Congratulations, Erika!
The Great Write Way, Chapter Two: Twice upon a time...
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
Thanks, everybody!
Yay, Erika! Congratulations!
Gar, you have feedback. Not sure if it's any use - as mentioned, I'm clueless about non-fiction proposals - but for what it's worth, check your email.
Deb thanks! It is all useful.
OK - this is the modified paragraph. Still a weak hook?
An electric four passenger sedan travels from Boston to New York (216 miles) at normal highway speeds on a single charge; it uses so little power, that a gasoline powered car with equivalent mileage would need to get more than 200 miles per gallon. But, this is not the latest breakthrough, available at top prices to green yuppies; a test drive showed off the Solectria Sunrise on October 24, 1997 – a car slated to retail for as little as $20,000, less than the median price for new cars at that time. You have no reason to feel guilty for not owning one, though; it was never put on the market.
(The other stuff was easy to fix - except the summary which I'm still thinking about.) If we have a chapter by chapter summary do we need comprehensive summary of the book besides? Especially since it is essentially a list book. We are taking stuff and adding it up to come to a conclusion. A summary that left that out would be five paragraphs. One that put it in would duplicate the chapter by chapter summary.)
The table of contents on my site is the same chapter summary I used in my proposal, TB.
It's just supposed to be concise and snappy.
OK so the chapter summary can be the book summary. I had thought so. Cool.
I think Deb is right about my hook. Too much like a Junior High math problem.
So let me post this "hook" for the overview in hopes that it works better:
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Cooling it! No Hair Shirt Solutions to Global Warming, an optimistic book about a gloomy subject, explains the hundreds of existing technologies that together can completely replace fossil fuel at an equivalent cost – ranging from mid-priced 200 MPG cars to affordable solar electricity.
Unlike most renewable energy books, it emphasizes technology available on the market today with a net cost comparable to fossil fuel – dealing only briefly with future breakthroughs. Unlike most global warming books it focuses on solutions - spending little time trying to convince the skeptical quarter of the population that the problem is real. By concentrating on the technical case, it makes an urgent social point; political decisions, not technical incapacity are behind continued carbon emissions. Destructive expensive burning of fossil fuels, or dramatic cuts in standard of living are not our only choices.
Much better, Typo. Sounds good. I would read it.