It’s the November Booklab, and we’ve chosen two among the brave souls who have submitted their first pages (i.e. first 350 words) to us. As always, we read the page aloud, with no other information other than genre and (sometimes) title. We talk about what we read, how it was received, what we think we do and don’t know about the book and what we should know. We offer constructive comments to these writers, and to all writers, on how to make that first page work as hard for you as it can.
And then we answer the question: would we turn the page?
Kids, those first pages have to WORK. People download a book, or grab an audio sample, often without the benefit of your flap copy or the beautiful cover, and you need to sell them on sticking around from that first minute. I wrote about two novels that failed that test for me:
Don’t let readers bail out on your story before they even know what your story is. Get that first page right.
The full Booklab episode—and the chance to submit a first page for consideration for a future episode—is below the paywall.
