{"id":26075,"date":"2018-06-12T08:04:03","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T12:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=26075"},"modified":"2018-06-12T08:04:03","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T12:04:03","slug":"the-art-of-the-reveal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=26075","title":{"rendered":"The Art of the Reveal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Booksellers spend a lot of time honing our recommendations for customers, and we work to toe a graceful line between revealing enough of a wonderful book to hook a listener but not\u00a0so much that we\u00a0spoil\u00a0a surprise or deprive\u00a0readers of the joys of their own discovery. The unfolding of a story is a delicious treat, and its secrets should be\u00a0held jealously by guardians.* There have been many times I’ve been grateful to begin a book without knowing\u00a0anything about\u00a0it.\u00a0So how do we\u00a0strike the right balance? And even when\u00a0spoilers aren’t the issue, how do you craft a great book pitch? Here are the pointers I use for myself. I’d love to hear yours!Avoid vague praise.<\/em> We’ve all done this before, recommended a book saying only, “It’s soooo good!” or “I loved it; I think you’ll love it, too.” On their own, adjectives, superlatives, and general opinions\u00a0usually don’t\u00a0get the job done. They are\u00a0okay beginnings, but there’s nothing for\u00a0a listener to grab on to.\u00a0You need something concrete, an intriguing detail or plot point, to ignite a reader’s attention. For instance, all you need to say to kids to get them\u00a0to grab the comics novel, Hilo<\/em>, is: “It’s about this alien boy who crashes to earth wearing only a pair of silver underwear.” I usually add,\u00a0“and a human boy and girl\u00a0befriend him and take him to school to teach him how to be human, but then these giant robots from his home planet come to Earth to hunt him down,” but honestly, I don’t need to. The silver underwear does it all.
\nCodicil: You can\u00a0use vague (or even wordless) praise sometimes.<\/em> If I have been a solid book recommender for you in the past, I can likely press a book into your hands and say, “I don’t want to tell you anything about\u00a0this because\u00a0the way it unfolds is incredible if you go into it knowing absolutely nothing,” and you will consider taking a chance on that book. Or, if the book is in my top 10 of all time, and I share that\u00a0information with a customer, it can be enough to\u00a0interest them into giving it a try. That just happened the other day with Their Eyes Were Watching God.<\/em>\u00a0I even once sold a book\u00a0when a customer saw me spy it on a shelf and hug it. People do respond to pure passion alone, but it has to be spontaneous and real. Which leads me to:
\nBe honest.<\/em> Never hype a book beyond its capacity, or pretend you liked something you didn’t. This will backfire in a big way. Customers\u00a0may not always share your feelings about a book, but they\u00a0will appreciate that your enthusiasm is\u00a0trustworthy, not feigned. Having open conversations about what you loved about a book that left someone else cold is great, because it provides information about what that reader values in a reading experience, and you’ll be able to hone your recommendations more accurately for that person in the future.
\nFocus on what’s unique about the book.<\/em>\u00a0If there’s a book that’s harder to handsell because its strength lies more in the writing or character development rather than the plot, focus on a standout aspect. “The author has so much compassion for his characters! He presents us with this\u00a0curmudgeon that you can’t help falling in love with.”
\nPick one detail to share.\u00a0<\/em>Sometimes, plotlines are so chock-full\u2014or it’s been so long since we’ve read a book that the\u00a0specifics are murky but we remember loving it\u2014that it can be hard to come up with a one-line teaser. In this case, you might pick one thing to highlight. I loved M.T. Anderson’s younger middle grade Pals in Peril series. It’s been long enough that I couldn’t tell you diddly\u00a0about the main mystery\/adventure\u00a0in\u00a0The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen<\/em>, but I can tell you that (1) it’s hilarious and (2) action-packed and that (3) there’s a professor in it who studies bats, and in order to understand their behavior better, he chooses to move\u00a0around by echolocation, which basically means he closes his eyes and screams at the top of his lungs while\u00a0wandering around trying to get places.
\nSecrets are good.\u00a0<\/em>It doesn’t matter what kind of book you’re holding, people are intrigued by secrets, so if your book has them, make mention of it (without giving them away). Adults seem to love mentions of dark family secrets, while kids gravitate toward mystery and friendship secrets.\u00a0Codicil<\/em>: I’m leery of telling a customer that a book has a major twist; it might intrigue in the moment, but then the reader spends the entire book reading toward the twist. I always instantly regret it\u00a0if I let slip that a book has twists; it feels like I’m stealing something from the reader.
\nShare something about the experience of reading the book.<\/em> “I opened this\u00a0one intending to flip through a few pages, and I ended up devouring it in\u00a0one sitting.” “This is like reading sunshine; it is a sparkling delight of a book.” (That\u00a0last is for adults, not kids. Kids do not care about sparkling delights of books.) You need to follow up with those specific details that make a recommendation vivid, but people who come to a bookstore are looking for a reading experience. Sharing your own can be compelling.\u00a0One of our booksellers loved and was freaked out by The Hazel Wood<\/em>. She told a customer, “I was so scared\u00a0reading this book that I hid under the covers with a flashlight reading it, and made my husband get out of bed with me to go to the bathroom.”\u00a0I also loved the book, but didn’t find it as\u00a0terrifying as she did, which made for a fun conversation about what we all find spooky. Customers love conversations with\u00a0differing opinions, especially when they’ve read\u00a0a book and can weigh in! Caveat<\/em>: Having a different experience of a book is great; just\u00a0don’t undercut your co-workers’ book recommendations by dismissing their experience! That’s the great thing about reading; all interpretations and experiences are valid.
\nThe art of the reveal varies from book to book, from bookseller to bookseller. Basically, I just try to share what strikes me as exceptional about a book without weakening its storytelling fiber or diluting the power of discovery.
\nAll of you ShelfTalker\u00a0regulars are avid readers, so I’m preaching to the choir here. What are your\u00a0tips for great recommendations? And if you have great one-line pitches to share, we’d all love to hear them (giving due credit when we share with customers)!
\n*Unlike the viewers of the 1980 premiere of The Empire Strikes Back<\/em> at a\u00a0cinema\u00a0in Los Angeles, who came out of the theater shouting at the\u00a0people in line for the\u00a0second showing (among them, me), “Darth Vader is Luke’s father!”
\nBrutal spoilage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crafting the ideal book pitch can be like navigating a canoe through rocky rapids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}