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Bestsellers are Born of First Impressions

© Deborah Cannon

Recently, I submitted my novel THE RAVEN'S POOL to the Writer's Digest International Self-Published Book Awards. Knowing that they receive thousands of entries worldwide, I didn't expect to be a winner. What I did expect though was to get a fair reading and a constructive critique. When I received it, I was perplexed at the vacuous, meaningless, inane comments. I realized with some dismay that this "critique" had been assembled by reading the back book cover and the first chapter of my novel.

I quickly did a short survey seeking comments that former contestants had posted on their websites from the contest judges and noticed that in the "What I liked best about this book category" the judge always included a generic "I love that ..." In my case it was "I love that the book takes place on the San Juan Islands." They clearly took that from the book cover. In contrast, some of the libraries who carry my book did have staff read it because it was catalogued as: Suspense Fiction, Archaeologists, Haida Indians, Raven (legendary character), missing persons. The librarians couldn't know so much about the book without reading it.

In fact, my novel had not been read by the Writer's Digest judges; it was skimmed.

What did this experience tell me? First impressions are extremely important and people base their actions on snap decisions. In the bestseller BLINK by Malcolm Gladwell, he says that people make up their minds about something within a few seconds. Noah Lukeman, author of THE FIRST FIVE PAGES says: "People are afraid to admit they'd dismiss a work of art instantaneously . . . But the truth is they do. When it's a 'classic,' most read on and finish the book to keep up with pretext and not seem so presumptuous as to pass instant judgement on a great work. But they've secretly made up their mind after page 5, and 99 percent of the time, they're not going to change it." With a novel or short story, this means the chance to be evaluated comes from an editor's or agent's initial reaction- not their reading of your work, but what they see first. If they don't like your title, the first sentence, paragraph or page of your story, or if they don't like the cover of your book you've already been relegated to the "trash" pile.

Publishers, editors and agents receive so many manuscripts that they are looking for any reason to dismiss them. The science fiction magazine ON SPEC gets over 400 submissions per quarter. My late agent once told me that she returned from a weekend business trip to find 30 new manuscripts on her desk. You may have written a great story, but no one will know it because if you don't make the cut, you won't get read. Even your name could be a deterrent. Would you buy a book written by T.J. MacGregor or Trish Janeshutz (her maiden name)?