dodanielf1的部落格

I have never been the kind of person that likes to pick up a 'safe book' with name recognition. Instead, I like to try out new authors in certain genres. I have my favorites. Who doesn't$%: But still, I try all kinds of new authors.

Last night found me at a drug store looking over all kinds of books. There were racks of them. I really had only expected to see a book or two that would appeal to me but instead, there were about fifty books in all. I wrote off the non-fiction books right away. If I'm going to learn something, it's not going to be about the latest diet craze or another book by some famous talk show host.

I then zeroed in on the romance or chick lit. There was the book I recently read and was disappointed with and that one was a definite 'no'. I'm still tempted to write the company and tell them that they should enroll that author in a writing course.

I thought, maybe an old favorite. Maybe Nora Roberts. But maybe you're not aware of this but her new book has ...uh yuk vampires in it. You wouldn't know this from the front cover but the back says something about vampires. No way. Sorry. I've had to sit through my share of movies with vampires and I'm still upset about them.

So I moved on. There weren't any favorites but at least, I had written off Nora Robert's new book and the one I didn't like. Two down. Forty-eight to go.

No safety here.

So it made me think, how do I choose a good book$%: I have come up with these main things.

Look At The Cover

I don't mean to say, "Pick a pretty book" but generally you will see the genre you're searching for reflected in the cover. There are all kinds of books with fanciful, girl looking large legs and graphic designed covers. They are usually humorous romance. They are a genre in a genre. There's also novels with beautiful roses and flowers. They tend to be family romance stories. There's also gold or silver covers for family romance stories again. Time travel romances tend to have a historic look to them and naturally there are the bodice rippers as they are affectionally called which generally revolve around first experiences for historical main characters.

You can easily target the kind of subgenre you read in romance or other genres just by the look of the book.

You can zero in on the kind of book you might like and generally dismiss a whole rack of books you won't want to read.

Look At The Back Cover

Read it. If they have spelled out the entire story right there, why buy it$%: Move on. If they've left something of a mystery as in questions that are unanswered, you can certainly consider it.

Read The First Page

Read the first page and see if it is the kind of writing you want to read. If it isn't, dismiss it because it probably won't get any better. If you really want to be charitable, read the first 10 pages. That's all most editors read before they decide if they want to read the rest.

Flip to the Middle

Flip to the middle and see if the dialog is realistic and entertaining. Some writers can't do dialog and you don't want to be slogging through a book full of poorly written speaking.

What To Do If The Back Cover Has A Large Photo Instead

Flip to the front of the book and read the first page that will describe the book instead.

I have to admit, I spent about a half an hour coming up with this way to decide whether I wanted the book or not and truly, I dismissed about twenty books by doing this but truly, I was still looking for something.

Yes, you guessed it--a storyline that would pull me in and make me care about reading the book.

Look For A Storyline or Characters that Interest You

From the back of the book through to the first page or two, if the characters don't grab you, then of course do not buy the book. Likewise with the storyline. If there just isn't any interest, you are going to be sitting there, reading a book where you truly don't care what happens.

We buy books to entertain and to care about the characters so if this spark of interest isn't ignited in the book. Move on. Move on. Move on.

Hopefully, this guide will help you out so that you don't end up playing it safe. I hope you'll try new authors. Some of the best ones I've read were when I lived in England for two years. I would literally go into a bookstore and get to work without any name recognition. Sometimes, it would take me two hours just to find a few good books but once I did, they were incredible and well worth the time.