Flog a Pro: Would You Pay to Turn the First Page of this Bestseller?
By Ray Rhamey | October 21, 2021 |
Trained by reading hundreds of submissions, editors and agents often make their read/not-read decision on the first page. In a customarily formatted book manuscript with chapters starting about 1/3 of the way down the page (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type), there are 16 or 17 lines on the first page.
Here’s the question:
Would you pay good money to read the rest of the chapter? With 50 chapters in a book that costs $15, each chapter would be “worth” 30 cents.
So, before you read the excerpt, take 30 cents from your pocket or purse. When you’re done, decide what to do with those three dimes or the quarter and a nickel. It’s not much, but think of paying 30 cents for the rest of the chapter every time you sample a book’s first page. In a sense, time is money for a literary agent working her way through a raft of submissions, and she is spending that resource whenever she turns a page.
Please judge by storytelling quality, not by genre or content—some reject an opening page immediately because of genre, but that’s not a good enough reason when the point is to analyze for storytelling strength.
This novel was number one on the New York Times paperback trade fiction bestseller list for October 24, 2021. How strong is the opening page—would it, all on its own, hook an agent if it was submitted by an unpublished writer?
As I sit here with one foot on either side of the ledge, looking down from twelve stories above the streets of Boston, I can’t help but think about suicide.
Not my own. I like my life enough to want to see it through.
I’m more focused on other people, and how they ultimately come to the decision to just end their own lives. Do they ever regret it? In the moment after letting go and the second before they make impact, there has to be a little bit of remorse in that brief free fall. Do they look at the ground as it rushes toward them and think, “Well, crap. This was a bad idea.”
Somehow, I think not.
I think about death a lot. Particularly today, considering I just— twelve hours earlier— gave one of the most epic eulogies the people of Plethora, Maine, have ever witnessed. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the most epic. It very well could be considered the most disastrous. I guess that would depend on whether you were asking my mother or me. My mother, who probably won’t speak to me for a solid year after today.
Don’t get me wrong; the eulogy I delivered wasn’t profound enough to make history, like the one Brooke Shields delivered at Michael Jackson’s funeral. Or the one delivered by Steve Jobs’s sister. Or Pat Tillman’s brother. But it was epic in its own way.
I was nervous at first. It was the funeral of the prodigious Andrew Bloom, after all.
You can turn the page and read more here. Did the opening page of the first chapter of It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover earn a page-turn from you?
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
My vote: Yes.
This book received 4.7 out of 5 stars on Amazon. While I almost always have an objection to including a batch of musing on a first page, the voice here rolled right through that—although, as you will see later, it wasn’t without its shortcomings. But what a delight it was to hear this very likeable voice start to tell me a story.
The opening about suicide is there to catch your mind, and then there’s a charming bit of bait-and-switch that is completely forgivable as it sends us inquiring about what happens next. There’s no real trouble here, but for me there were sufficient story questions about what she has done and its consequences to keep me engaged.
However . . . there was a prime bit of narrative that came soon after the opening page that really roused story questions for me, and I wish there had been less musing on the front page so that this could be included:
And father of Lily Bloom— that strange girl with the erratic red hair who once fell in love with a homeless guy and brought great shame upon her entire family. That would be me. I’m Lily Bloom, and Andrew was my father.
What do you think? Would having this on page 1 have made the opening significantly stronger?
Loading ...You’re invited to a flogging—your own You see here the insights fresh eyes bring to the performance of bestseller first pages, so why not do the same with the opening of your WIP? Submit your prologue/first chapter to my blog, Flogging the Quill, and I’ll give you my thoughts and even a little line editing if I see a need. And the readers of FtQ are good at offering constructive notes, too. Hope to see you there.
To submit, email your first chapter or prologue (or both) as an attachment to me, and let me know if it’s okay to use your first page and to post the complete chapter.
[coffee]
Ray Rhamey is the author of five novels and one writing craft book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. He’s also an editor of book-length fiction and designs book covers and interiors for Indie authors and small presses. His website, crrreative.com, offers an a la carte menu of creative services for writers and publishers. Learn more about Ray’s books at rayrhamey.com.
I was intrigued until the “gave one of the most epic eulogies” line. Not sure why, but it completely lost me there.
My reaction to the first page was no; there wasn’t enough there to interest me. However, your excerpt from a later page turned my no into a yes.
FWIW, I read this book a few years ago. While it is primarily a romance novel (although it flouts standard romance construction/rules), it offers a very frank portrait of the cycle of domestic violence. The author used several interesting devices to make it a page-turner. It’s not without any flaws, of course, but what book is? If you liked the opening, I recommend reading the novel (even if you aren’t a huge fan of romance novels).
Jamie or Ray, any idea why a book published several years ago is having such a resurgence? I voted yes too and will be reading but I’m curious why there is enough interest all this time later to make it #1 on the list?
There’s a piece at publishers weekly on the influence of TikTok. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/87304-how-tiktok-makes-backlist-books-into-bestsellers.html
“The rise in interest in It Ends with Us is one of the best examples of the impact of TikTok on book sales. A large community of TikTok users have carved out a corner of the app—called “BookTok” and codified through hashtags—for sharing their favorite books and authors. TikTok’s vibrant literary subculture emerged around the onset of the pandemic, when more young people were confined to their bedrooms, with few options for entertainment other than reading. BookTok influencers are predominantly teenagers and young women, excited to share their book-related opinions, rankings, and recommendations. When a book catches on among users (a common hashtag on BookTok videos is #TikTokMadeMeReadIt), the real-world results can be impressive.“
Thanks for sharing, Leslie!
Yes, and Hoover has a fanatical fan base that trends younger, so TikTok would be an ideal platform for word to spread. She’s fantastic at social media, BTW, but always manages to come across as funny, genuine, and emotional. Much like her fiction.
I would be a yes to both excerpts for the subject material and her voice, which is recognizable once you’ve read a few of her books.
…an offer I can’t refuse. Thx!
Thanks for including the “strange girl” graph, Ray. I had already voted YES but that graph would’ve made the choice more definitive. It reveals so much about our protagonist, her history, and her character beyond delivering a eulogy.
Yes from me, for once. We so often must slog through truly awful beginnings in these FTQ posts that this one is a refreshing change. The questions demanding answers keep coming. What is she doing on that high ledge if she’s not suicidal? Maine to Boston: so fast—escaping? What did she put into that eulogy, guaranteed, apparently, to alienate the mother she already speaks of dismissively? Most of all, I’m already fascinated by this character to want to find out more.
I agree about revealing the narrator’s identity earlier. Eliminating the musings about suicide would make space on the first page. A transition from “…see it through” to “I think about death…”would work well. If the musing about suicide is important to a later event, it can be planted in some other convenient spot.
Anna, I thought the same reading this first page. I would eliminate the musing and maybe the high ledge. Including more of the character so I can see her. Christine
I voted yes to both. It was a comfortable voice to settle into, and the subject matter piqued my interest. The addition of the second excerpt only solidified my decision.
I was so on the fence about just the first page that I couldn’t vote — but the extra paragraph you shared was a definite yes. How fascinating, that that one paragraph is pretty overwhelmingly intriguing to us (anecdotally based on voting and comments).
Just goes to show you how important what you put on the first page is. Thanks, Kristan.