The Excerpt Dilemma

Which Teaser will Lure How Many of What Reading Demographic?

I hope you’re enjoying the chapters so far.

I interrupt this regularly scheduled flow of free fiction to preserve some promotional prose picks for posterity.

“Real men read Henry Brown, from Virtual Pulp. Who do YOU read?”

It looks like Paradox will be a six-book series. And Book 5: Resisting Fate is just about ready for showtime. I have scheduled the e-book to go live just before the next Based Book Sale, so it will be available (at a steep discount) to shoppers of the sale.

What I’ve been doing with the Kindle versions of the book is pasting an excerpt in front of the first chapter, which is taken from deeper in the book. (Legacy publishers used to do that in trade paperbacks, back when tradpub wanted to sell to more demographics than just communists, feminists, and sexual deviants.) That way, using the “Read Sample” feature on Amazon, a potential reader could get a taste of the style and a hint of where the journey would take them.

This post is all about what excerpt to include. There are two excerpts below. The first one I chose, therefore the first one in this post, is not an action sequence.

Since Paradox, taken as a whole, is a time travel/coming of age/sports adventure/ men’s fiction/conspiracy thriller, I had plenty of genres to choose from to get the three that Amazon allows the author to pick. Because there is so much football in the series after the first book, and it is so important to the protagonist, that had to be one of the genres. And books 2-4 have gone pretty high on the bestseller charts in that category—sometimes without promotion.

At the point in the overall narrative where Resisting Fate picks up, the protagonist is playing for the Minnesota Vikings when Bud Grant was the head coach. Why not lean into a niche, sez I. That niche who liked or like the Vikings, and who remember Bud Grant.

With all that in mind, here is the excerpt I figured that would convince that target demographic they should read this book:

He was a bit of a mystery, this Bud Grant. He didn't say much; and didn't betray much emotion when he did say anything. And though he didn't speak a lot, he watched everything with a pair of piercing, steely eyes. You could feel the energy of those eyes when their gaze fell on you, and you got the impression nothing escaped his notice. I imagined he probably resembled a German panzer division commander…even more than Stauchel had.

Grant looked the part of the enemy. The villain or nemesis, if life was a movie. The opposing general. If I were a coach and saw him standing like a statue on the opposite sideline, chewing gum while scanning the field, but not speaking or betraying any emotion (which is what Grant did during games), I would probably get nervous wondering what scheme he was cooking up behind those cool, sharp eyes. He must be a robot, sending cybernetic messages to his purple-clad machine on the field, uploading the perfect scientific strategy for them to oppose your team's every play.

Grant had not succumbed to EJS (Ex-Jock Syndrome—the obesity that overtakes so many former athletes when they stop working out). I thought he was built like a receiver, a defensive back, or maybe even a basketball player. (It turned out, he had been all those things and more. He played football for the Philadelphia Eagles, as Van Brocklin had, played on a Minneapolis Laker team that won the NBA championship, and was a great pitcher in minor league baseball. He still looked the rawboned outdoorsman who had lettered in every sport.) Whenever I saw him, he was dressed in a polo shirt, with a ball cap on his head.

Rumor had it that he was a WWII Navy veteran. How and why he was involved in Canadian football, I didn't know. Same with why he was hired to be our head coach. Was it desperation, or inspiration?

The word that Grant was cutting me didn't come down right away. So I warmed up my passing arm and got busy with my own little pre-camp regimen. Grant must have crossed the field and looked in my direction a dozen times while I was tuning up; but didn't say anything to me all week.

One of my early theories was that he was a defensive-oriented coach. Apparently he recognized the talent of Jim Marshall, Carl Eller, and Gary Larsen, because he not only kept them, but added another fast, strong lineman, Alan Page, forming the best front four in football. He also kept stalwarts like Earsell Mackbee in the defensive backfield, adding rookie Bobby Bryant. Minnesota had received some top draft picks in the trade for Tarkenton, and most of it was spent on the defense.

Many of the draft picks spent during the Dutchman's tenure, however, proved to be wasted. Tommy Mason and tight end Hal Bedsole were two of the offensive players let go that year. I survived that round, but waited on the chopping block for the axe to fall. When wide receiver Gene Washington was drafted, I breathed a little easier. By expending a high offensive draft pick on him instead of a quarterback, that might indicate that the coaches intended to keep me around for at least a while.

I worked myself harder.

When I had first joined the team, I admit I was just going through the motions. Emotionally devastated from losing Madalina and the baby, then Juanita, I was numb and rudderless—not sure what I wanted to do. I took the job mostly because it was an opportunity I would only get once; and 99.9999% of football players would never get it. I didn't take it because I was gung-ho about football (or anything, really) at the time.

However, after watching Vikings like Bill Brown and Fran Tarkenton play for a couple seasons, my love of the game came back. I was honored just to be wearing the same uniform as those guys.

Still, I didn't like warming the bench. I wanted to get out on the field and play. I occasionally was egotistical enough to imagine I could do a better job than Frantic Fran; but every athlete probably experiences that...whether it's delusional or not.

Nevertheless, Tarkenton was gone, now. That left a slot open—a slot with huge shoes to fill; but an open slot nonetheless. Backup Bob Berry got traded away, and another trade landed journeyman John McClusky on our roster. McClusky was a competent backup quarterback; and seemed to be a stand-up guy; but nobody thought he was there to play first string.

I had assumed the worst—that Grant would send me packing as part of a new coach's house-cleaning rampage. But considering that a marquee receiver was drafted instead of a quarterback, I realized there was tremendous opportunity as well as tremendous risk. I was a quarterback with a strong arm, and a bowl championship. Maybe I could actually move into the starting slot. Even if Grant only kept me around long enough to find a different starting QB, there was a possibility I would finally get to first string. Even if we suffered another mediocre or losing season, I would still be able to say I was once a starting quarterback in professional football.

The more I thought about it, the more I felt the urge to take action. Either sell myself to our new head coach; or at least get an idea what his plans were, regarding me.

The next time I saw Grant alone outside, I interrupted my workout and marched across the field to meet him.

He saw what I was doing and slowed his pace, looking my way. That might be a good sign, I thought. If he had just kept on walking as if I didn't exist, I could be fairly sure I was on his Shit List.

When I reached him, we both stopped, facing each other, and I stuck out my hand.

"Hi Coach. Ike Jaeger," I said.

He shook my hand with a firm grip and locked eyes with me. I imagined twin spikes boring into my head.

"Good to meet you, Ike," he said. His taut lips didn't turn upwards in a conventional smile, but they compressed into what might be a congenial expression. "Did you not get the word about the start date for camp?"

"Yes sir, I did. But I wanted to get my sea legs before camp."

He looked me up-and-down. "Showing up already in shape is a smart practice. Then we don't have to spend time getting you in shape."

"I'll remember that," I said.

He nodded. "Where are you staying?"

"Motel a little ways out of town," I said.

"If you go to the front office," he said, "you can tell the secretary I said it's okay for you to move into Gage Hall early. Should save you some money."

"Thanks, Coach."

He nodded, and his body language told me he was about to continue on to whatever his destination was.

"Hey, Coach?"

He paused and turned those steely eyes back on me.

"I guess every player wants to start," I said. "I'm no different. I want to play. I want to start. If you give me a chance, I'll play hard for you. I won't raise a stink about salary or perks or any of that—even if I stay the lowest paid guy on the team. I'm not here for money. I'm here to play football, and I'll give you my best no matter what I get paid. I've got a pretty good arm and I want a chance to prove it to you."

I was hoping to get some kind of clue as to what he thought, but he only nodded, slightly. Just enough to acknowledge what I said—not enough to betray any thoughts he might have about it.

"Well…nice to meet you, Coach."

"Nice to meet you, Jaeger," he said, and went on his way.

Upon reflection, I realized I was making too many assumptions.

Assumption 1: There is a significant number of die-hard Vikings fans who read fiction.

Assumption 1A: Those fans read fiction in one of the genres that fits this series.

Assumption 1B: Those fans who read in these genres shop on Amazon and read the samples.

Assumption 1C: Those fans, who own a kindle, will be stoked that there are novels in which the Vikings under Bud Grant play a significant role.

Regarding the latter…in my experience, when a die-hard fan of something discovers there is a creative work about that something, they tend not to think: “Wow—entertainment based on something I’m passionate about! I have to buy this!” but instead react along these lines: “Hmmpf. They probably got this wrong and this wrong and that wrong. I bet it sucks. They probably don’t even know as much about the something as I do.”

On top of that, there are a whole heck of a lot more Patriot fans, Cowboy fans, Steeler fans, Niner fans, Chief fans, Eagle fans, and even Packer fans, than there are Viking fans. By putting that right up front, the odds are that I’m more likely to alienate Viking haters than to attract Viking fans. It’s probably a lose/lose strategy.

I should cast a much wider net. So here’s what I think I’m going with:

After nightfall, I geared up. My weapons of choice were a silenced pistol with subsonic rounds, and Double Threat. I donned a loose Predator suit over my load-bearing equipment, and replaced my polarized shades with thermal goggles.

I stalked the roving guards first, who patrolled a perimeter outside the camp. I got close enough to execute perfect head shots. The silencer on the pistol was exactly that: a silencer—not just a suppressor. Each time I fired a subsonic round, the only noise was the oily metallic shik-shik of the bolt cycling in the chamber.

I moved into the camp and took out the cage area sentries. Some of the Americans watched it happen, in amazement, but kept quiet.

I had timed it so that all this action took place at the beginning of a new guard shift. I crept around the area just to make sure there were no enemy assets unaccounted for, then returned to the cages.

"Brock Dozier," I whispered. "Lieutenant Brock Dozier, USMC?"

"Holy shit, where are you?" one of the caged Americans asked. "I heard you Sneaky Petes took camouflage seriously, but…"

I shushed him, while drawing a knife to cut through the ropes that held the bamboo together. "I'm setting you all free, but I need to find Lieutenant Dozier."

It took some time, because the prisoners were more interested in escape than in helping me find my friend.

"What are you, Ike—a ghost?" Dozier asked, when he saw my goggles and weapon floating on the night air but heard my voice speaking to him.

I freed all the prisoners, and guided them to the guards I had eliminated, so they could procure weapons and ammo. I inquired as to whether they were all pilots, or if any had experience in the jungle. One of the wounded men, his head wrapped in a filthy bandage, had been an infantry scout who lost consciousness from a head wound near the DMZ and had been captured by the Cong. I gave him a compass and advised the others to let him take charge of getting them back to a friendly base camp.

It was during this whispered conversation that an NVA officer emerged from the CP, headed toward the latrine. We could have escaped detection, but for some reason he chose to detour by the cages. When he saw them empty, he began to yell and blow a whistle.

I shot him down with the rifle, then loaded a grenade in the launcher and lobbed it at the CP. It exploded just outside the hut, knocking one wall in. Damn goggles made it hard to aim right.

I loaded and fired again. This time, the high explosive shell blew the CP to splinters.

Guards began swarming out of their barracks. The four Americans with captured AK-47s opened fire on them. I fired a grenade into the barracks and blasted it wide open.

"We need to di di mau!" the scout cried.

"Let's get the hell out of Dodge!" another POW agreed.

Any thoughts? Let me know in the comments.

Next time, I’ll have another chapter for you on the regularly-scheduled day.