Month: April 2015
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Page Seventeen, Issue 12
April 24, 2015
Yes, page seventeen is once again a thing, and shortly we will be opening our submission window again. The opening date is only a week away!
One of the defining developments of last year’s issue was how page seventeen’s motivations and identity were placed into sharper focus. Page seventeen has always been about promoting new and emerging writers by giving them a place to publish their work, but other aspects of the periodical’s reason-for-being were given greater consideration and explored in previous articles on this blog. We even have the customary soundbites to show for it. Embracing the new. A home for emerging writers. Winter is coming. (Wait – that last one might be from somewhere else.)
Page seventeen remained fairly stable and static for its first ten issues. It was establishing a recognisable brand with clear intentions. For its eleventh issue, there was a greater enthusiasm for change and versatility, even in smaller aspects such as updating the issue’s layout. That’s a trend I hope to continue into the twelfth issue, as page seventeen adapts to reach its current audience – and its expanding sphere of potential readers – in the best possible way. Not just to entertain readers, but to promote writers who deserve to have an audience for their work.
Which is why we will be making the latest issue of page seventeen an exclusively electronic edition. The issue will be essentially the same in all other respects, with the only major difference thus far being that page seventeen is taking the plunge and moving into the digital age. We’ll also be kicking off our transition with the release of our long-promised e-edition of page seventeen #11 – it’s coming soon, so stay tuned for the announcement.
Below you’ll find the general summary of all the entry categories and competitions on offer for Issue 12. Soon we’ll also announce finer details such as the judges for this year’s competitions, so watch this space and follow along on our Facebook or Twitter profiles if you aren’t already.
All stories, poetry and articles should be submitted to page seventeen through Submittable. All submissions should be doc, docx, pdf or rtf file formats; images for the cover comp should be jpg or gif. Please contact us as pageseventeen@busybird.com.au if you have any questions.
Are you interested in submitting for the new issue? You won’t have to wait long for the opportunity. Our submission window for 2015 is Friday 1 May – Friday 3 July. That’s two months of time to mould your work into the best it can be, and maybe give us the opportunity to show it to the world.
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General Submission:
- No entry fee
- Unthemed
- Short stories up to 5000 words, poetry up to 100 lines
- Submit via our General Submittable portal. Link will be active here from May 1st.
Non-Fiction Submissions:
- We favour ‘craft of writing’ as a general theme, but we’ll consider all articles.
- Articles up to 5000 words
- Submit via our General Submittable portal. Link will be active here from May 1st.
Short Story and Poetry Competitions:
- Entry fee structure is $8 for one entry, $15 for two entries and $20 for three entries.
- Unthemed
- Short stories up to 3000 words, poetry up to 60 lines
- Winners of each category (Short Story, and Poetry) will win $200, runners-up will be awarded $100. All shortlisted entries will be published in P17 #12.
- Submit via our Competition Submittable portal. Link will be active here from May 1st.
Cover Competition:
- Entry fee is $10, which allows up to five images to be submitted for consideration.
- There is no theme or criteria for the style of submitted images. Entrants are encouraged to see covers of page seventeen’s recent issues but we encourage that submissions do not need to be limited by precedent.
- The winning image will be used as the front cover for page seventeen #12, and will be regularly implemented, unaltered, in promotional material for page seventeen and Busybird Publishing.
- Submit via our Competition Submittable portal. Link will be active here from May 1st.
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In a week we open the gates and welcome all authors, poets, photographers, writers, artists, scribblers, doodlers and general dreamers to share their work with us. Good luck to everyone who submits to us. I hope you’re looking forward to seeing what the latest issue of page seventeen has to offer – I know I’m looking forward to putting it together.
Beau Hillier | Editor, page seventeen
Writing a Blurb
April 9, 2015
What makes a good blurb?
When you pick up a book at a bookstore or library, or read a blurb somewhere online, what engages you? What convinces you to open the book and scan the first page, or to take the book home with you?
The blurb is the equivalent of a movie trailer. Seen a fantastic trailer, only to find that the movie itself sucked? This is an important lesson: a good blurb or trailer can sell anything, and the whole product – whether it’s good, bad, or downright horrible – will always have enough ingredients from which to craft a compelling snapshot to hook your consumer.
The foundation of any good blurb – whether it’s for a novel or a nonfiction book – is that it’ll have a narrative thread that underpins it all and ties it all together. This is what we ride through it. However, a good blurb doesn’t let you realise you’re taking this ride. You simply become immersed in it, then want more.
Writing a good blurb is an artform. Obviously, there’s lots of different ways to write a blurb. If you’re somebody who struggles with blurbs, though, here’s a bit of a formula you can follow to get you underway …
| For Fiction | For Nonfiction | |||
The vehicle which is going to take our reader on their blurb-ride is usually the protagonist of our story. Let’s use the example of The Hobbit.
Here, we’ve introduced the protagonist, Bilbo, and his circumstances. This is important. We need to develop a visual of the character, and try to bond them with our reader. With that done, let’s get stuck into the plot.
The plot itself doesn’t need to be oversold. Some plots won’t be packed with action and excitement. They might be slow boilers. Or simple family dramas. What’s important to capture here is the context: Bilbo, a contented homebody, is pitched into a quest where he seems impossibly out of his depth. That’s interesting, and this is what’s important: showing the drama that your protagonist will face. Next, let’s sum up Bilbo’s adventures, without – hopefully – giving up any specific, story-defining spoilers.
Here, we’ve given up the gist of the quest, as well as the names of some of the creatures they face. But there’s no specifics – we don’t know how they escape the Trolls, Goblins, or spiders, whether anybody perishes, who does what, etc. But we see the conflict. We see some of the character growth. We see what our protagonist will face. The final paragraph usually sums up the book as a product:
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Usually, nonfiction (e.g. autobiographies, biographies, books on particular topics) can be treated like fiction. The same principle applies – just treat the subject as your protagonist who takes the reader for a ride through through the blurb.
Where the blurb might differ is for something like a self-help book. You now not only have to immerse your reader, but empathise with them. Let’s say we’ve got a book about dieting. We need to establish a rapport with the reader immediately.
Open by questioning the reader. That might take the form of a single word (as it has here), a single sentence, or a paragraph full of questions. The point is to engage the reader and open a dialogue with them. They now have to answer the question(s) put forth to them. If it’s relevant to them, they will most likely read on. Then it’s time for the empathising.
Here, hopefully, we’re getting on side with the reader. Yes, they might struggle to resist sugary snacks and fatty foods. Yes, they might stack on weight regardless of what they eat, and diets have been unsuccessful. If we’ve articulated legitimate concerns of somebody who might pick up a book like this, hopefully they’ll now be nodding their heads and thinking this book knows about their situation, is specifically talking to them, and might offer them hints that they haven’t encountered before. This is now where we sell ourselves and what the book’s about. Careful, though! We don’t want to give away the book’s secrets.
We’re not only selling ourselves here, but we’re also selling why we’re qualified to write about this subject. The reader has to feel they can have a reason – or reasons – to put their trust in us and, more importantly, in the book they’re now holding. The only actual allusion to the book’s content is the ’12-Step Program’. If your book has a particular formula (in this case the ’12-Step Program’), then sell it. Make no specific grandiose promises, though, e.g. You’re guaranteed to lose 25 kilograms! There’s no way you can guarantee that. The wording we’ve used here – ‘guaranteed to … lose weight in three months’ – is non-specific. Finally, as with the fiction blurb, we sum up the book:
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Now neither of these blurbs are complete. They’re still early drafts. But they offer a framework that you can now flesh out. We can fine-tune details, as well as smooth out linkages.
Just remember, blurbs are meant to be short and concise. They’re not a report of your book. Nor should they give the content away so that it becomes redundant to read the book. Don’t waste words. A blurb sells your book. The goal is to get readers intrigued.
With practice, you should be able to blurbarize any book. The key is to find your way in. Once you do, the rest should come easily.
Happy blurbing!
LZ