right there on my dining room wall. A friend who had read my book mentioned golden fields of wheat, and I had talked about the importance of the color green. I associated wheat with green. We plant winter wheat in Kansas, and the bright emerald shoots announcing the arrival of spring has never failed to thrill me. 

My late aunt, Helen Terrill, was an artist. She painted a farm scene with the foreground dominated by a rather unsettling sinister field of wheat. It shows wheat in all its stages. It's strange! 

In her picture, there's a farmstead in the background, that may or may not be peaceful. That's just the suspenseful tone I aimed for in my book. 

Banking Woes

By Charlotte Hinger

Guess what! The historical novel I'm writing right now is timely. It's about that period in America's rural history when small communities were losing their banks and farms. The bank failures afflicting our country right now sound very familiar to those of us who remember the 1980s.

I've been writing this book, Mary's Place, forever. Happily, it will be published by the University of Nebraska Press. But who would have thought the non-fiction aspect of this novel would be a hot news item?

 Everyone's book is about some particular setting or topic that can be exploited for talks. Speaking about that little something in the background is much more likely to hold an audience's attention than trying to persuade people to buy your novel. 

I've always known this, but with the advent of social media it's easy to get sidetracked. So many platforms, so little time. With the daily bombardment of emails and messages, I've become a chronic and habitual deleter. Yes spellcheck, I know deleter isn't a real word, but I'll bet Type M followers know what I mean. 

Sometimes, traditional methods work best. When was the last time you read a novel where a banker is a heroic character? I'm going to target agricultural bankers with postcards and letters. One banker recently told me a friend of his was shot for not loaning the client money. He personally had been kicked. People in this occupation need soothing and that's always best accomplished with a book that makes them feel appreciated. 

Ah, marketing. The perpetual burden. I was warned that I couldn't expect to sell my mystery series along with historical novels. But that's not true. Because all of my books are set in Kansas and I have a flaming state loyalty, the duality works. 

With Mary's Place, I'll start contacting clubs and organizations far ahead of the publication date to see if they would welcome a program about banking. For instance, I'm a member of Westerners International and that's the first group that came to mind.

It's so heartening to speak to people on a topic that they are interested in. 

For some reason planning marketing comes hard for me. It's not that I can't think. It's just that I don't like to lock in plans. Oddly enough I love to solve problems. An ability to solve problems would seem to carry over to futuristic planning, but it doesn't. I tend to be crisis oriented.

To stay afloat in this noisy overcrowded word of mystery writing, we simply have to learn to plan campaigns. Oddly enough, there has been very little written on this subject.

Care to share how you do it? Do you simply respond to whatever falls in your lap? Or plan ahead.?