Don't Quote Me On This

The edit's done, the cover-concept has been chosen and the release date has been set. Now how to help convince reviewers, readers, librarians, booksellers, publishers, bloggers, tenuous Facebook friends and my parents that my book is worth picking up and reading.

One of the ways new writers these days get their star to rise is through the testimonials and quotes on their books. When you're on a small respected independent like I am, when column inches for literature coverage in newspapers have been reduced, when journalists are more likely to cover big names and newcomers of note, the likelihood of you being able to place an extract of a review from a properly-respected paper on the front of your book is slim. Also, it seems that despite the existence of incredibly well-respected literary blogs, like Dove Grey Reader and Rob Around Books, we don't seem to have arrived at the time where you can get away with having a recommendation from an online-only review on the front of your book. I'm sure this will change in months to come as more blogs spring up around e-readers and digital literature, responding to the new army of online-storytelling. So who do I ask for those quotes?

The obviously choice was the writers I most thought I was like or had influenced me. My first choices, as the book is about the formative nature of music and the formative conflict of cultural identity clashes, were Nick Hornby and Hanif Kureishi, but alas, it seems they seem to get asked this all the time. I looked to writers I knew who I had nurtured friendships with over various social networking forums like Facebook and Twitter, thinking about how, ultimately, those writers on there would most likely be approachable. And they were.

The great thing about sites like Twitter and Facebook is that you have an opportunity to interact with writers and peers in ways that meeting them at book readings or haranguing them in the street does not have. If not for Twitter's awareness-raising potential, I'd have been left with only my actor friend's quote, and he has to give me one - we went to school together and our adventures are semi-documented in the book! I'd have been happy with just him, but then you start doing the equation for the quotes.

• First you work out exactly who you will be compared to when the book's out...
• Then you work out exactly who inspired you...
• Then you think about those people you would like to be in your Amazon 'if you like this… try this…' section...
• THEN you think about the audience[s] you're trying to attract...
• 
  

As my book falls in between a series of niches like British Asian 'issues', music [specifically hip hop], literary fiction and comedy, I needed to have a series of quotes that represented all of these things to all of the potential diverse audiences I could attract. The quotes for my jacket are legion; there's quite a few of them, but then I had quite a few audiences to entice and a decent list of writing/broadcasting friends I could call on for quotes. They all picked up on something different in the book, while all universally saying they laughed with it.

So not only does my diverse selection of jacket quoters have a different aspect of the prose to say they like, but these spearheads of different audiences have given it their humour seal of approval. Which means it'll be universally regarded as funny… I hope. So I guess, the advice in all of this is think carefully about who to get to say nice things for your jacket. Make sure they tap into the audience you wish to attract and say the thing about your book that you want them to say. Approach them on social networking sites or through their agents, because there's no harm in asking. I asked a famous comedienne who I vaguely knew at a party if she'd supply a quote and she didn't, not because she was disgusted I asked, but because she didn't have time. Ask, and you will hopefully get. Just make sure you pick the right ones! That quote says a lot about you as a writer and your book itself… it's the first independent comment a browser will see.