Mouse and Dragon Poll: May Contain Spoilers!

[rolanni]

This poll asks you to read something and then answer some questions. Please feel free to leave opinions and observations in comments.

Part One:
Aelliana Caylon has escaped her abusive family. She's found love in her starship co-pilot--a man who turns out to be the leader of Korval, the most powerful clan of the Liaden Universe®. But destiny never intended an easy life for Aelliana. Insidious  forces within the empire are determined that a new line of Korval heirs be destroyed and that Clan Korval itself be blasted to interplanetary dust. The fight for the future of the Liaden Universe® is on, and one heroine is determined to protect her family and her soulmate at all costs!


Part Two:
[Poll #1790197]

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I can't do the ticky box AND answer "yes, I'll tell you in comments" *g*.

I was oscillating between "annoyed" and "I never read synopses", because my real answer is "On the rare occasions I read a plot synopsis, if it is different from the book then I get annoyed". Also, it depends on the synopsis and when I see it. If it's an outline for a book being written (as pre-publicity from the author, for instance) then no, I won't be annoyed if the book doesn't match it well when it finally comes out. You showed me with Fledgling and Saltation how much that can vary (and thank you for that exercise, I found it and your other posts about writing a very good insight into the process and I'm now a lot less likely to complain about such things). However, if it's "about the book" blurb eithe on the back of the book or on a promotional or sales website (like the Amazon book descriptions) then I may get annoyed if the book turns out to be very different.

To whom would I address such annoyance? The person who wrote the incorrect summary, if that is obvious, otherwise to the place which published it. And, if I am in touch with the author (for instance here) I would probably direct the author's attention to the incorrect blurb in case they want to do something about it (a correction from you to your publisher will probably carry more weight than mine, for instance, and your publisher may then carry more weight with Amazonor whoever). I hope I would suppress the annoyance in such a missive, however, because I know that it's not the author's fault (and even if they wrote it originally they can make mistakes as well as I can).

In general, much the same as a book cover it's a vehicle for advertising, not aimed at the person who already has the book, and my annoyance will usually be that people are being put off by the incorrectness (is that a word? It should be).

I put 100% for the accuracy above, on the basis that as I recall everything in the blurb describes something in the book. Obviously it doesn't describe 100% of the things in the book.