You have a book? What’s it About?

One of the first questions an author gets after someone finds out they have a book is, “What is your book about?” Any author worth their salt should have a stock answer, an elevator pitch, that describes their book in a concise way that will allow the conversation to quickly move to the next question. Which we hope is, “Where can I get it?” But, usually ends up being something more along the lines of, “I bet you got paid, right?” Which makes said author chuckle to themselves as they think about the stick of gum they bought with their advance. But I digress. An elevator pitch is similar to the blurb found on a book jacket. Mine looks something like this:

Warning! Opening this book will set the monkeys free. You are the only one who can catch them. It won’t be easy. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

It doesn’t tell you much about the book, but it is supposed to make you want to read it, especially if said author is looking for a publisher/agent/illustrator/etc. While this might work well in many instances, I am increasingly finding that readers want something a little more. More descriptive, more inviting, more fun. With that in mind, I present to you my full book description for Warning: Do Not Open This Book.

Warning: Do Not Open This Book starts off with a bit of this:

And it is followed with a quick one of these:

But, then there is one of these…

And, one of those, leads to all of this:

It becomes quite a bit of a mess there for a while. But, not to fear, because there is a plan. A good plan:

So, that’s what the book is about. Of course, Matt’s illustrations are awesome and these silly pics don’t do them justice. But, you get the idea, right? And, hopefully, you see how this relates to my elevator pitch. If not, tell me how badly I missed in the comments.