RA Tip: Book Annotations: Short and Snappy Made Easy

On Thursday, November 6th, the Reference & User Services Association (a division of the American Library Association) and NoveList hosted a webcast on writing annotations. A summary of the main points discussed in the presentation are:

REMEMBER ...

• ANNOTATIONS: 
• Market your collection
• Promote books to their particular audience
• Are easy to repurpose (use again)
• A GOOD ANNOTATION IS:
• Clearly written and easy to identify
• Focused on appeals
• Tailored to it's audience
• TO WRITE GOOD ANNOTATIONS:
• Read OR research the book
• Think about the book's audience
• Start with a narrative hook
• Include a brief plot summary (No spoilers!)
• Include the strongest appeal factors
• Provide context and readers'/viewers'/listeners' advisory
• Keep it enticing, attention-grabbing, and BRIEF!

Before publishing/posting - have someone proofread your annotation OR if no one is available, slowly read the annotation out loud to yourself. These can help in checking for mistakes and in fine tuning your annotation.


NoveList has a great tool for appeal factors, The Secret Language of Books: a Guide to Appeal

RA Tip: Six Degrees of Reading / Creating a List

Looking for ways to remember connections between titles so you can help customers with readers' advisory questions? How about creating your own Six Degrees list ...

Creating your very own Six Degrees of Reading list!

Start with a title you have read or know well and write a brief description; at least one sentence but no more than two. Include in the description an aspect of that title which appealed to you.

Although it can be, the connection does not have to be the genre, author, or main character. The aspect can be anything: a secondary character’s occupation, a location mentioned in the title, etc. Be creative! Go crazy and see where it can take your list! J

Connect that title to a second title using the same appeal aspect from the first. Then take an aspect from the second title, something different than the one you used for the first title and connect it to a third title.

Connect the third title to a fourth title using a different aspect for each title to connect to the following title. Continue on until you get to the sixth and final title, for an annotated list of six titles.

Then, and this is the hard part, figure out how the sixth title can link back to the first title on your list!  J

HINT: Choose the 1^st and 6^th titles FIRST and make sure they connect to each other! Some might call this cheating but I like to think of it as PLANNING AHEAD!  J

My Six Degrees of Reading List

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