Random stats:
We have over 50 participating bloggers. that’s awesome, you guys rock my world!
We have over 400 blurbs for I have no idea how many titles. I’d love to get to a thousand by this summer.
Our most blurb’d authors are Philip K. Dick and Brandon Sanderson. Our most blurb’d titles are Redshirts, by John Scalzi, and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
Because I’m addicted to biting off more than I can chew, I’m thinking of opening this thing up to all fiction, not just Scifi/Fantasy/Speculative Fiction. what do ya’ll think. Should I do it?
Update: Most of the blurbs that are submitted are the perfect length – a few sentences or less. I’ve made a handful of shelftalkers, and really, more than few sentences is all that’s gonna fit. Also, shorter is better. If you submit a blurb that is too long for me to use, I reserve the right edit it down by using one or two complete sentences or uses elipses between fragments. Also, if your blurb has any swear words in (yes, I know, that book really was fucking awesome!), I’ll probably use all sorts of fun characters to fix your four letter #$&% words. These shelf talkers are gonna be in bookstores, and like, kids go there ‘n stuff. Cool?
I think opening this up to all fiction would be great!
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Doing all fiction would be awesome, but a MASSIVE undertaking. Though I’d only be able to contribute to the fantasy stuff still, so I’m good with everything as is
Jamie
The bonus of opening it up to all fiction is, assuming you can market it that way (a “MASSIVE undertaking” as Jamie Gibbs puts it, is right), is that you’re going to exponentially expand the market and the brand. At the very worst, you’ll have to reorganize the site to make it easier to find, create some kind of searchable index of authors, bloggers, and books.
I say open it up.
the more I think about it, the more I’m leaning towards opening to all fiction. Instead of just a “Book!” tab uptop there would be different tabs for different genres, similar to the genre signs you’d see at a bookstore.
Huge workload? maybe.
huge payoff? Hopfully.
worth it? HELL YES.
also, it would keep me outta trouble, right?
Thought about this for a week or two now. It would be a massive undertaking. I think I agree with “opening it up” – however, I’d still limit it. Fiction only, no serial romance or western (there are BILLIONS of those and you just never know what you’ll get a blurb for…) and decisions will have to be made regarding children’s books and things like graphic novels.
Also, there are two ends to this – your “suppliers” seem okay with broadening it, how is the demand on the other end? (i.e. the booksellers) Would they be interested in that? My thoughts are it is easier to promote “general fiction” because of the all the major reviews (NYT, SF, London, Bookmarks, etc.) publish articles and blurbs and lists, whereas (sadly?) sf/fant is still niche in many locations.
Either way, I will still send in my blurbs! LOL
Would definitely stay to fiction only.
and yeah, I’m thinking the same thing you are: Booksellers would be more interested if we had more to offer. As much as Scifi/fantasy is a massive part of my life, it’s a very small fraction of what booksellers are pushing, because they are pushing everything.
I guess it’s just a matter of when we take the plunge to opening it up.
Of course you should open it up to all of fiction. I read almost zero sci-fi or fantasy books.