Help with notes for book back cover?

[potty5]

Dear forum members, we are in the process of publishing a book on the fallen of the towns of Crewe & Nantwich titled WHERE THE FALLEN LIVE FOREVER. The front and back cover have been designed by fellow Great War forum member Paul Hewitt, but at the moment we have only a simple, quite boring note for the back cover. What we are basically trying to achieve is a summing up of the Great War in about 5 or 6 lines. As it is usually the first thing a prospective buyer does is read the back cover to see what the book is about I am asking for a bit of help to get this right from the Great War forum community. Realising that not everybody knows what happened, we are trying to paint a picture, without being too technical or political. "Needless slaughter of the innocence" "Mud and bloodshed" "every city, town and village affected by the war" etc etc are words I have used but still can't get it right. I have now been on this final stage of the book, which has taken six years to compile, for a few weeks now, but cannot quite get this "mission statement" quite right, but just need a hand to complete this final part of the project, which commemorates 1,186 men (including two great uncles of my family). Any notes submitted which I choose to use will be properly credited. Thanks very much, Mark

[Kate Wills]

Can you give us a couple of your drafts Mark, to enable us to get a feel for what you wish to convey?

The area covered and the 1,186 men are obvious items to expalin your content. A line or two about yourself or the group is also useful in introducing yourself to the reader.

[Dragon]

If you want an honest opinion, I would discard the clichés of slaughter, innocents, mud, bloodshed and so on and focus on what you say is your main theme: that your two towns, like every other community, were affected by the war. I think Kate's idea of providing us with drafts is great. I think you can assume that most people have heard of the Great War. Your theme is its effect on Crewe and Nantwich This is what the reader needs to know.

Keep to an active tense and try to avoid off-the-peg phrases. I presume you've looked at similar books to see what works and what doesn't.

If it helps - and I'm not saying that this is a definitive idea because virtually everyone on GWF won't like my style of writing - I have found it useful to use the metaphor of a tree. This is an edited version of what I wrote for another purpose, but it shows what I mean by a metaphor. (If I were using it for a book intro I would tone down the malignancy theme, but this wasn't a book blurb.)

[The war was]... a great malignant tree, a poisonous one full of malice. It had its tap root in Whitehall and Westminster, and from there it spread out with branches and tendrils and shoots and leaf veins and roots and root fibres till its evil sap touched every man of military age, in every family, in every community in Britain.

Another way in could be to choose a man (maybe your own relative), indicate briefly what he was doing before the war, then say that he went off in [date] to France and never returned, or something like that. Then go on to say that stories like his were played out in a thousand homes in Crewe and Nantwich and that your book is a record of their stories.

Eg - I'm just ad-libbing this:

"On January 2nd, 1915, Henry Stephens, grocer's assistant, of Ladysmith Street, Crewe, kissed goodbye to his wife Ellen and set off for the station to meet the train which would take him and his friends to war. Ellen never saw him again. There were a thousand stories like Henry's..."

Another idea might be to ask a local figure or even a well-known one to provide a couple of sentences to lead a reader in. When I did a website about something creative, Hilary Mantel generously wrote a paragraph for me as an introduction.

You may wish to include a brief indication of who you are, to establish your credentials.

Other people will have better ideas. I'm sure you'll come up with your own prose once your 'block' has been lifted!

Gwyn

PS Can we have a sneak preview of the cover design, please?

Edited 14 April , 2013 by Dragon

[Bernard_Lewis]

For what its worth:

During the Great War many thousands of men from Crewe and Nantwich marched away from their loved ones and towards the incessant sound of the guns. They went to help 'Poor Little Belgium' and in support of their King and country. Seeing action in all theatres, a staggering 1,200 were fated never to return to their homes, and instead found their final repose in a war cemetery, an unmarked corner of a muddy field or the cold, dark depths of the ocean. For the first time, as the 100th anniversary of the war approaches, the poignant stories of their sacrifice are recounted in this book which provides a unique record of the human cost of Crewe and Nantwich's contribution to the Allied victory.

Bernard

[Airshipped]

I'm very reluctant to throw stones given my own book/glasshouse ... BUT ... I'd have to say bear in mind a few points:

1. If you're going to produce a Kindle version your back cover will be discarded;
   
2. Include keywords that relate to the contents of your work (e.g. Crewe, Nantwich), as this makes it easier for your book to appear in electronic searches;
   
3. Avoid keyword spamming though, e.g. don't include words such as 'Cheshire Regiment' or 'David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, Admiral of the Fleet' if they're not actually going to appear in the work;
   
4. To help a user unfamiliar with British regiments or the battalions which were recruited from Crewe and Nantwich then avoid the Ronseal 'it does exactly what it says in the tin' approach, i.e. you may wish to add something by way of reference to the number of church or school war memorials you've encountered etc.
   

[salesie]

If the book is simply a list of names, addresses, occupations etc. of the fallen from those two towns then any blurb on the backcover that does not portray this would be pretty much disingenuous. However, if this book gives well researched human stories about at least some of those men then Gwyn's 'ad-libbing' would, in my opinion, do very nicely indeed.

Cheers-salesie.

[Bernard_Lewis]

Proof read it well - ideally get someone else to give it a good once over. In your post you've typed 'innocence' when you meant 'innocents' - can't afford similar errors in the book. I know its hard to spot errors in our own work - we get too familiar with it!

Bernard

[centurion]

The KISS principle needs to be followed.Something like

1n 1914, for the first time in a hundred years, the World was engulfed in war. Fighting spread across three continents from the mud of Flanders and Picardy to the jungles and deserts of Africa and Asia as millions clashed. It affected every community in the British Isles as ordinary men became soldiers and sailors and marched away to war, many never to return. This book tells the story of those men from Crewe & Nantwich who did not come home to their families and friends.

[tn.drummond]

Mark

I'm assuming that this is a 'local' publication.

Have you contacted the local Crewe or Nantwich press with a view to a pre-publication review ? You may also find local dignitaries helpful (Mayor or MP) happy to draft a

paragraph. Local publications are always good for an enthusiastic plug, Cheshire glossies etc.

Good luck

Tim

[Dragon]

I'm afraid the Cheshire glossies are more interested in promoting the marriages of the Cheshire Set, advertising divorce lawyers, advising you what to wear for an exclusive social event, selling you a handbag, plugging private schools, reviewing cars and reporting golf events. If, however, Mark were holding a book launch party, they would be a good place to look for salons to get your nail extensions done.

I am not a member of the Cheshire Set, by the way. I merely live here. The local papers are usually open to offers of material and most will print anything legal. I say usually because now some are not based in the towns they purport to serve.

Salesie, thanks.

Gwyn

[John_Hartley]

The Cheshire glossies - like Cheshire Life - have a book review page - and will publish just about anything that sounds local. Heck, I even got my Manchesters book into Staffordshire Life (or was it Derbyshire Life). It's all about filling the space between the adverts.

As for the back cover, it needs to tell folk who may not know what's what about the war, what the book is about. I rather like Gwyn's suggestion of the Henry Stephens paragraph at post #3.

[Dragon]

I was thinking of that free thing, the one which did a frightfully amusing piece about bras including every sexist pun in the repertoire. And there's another one aimed at Cheshire yummy mummies, designed as a handbag. (I am not joking. It might have folded by now.) Is 'Cheshire Life' a glossy? It's a bit weddingy, housey, horsey and slebby for me, but then I only see it in the magazines museum expiring on the dentist's coffee table.

I've had stuff in our local paper before it changed editor and ceased to be local. They aren't terribly interested in really old history, like before the Beatles. I did a piece for them about something which happened locally in 1917 and it might as well have been about Tutankhamen.

Gwyn