The dreaded elevator speech (or, can a book be pitched in a very few words?)

Updated July 21, 2021

In marketing, it's called the elevator speech. The scenario: you happen to find yourself on an elevator with the ideal target for pitching your idea/product/self (a venture capitalist, editor, Hollywood mogul, hiring manager, or whomever). You have, perhaps, fifteen seconds till he or she gets to their floor and exits. What do you say? How do you get him or her to "take a meeting?"

For writers, there's an elevator-speech variant: when a prospective reader (at a con or bookstore signing, say, or just happening to meet you and discovering what you do for a living) asks "What's your book about?" He or she is not expecting a treatise. Answering -- for me, anyway -- can be surprisingly difficult.

Writers want to believe our books have depth, nuance, meaning. Even when a particular book is intended (not that there's anything wrong with this) only as entertainment, as mental popcorn, a brief description is hard. A pure adventure, spy story, or mystery may be in one sense formulaic -- but surely the author has aspired to unique twists and turns, to clever fake-outs and surprising reveals. "It's a murder mystery," for example, is so generic a description as to be lame and useless.

Writers struggle to synopsize for an editor in several pages what will be unique and interesting about a book. Call that a 1000 words, give or take a few. Post-sale, if a publisher is amenable to authorial input, we struggle even more to capture a book's essence in a mere 100 to 200 words. That's all the copy that will fit on a dust-jacket flap or back cover. We want the description or preview to be interesting -- nay, irresistible -- and yet avoid spoilers. But distilling a book into a sentence or two, to share in a chance encounter with a prospective reader? OMG!

And yet, it must be done. After the break, we segue from introspection to commercial material. You have been advised ;-)

Bigger than a breadbox

I've found myself, over the past several days, pounding out text for a new novel at a splendidly prodigious clip. (The new book? It's a near-future technothriller set on the Moon. Thanks for asking.) My authorial philosophy is: when in the zone, stay there.

So: switching gears from committing novel to serious blogging is off the table (well, the keyboard), at least for a few days.

But should my loyal visitors suffer? Of course not! I recently came upon, in Cosmos, a brilliantly written overview (they rate the article a ten-minute read) on cosmology. I hereby commend it to you. See:

Cosmic microwave background

"How big is the universe? There is no bigger empirical question in astrophysics than how big space is. Cathal O'Connell provides a brief history of ideas about the size and shape of the universe."

Now if you'll please excuse me, I'll get back to the novel. Good guys and bad alike are up to their eyeballs in trouble ...

Auto oddities

My miscellany folder seems to have accumulated way too many items related -- in one way or another -- to cars, traffic, and/or their future.

When I was little, I so wanted one of these ...

You know what's a nuisance? Keeping car tires properly inflated. Even more of a pain is patching or replacing them when one gets punctured. Hence, I was delighted to see "Airless tire concept could change tires forever." Imagine: an airless tire made from biodegradable materials using a 3-D printer. Wonderful!

Governmental entities have the authority, and a reasonable case for, licensing various activities. (Yes, this item involves cars/driving. And not driver licenses. Bear with me.) One likes there to be a solid basis for the practice of, well, many professions -- piloting commercial aircraft comes to mind. But when the state of Oregon decided that a degreed, experienced engineer couldn't call himself an engineer because -- of all the nerve -- without a state professional-engineering license he cited an engineering background while committing math and physics to raise issues with the timing of traffic lights? That was going too far. That was abridging freedom of speech. See "Mats Järlström: I Am an Engineer."

NOT off on a tangent

Let me just say, this was unexpected.

Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, venerable genre review website Tangent Online posted their look at last year's the-end-of-the-world-and-what-comes-next interstellar adventure, Dark Secret. The opening paragraph of that review offered:

Visit on Amazon

Regardless of the theme, subject matter, or treatment, a Lerner novel never fails to intrigue, engage the intellect, or offer pure entertainment for its own sake. He can do it all, and well.

So: I continued reading with positive anticipation. And was not disappointed. And finished with a smile.

Here -- should I have happened to catch your interest -- is the Tangent Online review of Dark Secret. 

Happy Independence Day/Weekend!

I'm quite certain there are better ways to celebrate a national holiday than perusing whatever I might have to write about. So: have a beer(s). Barbecue. Enjoy some fireworks. Reflect on the American journey. Or -- my suggestion -- all the above.

That said, if you're looking for a bit of non-holiday-specific diversion, or you came to this post from (in my perspective) abroad, you might head over to Bookgrabbr for a free copy of the latest/July issue of Galaxy's Edge. It includes, among many things, my latest short story, "Too Deep Thought."