The Library of Congress
holds over 40,000,000 books. It will add over another 2.5 million this year.
The litmus test of a book’s utility and worthiness is getting to be more
stringent. We don’t need merely books that offer more of the same or something
no better than what is already out there. We need more quality books that can
advance our world.
Society needs its novelists to explore all
potential ways of thinking, where they can convert random, exploratory
questions into complete books — and bring to life a mere what-if scenario. We need
to see all sides to a situation, dispute, or issue. We need to imagine how it
would feel when what we fear or hate happens — or when our wildest dreams come
true. We need a healthy outlet to explore what seems unimaginable,
unpredictable, unreasonable. Books can do all of this for us. The great ones
do.
Many books can feature great ideas and deliver a
poor execution of them — or provide a good execution of a not-so-exciting or
unique idea.
How do novelists take an amazing idea, create
awesome characters, deliver great dialogue, and have a story that surprises and
delights us?
Writers of every genre search for something new
to write about — or to write about the familiar in a seemingly unfamiliar way.
They labor over endings, specific characters, or setting details and every word
that feels ever so out of place. For as many stories that have already been
written and published, so many more await their day in the sun. For the
not-yet-created, their time will come.
The benchmark of a great book is this: Did it
make you feel, think, or take action? Did it challenge, change, or codify your
beliefs? Did you get transported to another place or tome or person’s shoes?
Did you feel inspired to change something, someone, society or your self? Did
you educate others on history, help others reevaluate the present, and freshly
imagine the future?
Every writer deserves an opportunity to pursue
his craft to its logical conclusion, and society demands it have access to all
texts and choice of content. But we are overrun by mediocrity and a flood of
books that generally fall into two categories: bad/boring/errant or simply
average and substitutable for any of another thousand books. Sure, some are
useful, inspiring, informative, enlightening, and entertaining. Some are
downright great and genius-quality. But to get to the top-shelf one percent, we
need to wade through massive piles of leftovers, stale dishes, and rotted
concoctions.
What shall novelists write about? What they have
experienced, imagined, felt, believe, and desire. But it shouldn’t be published
unless they feel it meets today’s litmus test of quality and the fulfillment of
a need or desire that exists in society. Otherwise, the production and
promotion of way too many so-so to bad books just grinds us to a halt and
clutters the ecosystem of discovering and sharing the best books.
Perhaps this self-filtering honesty pledge for
authors of books should also be applied to any transmission of content. We
don’t need dull plays, sub-par TV shows, crappy movies, lousy music, or even
ordinary blogs, poorly scripted podcasts, and dumb, mean, valueless social
media posts.
America, for the good and great to stand out, we
need to show restraint in the tsunami of creative content generated. You know,
lawyers of corporations have a trick when an accused company receives a
subpoena. They end up sending way more information than was asked for, hoping
to bury the truth in an avalanche of stacks of meaningless documents. In other
words, the best and most important parts are missed, drowned out by a sea of
irrelevant bits and bytes. Sound familiar?
Novelists, save us!
Do You Need Book
Marketing & PR Help?
Brian
Feinblum, the founder of this award-winning blog, with over 3.9 million page
views, can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com He is available to help authors like you to promote your
story, sell your book, and grow your brand. He has over 30 years of experience
in successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres. Let him be your
advocate, teacher, and motivator!
About Brian
Feinblum
Brian Feinblum should be
followed on www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum. This is
copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2024. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now
resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue
dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog. His writings are often featured in The
Writer and IBPA’s The Independent. This
award-winning blog has generated over 3.9 million pageviews. With 5,000+ posts
over the past dozen years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs by
BookBaby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018
as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by
www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” For the past three decades,
including 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book
publicity firm, and director of publicity positions at two independent presses,
Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres,
right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark
Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay,
Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan
RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler. He
hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and
has spoken at ASJA, BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah
Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association,
Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and
Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. His letters-to-the-editor have
been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY
Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington
Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, &
Co-Op Association Handbook. It was featured
in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.
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