Blog – Page 12 – Deborah Makarios

July 6, 2023July 6, 2023

Cover Copy: Choose Your Favourite

One of the most valuable things a writer can obtain is the opinion of readers prior to publication. (After that it’s called a review, and there’s not much you can do about it.) And consider how fortunate I am to have a group of Guaranteed Reading People right here! Reading! Caught in the act!

On this particular occasion, the valuable opinion I would like to acquire is your view on the short description and cover copy for the upcoming publication of Amiant Soul. The short description (30-60 words) is just what it sounds like: a short description of the book, designed to appear on book websites and make people think “oo, I would indeed like to Read More.” The cover copy (100-150 words) appears on the back cover of the paperback – ebooks being notably deficient in back covers – and also in sundry places around the internet where attention spans are likely to exceed the handful of seconds required to read the short description.

Below you will find three of each, and I am eager to know which of each three is your favourite (and why, if articulable), which phrases you particularly like or dislike, any improvements you think of – any feedback at all is welcome, thank you!

So, with no further ado…

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June 29, 2023June 29, 2023

William Wilberforce’s Bucket List

The bucket list is a relatively recent concept, being invented by screenwriter Justin Zackham – first with “Justin’s List of Things to Do Before I Kick the Bucket” (1999), and subsequently with the film The Bucket List (2007). But the idea of having goals you want to achieve before you die – well, that has a longer history.

Consider William Wilberforce, for example. In 1787, at the age of about 28, he wrote in his journal that, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.” (By “manners” he didn’t mean etiquette, but rather the manner of living practiced by society at large – what we might call lifestyle or culture.)

Portrait of William Wilberforce sitting with quill pen in hand at a desk covered in books and papers.

None of this “I want to do a bungee jump, and skydive, and go snorkelling in a tropical resort” stuff for Wilberforce. No, he cut straight to the big stuff: destroy the unethical underpinnings of the global economy, and reform the whole culture he lived in. And having fixed his sights on those goals, he threw everything he had at them.

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June 22, 2023June 22, 2023

Death by Pillow-Fight: Ridiculous French Royal Deaths

When it comes to French royals dying, Marie Antoinette always grabs the headlines. Madame la Guillotine has that effect. But if you look a bit further back in French history, there are royal deaths that make having your head chopped off look positively bourgeois in its uncomplicated straightforwardness.

Take Charles VIII, for example. While in residence at the Chateau of Amboise, he went with his queen to watch some courtiers playing tennis in the moat. (The moat would have been dry at the time, one presumes. Water polo is one thing; water tennis quite another.) They decided to watch from the Hacquelbac Gallery, described by a chronicler of the time, Philippe de Commynes, as “the most unseemly place within the house, since everybody used to piss there”.

medieval woodcut of men playing an early form of tennis without rackets, while others watch — The chaps on the far left are betting on the game. The players are wishing someone would hurry up and invent tennis racquets. The chap in the middle has just realized that everybody does indeed piss in the gallery.

Despite being, according to the same chronicler, “very short”, Charles managed to bang his forehead against the door frame. Then, after watching the game and chatting for some time, he collapsed, and died nine hours later “on a shabby pallet,” still in the aforementioned gallery where everybody used to piss. (One can only hope they found somewhere else for this function in the meantime. Refilling the moat, perhaps.)

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