*laughs at her topic title and attempts to say it five times fast*

Urg, it's so hard to come up with these.

I actually had another thought about this the other day: I think oftentimes, the 'hook' can (and sometimes should) be the title itself.
Because the title can grab someone's attention and interest (enough for them to want to buy it and read it) but it also leaves some good mystery as to what the book is about. Which can make someone want to read it even more.

Some of you may recall that I sometimes have (metaphorically) violent reactions to blatantly manipulative advertising ... of the sort that screams "Read this book so you'll want to read these ten other volumes that are package exactly the same!" instead of "Read this book because it's a good book!" And I have to say that every book I can ever remember coming across (that I read any of) that had a "hook" like this prominently displayed on its cover gave every indication of being a clear case of manipulative marketing. (Some were good books regardless, mostly those dating from the "bad old days" when publishers would insist on covers, blurbs, and taglines that were only tangentially related to the book. When Ace published H. Beam Piper's Junkyard Planet, for example, they renamed it The Cosmic Computer and put on a cover, tagline, and blurb describing it as a computer-takes-over-the-world story, which could hardly be more wrong while still getting the names of characters, the planet, and the computer in question right.) So if you want me, and those like me, to buy your book ... think long and hard before you decide to put a "hook" on the cover.

Some of you may recall that I sometimes have (metaphorically) violent reactions to blatantly manipulative advertising ... of the sort that screams "Read this book so you'll want to read these ten other volumes that are package exactly the same!" instead of "Read this book because it's a good book!" And I have to say that every book I can ever remember coming across (that I read any of) that had a "hook" like this prominently displayed on its cover gave every indication of being a clear case of manipulative marketing.

So if you want me, and those like me, to buy your book ... think long and hard before you decide to put a "hook" on the cover.

* thoughtful * I know precisely what you mean, actually. I am more sensitive than most people to manipulative advertising. But I've developed a philosophy of 'keep the good ones and let the bad ones go', so it doesn't affect me as much anymore. I generally just laugh inwardly at it. I realize that this would be a problem for some, though.

I think that generally speaking, however, people like Hooks. They're appealing to most people. At least in a lot of target areas.

You brought up another good point, though. About accuracy. There are few things that irritate me more about a book than a hook (or any kind of description, for that matter) that misleads me about the book. I hate it. I know how hard it is to write a blurb or hook that is appealing and draws the reader, but – * tight grimace * It frustrates me to no end when they are inaccurate.

Though the ones that aren't questions draw me in more than the ones that are, generally. I think the main reason is that they tend to ask questions like 'Will she find her true love?' My reaction is 'Yes. Next please.' In other words...if you must ask a question, don't ask one I know the answer to, or you aren't intriguing me.

The greatest heroes have the darkest pasts

I've also thought of another way of putting my objection to what we're here calling "hooks." Titles, cover illustrations, blurbs, quotes from reviews, and nearly everything else on and inside the cover is intended to sell the book. A "hook," on the other hand, is intended to sell hype that will then sell the book. And my "vehement reaction to manipulative marketing" might be put more picturesquely as an "allergy to hype."

Fortunately, in this modern age of Internet customer reviews, if a publisher tried the sort of bait-and-switch I mentioned being common at one time (in the '70s?), we'd learn about it really quick.

Sometimes book hooks can be very misleading, like the one for Steelheart: "His weakness is their greatest strength." I mean, once you've read the book you're like, what the heck?

We took a look
We saw a Nook
On his head
He had a hook
On his hook
He had a book
On his book
was "how to cook."

We saw him sit
And try to cook.
He took a look
And the book on the hook

But a Nook can't read,
so Nook can't cook.
SO....
What good to a Nook
Is a hook cook book?