Many of the folks who utilize BookBub are self-published, and because we hear over and over the need for self-published authors to have their work edited, It seemed to me that it could be educational to take a hard look at their first pages. If you don’t know about BookBub, it’s a pretty nifty way to try to build interest in your work. The website is here.
I’m mostly sampling books that are offered for free—BookBub says that readers are 10x more likely to click on a book that’s offered for free than a discounted book. Following is the first page and a poll. Then my comments follow, along with the book cover, the author’s name, and a link so you can take a look for yourself if you wish. At Amazon you can click on the Read More feature to get more of the chapter if you’re interested. There’s a second poll concerning the need for an editor.
Should this author have hired an editor? Here are the first 17 manuscript lines from the first chapter of in Creatures of Appetite, Jacob Thorne Book 1.
Maureen dragged her daughter Tami through the crowded outdoor Flea Market on the hunt for a deal. Snow fell, covering the school parking lot, the entire market, customers and vendors alike, but that stopped no one. In Nebraska during the winter, snow fell nearly every other day, but the Flea Market was but once a month.
And no one looked forward to it more than Maureen. While some women were addicted to soap operas, some to pills and others to Facebook, Maureen’s drug of choice was secondhand sales.
It wasn’t from economical necessity, for her husband Richard was a good provider with a decent job and good benefits. It was simply that the search for bargains was Maureen’s personal primal urge. Each find a treasure, each dollar saved a victory, and as a result very few items in Maureen’s household were brand new, except for her husband’s golf clubs and, of course, everyone’s underwear.
Even Richard, divorced when he met Maureen ten years earlier, would remark that she’d been primarily interested in him because he was used goods, but he smiled when he said that. And it was easy for him to have a sense of humor about it, since he wasn’t forced to accompany Maureen on her excursions as Tami was.
Tami, only five years old and definitely not used goods, was very much bored by it all, (snip)
Did this writer need an editor? My notes and an alternative opening with a poll follow.
This book received 4.5 stars on Amazon. But what moved readers to go past this opening page? What happens here? A woman and her child are at a flea market, and we get backstory about the woman and her husband and her living situation. Tension? No. Story question? No.
And why the long introduction to a character who does not appear in the rest of the story? Maureen and her daughter are simply devices for discovering a body.
I looked further (past some head-hopping) for a stronger opening. Here it is, a poll follows.
Tami’s mother spotted a marked-down Crock-Pot on a Flea Market table in the school parking lot and released Tami’s hand to beat two other housewives to it. Tami took advantage and made for the playground.
She wandered over to the swings, her boots crunching in the snow, and gave each one a push to watch it go back and forth. Two boys, maybe seven, a couple of years older than her, stood next to the jungle gym on the other end of the playground. The boys beckoned Tami over.
“You wanna see something really scary?” the larger of the two asked. The smaller boy pointed a snow-covered mitten into the shadows underneath the jungle gym.
Tami wasn’t quite able to make out what was on the ground. She slipped under the gym bars to get a closer look. The boys stayed right where they were.
“Tami Sue Paulson!” her mother yelled.
Tami finally got near enough for a good look at it and stopped right in her tracks. She put her mitten-covered thumb into her mouth, her eyes wide as saucers. Her mother, Crock-Pot tucked under one arm, marched over to the jungle gym.
“Tami Sue Paulson, how many times do I have to tell you about wandering off-” She stopped. The Crock-Pot fell from her hands and broke on the ground. Her face froze for an instant, and then melted into a scream.
What do you think? You can turn the page here.
© 2016 Ray Rhamey