Today has been spent with the girls at Granny and Grandads (thank you!) so I've not had a chance to write anything today, other than a quick attempt at an "elevator pitch".
What's an elevator pitch? Well - it's where you imagine you're in a lift with a publishing agent and you have 3 sentences to sell them your book before they get out.
The short pitch is the teasing information they put on the front cover to encourage you to pick the damn book off the shelf in the first place.
The long pitch is the blurb they put on the back or inside cover to persuade you to buy the book instead of putting it back on the shelf.
At the moment my long pitch is the first two paragraphs of my prologue so I'll be looking to change it sometime soon. Have a read and let me know what you think. Would you buy the book based on the following information?
The Short Pitch
Who is Miss Esme Smith? That's the question Dr Rosanna Blake really wants answered before the end of a very long shift...
The Long Pitch
If you’re lucky, you only go to hospital twice in your lifetime; once on the way in and once on the way out. Imagine what hospitals would look like if that were really the case? One wing would be a maternity unit, the other a morgue and, joining them in the middle would be a gift shop giving equal importance to pink teddy bears, blue balloons and white lilies.
Of course, hospitals are needed for all those unscheduled problems in between being born and dying. Hundreds of thousands of stories unfold in them every day; around each and every hospital corner is a new story with new characters - ordinary people living their ordinary lives, yet having an extraordinary day in a vast hospital complex.
Miss Esme Smith is one such unfortunate soul. Tired, lost and confused - she simply wants to see a doctor and go home to bed. Dr Rosanna Blake also wants to go home. It's been a long day and it's about to get even longer.
The Elevator Pitch
Lovingdell General Hospital is busy today: there’s Elizabeth (a six year old with a sore throat and suspicious father), Brian (a rather young and very scared new dad), Marge (a paranoid and hysterical nearly new mum) and Lottie (who’s ended up at the wrong end of a knife attack) for a start. Then there’s Esme – a seventy-five year old woman with a wrist laceration who wants to go home but can’t because a certain Dr Rosanna Blake won’t let her. Dr B also wants to go home (it’s been a very long day), but she needs to know something first: Who is Miss Esme Smith?
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