I was not entirely in error when I posted I was “slowly bettering”, but a more accurate report seems to be “getting along, yes, but taking a boringly long time about it” and it’s keeping me from doing nearly as much as I would like.

Meanwhile, having posted notice here of Joliffe’s next book, A Play of Heresy, I have to comment on the description of it offered on Amazon.com, beset with errors as it is.  To the good, the first sentence is only slightly misleading – if it’s understood that “only slightly” is in comparison to the second sentence which has a completely false statement in it.  Still, on the whole, the description is better than what my publisher originally had in mind for the cover.  For reasons best known to those who wrote it, it gave away every major plot point except the answer to the final mystery.  A masterpiece of its kind, it did everything in its power to completely spoil just about every surprise the story contained.  I’m afraid you’ll have to take my word for it; for obvious reasons, I’m not going to quote it here!

I’ve come to appreciate that what goes on a cover to describe a book is a finer art than you might think.  Ideally, what goes on the cover should give enough detail to interest a reader in trying the book without giving so much away that there’s no point in reading the book at all.  At the same time, in an attempt to rouse interest, it shouldn’t be so inaccurate that the reader is annoyed when he discovers how badly he’s been misled.

Before my editor began kindly letting me see the proposed cover copy and allowing me to make changes to it, I had two unhappy experiences with too much being revealed, spoiling carefully crafted plot points.  Only once since then – due to a confusion of circumstances – has cover copy gone without my seeing it, and so on the jacket flap of the hardcover The Traitor’s Tale there are at least eleven errors of fact, including the name of the title character.  An impressive display of inaccuracy, to say the least!

– Margaret