What’s wrong with the thread title? 
ETA: Ok, OP posted above me. I was confused about what was wrong with the title because I assumed the OP was doing the meme thing.
It’s a meme.
ETA: Ninja’d
Had no idea it was a meme, of course, I just thought it a silly typo.
May I ask from where the meme originated? Like, what was the original joke or application?
After all, I might as well be giggling for the right reason!
(And now I wonder if it was just me who didn’t get the meme reference? :smack:I’m so the opposite of ‘with it’ !)
Happily there is a website that answers these questions quite empirically.
Never mind, 4Chan, 2008, picked up by bodybuilding site, then spread, from an unheard of comic strip, according to Encyclopedia Dramatica !
(Not really any actual joke or funny to give one giggles. Colour me disappointed. Still happy to have learned something anyway!)
Like many internet memes, its origin is lost to the winds of history. Some sages swear that it originated in the realm of 4chan in the 8th year of the 3rd millennium, while others claim that it was within the pages of the mysterious Encyclopedia Dramatica.
What is known is that a series of pictures began appearing across the digital world with faces of disillusionment and the phrase “son, i am disappoint” written across the bottom. Perhaps it was meant to remind us of the fleeing nature of existence, and the important of staying connected with our forefathers. Perhaps it was from the Almighty – a message to us all that, without self-improvement, there is no purpose to our activities on Earth. Or perhaps it was meant to mock this weird square-headed dude.
Can you live with a mystery?
(To the OP) Just out of curiosity, is your marketing pitched to people who would understand your thread title? Would people need to get the thread title and enjoy things like that to want to read your book? If so, that seems to be a fairly limited audience.
I’m not so sure. It seems like I’m the only one who didn’t get it immediately.
I’m pretty sure the target audience isn’t those as old and unhip as I.
No – this was just an “I am sad about my lack of sales” post. I’m marketing (if you could call a few posts on social media and message boards) the book to fans of fantasy in general and Game of Thrones/ASOIAF fans in particular.
Goddammit!
Your second book IS better - better written, better paced, just overall better (not that the first was bad, not at all…)
(No, I haven’t forgotten I still owe you something for it, either. It’s coming shortly.)
Thanks so very very much! It’s incredibly gratifying to know that some folks really enjoy what I worked so hard on, even if it hasn’t (yet, hopefully!) caught on with more readers.
Can’t wait to read your thoughts!
Pretty sure I’m older and less hip. I didn’t get it either.
(The answer is always 4chan)
Absolutely no one knows a sure-fire way to market a book (including big publishers).
But answer this. How often do *you *buy books from a new author due their promoting their name on social media? (I assume you’re writing fiction; nonfiction is much easier to market).
Not often. 
Disclaimer: I do not mean to offend, so I apologize in advance. What I’m trying to do is offer some constructive advice, that could maybe help you out with this book, or the next ones. I do not mean to present myself as an authority in the field, but I read a lot and I love reading literary critique for new/indie authors, and there are some things that have stood out for me in your book.
First of all, I really like what your book’s about, so I clicked your Amazon link wanting to buy it. However, when I saw the cover my decision… wavered. Apologies in advance if the cover has been done by someone you care about, but it looks really, really unpolished. And while we’re always told not to judge a book by its cover, nice covers do attract more people than not-so-nice ones. Personally I tend to really disregard books with unpolished covers (in that I don’t even get them for free when I have the chance), because the fact that the author had skimped on the quality of the cover (either in terms of money, or time to learn a bit about how to do it yourself, if money is an issue) makes me wonder what other things she had skimped on (i.e. it makes me think that the same lack of care applied to the cover applies to the editing, and very, very few people are so crafty and skilled to be able to make do without an editor/critique buddies). If you have no inclination for the graphical stuff you could go with a minimal cover. Think 50 Shades of Gray, with only one object on a monocolor background. For your book I am imagining an ornate quill that drips blood, how cool would that be? 
But still, image not withstanding, what it needs to do is to stand out, catch the readers’ eyes, and then inspire confidence that the book is a carefully crafted one. Your current cover does not do any of these things.
Then I downloaded the free sample. And (remember that I only want to be helpful/constructive, not deliberately hurtful) it’s pretty bad. Just as I suspected, it needs some/A LOT of editing. I am not saying you’re a bad writer, but there is still a lot you have to learn. I recommend you to join a critique group, and ask for more valuable advice than mine, because you absolutely do need help.
For example, one of the things people/authors say is that you should “start your book where your story starts”. You need to hook your reader with something and then make her want to read on, to see what happens next. I’m not saying you should have your character’s life in danger from the very first line, but there has to be something to keep your reader’s attention engaged. Your book does not have this, we only get to see your Sed doing boring, mundane things, while also reeking of desperation (speaking of which, I really disliked the “treacherous Mary” bit; why is the girl treacherous, because she dared to like an author while also having a boyfriend?). We’re even told in detail of the way he walks to a party where literally nothing happens. Um… who cares? Draw me in, make me care. As things are now, the book definitely does not do that.
All that chapter could have been left out completely. And so is the next one, about the author. And all the bit about the books needing to be corrected is cute, but way overlong and it contributes nothing to the conversation. Your job as the author is to make me emotionally invested in your characters first, and then tell me their stories later. What you are doing is telling me a lot of things about people I have no reason to care for, as they have done nothing interesting/worth caring about. ALL this part can be reduced to a few sentences that could be sprinkled here and there through the bits where actual stuff is happening. (i.e. at one point Sed can think a sentence about how he’s been emailing back and forth with the author for quite a while now, we don’t need to see their actual emails to fully get the idea).
And don’t get me started on the wiki bits 
I understand while you’re trying to do, but those are probably turning off readers faster than you can blink. First of all, infodumps are rarely considered okay. Massive infodumps about character we are not invested in yet? No way. I mean, if I had wanted to read dry books about history (and I love history) I would have read dry books about history, you know? What I want is adventure and escapism; neither of these were to be found in the wiki articles (or the whole sample).
If there is one thing that it’ll stick with you after this really long post, this would be: you must get your reader to care about your characters. Personally I wasn’t able to even read through the sample one end to another (and again, I am a passionate reader and I read a lot, it’s not that I got scared of having to read a bunch of pages), because of the ton of infodump involved.
There could probably more things that can be said about it, an more detailed advice that I could give, but I am actually in a hurry to go to work. the TL;DR version would be: you need editing help, go look for it as it can only make your book better. The way it is now… it’s just not very good.
I really hope this helps. Apologies for the typos, I was in a hurry. Ah, and I love the thread title
Thanks for the feedback. I’m sorry it didn’t pull you in enough to read more than a few chapters.
I’ll only respond to this part for now – Mary is obviously not “treacherous”… Sed is just an immature, lonely kid, and so he thinks of her as treacherous because of his immaturity and loneliness.
Good lord - you really are judging a book by its cover.
You realize that until very recently, especially in big publishing houses, authors have had little to no control over the covers of their book? Have you ever noticed how many “polished” covers have little to nothing to do with what’s inside and/or often depict main characters in totally wrong ways?
And in these days of more self-publishing, most “book covers” are hardly more than thumbnail pictures.
If the cover is so overwhelmingly important maybe you should lean more towards graphic novels.
:rolleyes:
What, you want to open with a fight scene?
Those first chapters are this thing called “character development”. The point is that Sed has a boring existence and nothing interesting happens to him because he’s an introverted nerd.
Actually, I thought it was a clever way to give background on characters in a massive, complicated epic without actually writing a massive, complicated epic. It’s the modern version of characters in a Victorian novel exchanging letters. Sure, it’s not for everyone, but even though infodumps are considered bad sometimes you do need to give the reader a bunch of info. Frankly, I don’t have time to read massive elaborate epics these days (which is the main reason I am not reading the Game of Thrones series) and while you can argue whether or not the technique was well done it’s not the automatic turn off you seem to think it is.
Then read iiandyiiii’s first book - which is less polished as a writer, which you might find annoying, but it’s all adventure, escapism, and fight scenes. Well, when you get past the first chapter/framing device. Or read the short story set in that universe.
Fact is, this novel is a satire, it’s not an action/adventure fantasy epic although it certainly has elements of that. It’s true, you don’t get that from the free sample or first chapter or two, which is a weakness both of the marketing and arguably of the pacing, but the fact is, if what you’re looking for is epic fight scenes and fantasy stuff you won’t find much in the rest of the book.
I agree, the free samples weren’t that great - they also are not that reflective of the book as a whole. That’s not really unusual in any novel, the first chapter or two doesn’t always give a great impression of what the rest of the book is about.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Broomstick. Can’t wait to read your full review!
Yeah, but there is sometimes a good reason why publishers don’t involve the writer in the book cover process. Because the publisher actually knows the market better. Kaylovespurple has a very valid point.
Lack of attention to such details is kind of one of the points where vanity publishing falls short, in my opinion. If it wasn’t important big publishers wouldn’t bother over covers.