Writing the Book Back Blurb

Writing that little catch that lets people know what your book is about? Either on the back of the book or Amazon. Writing the blurb to lure people into buying your book takes real talent. It's one of the hardest things to do. Take the story you've spend months, hours, weeks, years working on, a story with many bends, twists and turns, and shove it into a few lines. Lines that have to be good enough to make the reader want to see more. Are you exciting enough? Daring enough? Do you need to tug heart strings? Use keywords so they can find you in that big old web?

I rewrite my blurbs over and over. I put the book, Soul Mates up on Amazon and sold a few, nothing amazing. So now my next book, Betrayed by an Angel will be going up soon and I started rethinking my other blurb. So I changed it from;

After dying on mean city streets a woman goes to heaven and begs God to reincarnate to bring the message of unconditional love back to earth. Follow the adventure when a deal with God goes terribly wrong she's tossed back to earth as one of the smallest dogs on the planet.

to;

     She was dying. Her life draining away on a hot city sidewalk and she gave it up willingly. Life had been hard and she was ready. With a jolt and a prayer she awakens in Heaven.

     Through her flows all the joy and wonder of existence and she comes face to face with God. Overwhelmed, she begs to reincarnate to share this wonderful message of God’s unconditional love with those on earth. Will God give her this chance?

     One thing before she goes, “Please,” she begs. “I want to be blond and petite and find my soul mate in this new life.”

     Poof! She wakes up on earth as one of the smallest dogs on the planet!

                                                  Does God have a sense of humor or what?

Is it any better? Some of my sources says it still needs work. I just don't know what. 

Now I'm writing the blurb to book 2 and still struggling. Like that 2 minute agent elevator pitch, that little eye catching book blurb mystifies me. I think its a special talent to think in words so brief. My mind tends to ramble. 

So? How's your blurb talent? 

Writers & Book Covers & Choices

I've gotten some feedback on my choice of book cover so I'm trying to redo it. I have a few people helping and I'm very grateful for their ideas. It gives me so much more to think about now. I'm still not sure which way to go. On one I liked the wings better than the wings I  made.

This book is a romance involving angels. There was a great angel picture on the net that would be perfect but it would cost at least $120. That's without checking licensing. Some pictures I found, after checking the fee for book cover usage, were outrageously priced.  Most romance covers have hot guys or girls on the cover but actually, I don't want to pay that much money at this point. My first book isn't making that  much money so I'm on more of a shoestring budget right now.  I think I can generate an adequate cover on my own. (okay, make that HOPE I can generate an adequate cover)

What do we need when looking at a cover? Bold title? Eye catching background? What's your way of designing a cover? What's the first step?

I look at the cover designer that Konrath uses. He does great work and is reasonably priced. Maybe someday when any of these books generate some money I'll invest in his covers.

So I come here for a vote. Pick your favorite? Or tell me I'm totally off base here and none will help sell the book. It's okay, I need advice!

Writers Designing Book Covers

Since I'm an unemployed writer and not seeing any great sales (yet), I'm doing my own book covers. I do them in photoshop and publisher, change to a pdf and done!

Eventually I'll hire a book cover designer and maybe my covers will get awesome but for now I make due with what I can do.

In searching photo sites i found a great picture for the cover of my next book, Betrayed by an Angel. The book is about a guardian angel who refuses to help a woman cross over when she dies. Instead he saves her life. Because he didn't follow the rules he's banished to earth as human. There's more to this book but when i found a pic of a man with angel wings, head bent down, looking sad I thought it would be a perfect for the cover. I went to purchase it and if i wanted it for a book cover it would have cost $1000.

Really? Holy crap! My first car didn't cost that much. (okay it was a crappy little Maverick-but I loved it)

So I winged it and made a different kind of cover. It's kinda close to the cover for my first book which I don't think is too good an idea but until I come up with a better concept, it is what it is.     First book: Soul Mates
Second book: Betrayed by an Angel      

Writing Ten Pages

I read Stephen King stays at his desk until he writes at least ten pages.
Sounds easy, right?

Sometimes, I guess it is. Today, not so much. I've never had such a hard time squeezing out ten pages. I kept starting to stand up and then dropping back into the chair, remembering I promised myself ten pages today.

I'm drawn to this vampire story for some reason. Its a little outside my usual writing, but its like exploring a new land. I want to see where its going to go. The ten pages today were torture. I finished about 3 o'clock. Not too bad overall but the writing was hard. I counted every minute, every word, every page.

Then I finished editing the first 100 pages of another book. Tonight I'll print out another 100 pages and edit that between other working on other stuff.

I decided to start setting goals from reading Zoe Winters' site. She does word count each day and she's fairly prolific.

Do you set writing goals? What are they? Do they
help?

That's Hemingway's cat cemetery. -->
He really did love his kitties.

Free or Cheap Book Sales

Hoping my next ebook will be out shortly, I've made Soul Mates 99 cents. Also, I should have it in print soon. Not that I'm expecting any great increase in sales but I've had a few less tech savvy people ask for a paperback copy.

I'm researching marketing now. Book blasters (I'm not sure that's the technical term-places that send out emails of your book to their lists) and book bloggers. Holy Bejeebers! This is time consuming. I've been at it all morning and still don't know what the freak I'm going to do. Pay, don't pay, beg, steal, borrow, plead?

I'm cranking up my marketing strategy because from what I've read on Konrath and Amanda Hocking's blogs ...that's the thing to do to increase your sales. Amanda said her sales really took off after contacting book bloggers. That surprised me. I only wish she had told me who she sent her book to, which bloggers. But I guess I can google that. Right now I'm tired of all this market research. Its exhausting and I haven't written a word all day. Which makes me feel guilty. Since I'm unemployed I don't really want to pay a lot of money, but wonder if this is something that should be invested in for long term gains. I don't need to be a millionaire. (although I will be going out today to buy some Powerball tickets -->260 million<-- a=""> ) I just don't want to have to return to the cubical. 

Ok, Enough of a vent. I'm going to take my cranky-pants back into my office and write something worth reading. If anyone has any ideas for promoting ebooks PLEASE tell me!

Down Time

One book written, more in the Body Count (that's the name of the file I keep all my half finished manuscripts in). So do I plunge in and do a second (third, forth..) draft on something from the Body Count or take a break?

Sometimes I think a break will clear my head and make moving on to the next book easier. Other times I just want to write badly for a while. I want to through stuff down without worrying about proper placement, punctuation or flow. I want to finish a vampire story that I started last year. It will probably go nowhere because someone told me vamps are over and zombies are now in.

Is that true?

Will vampires ever go out of style? Those sexy creatures of the night? I mean vamps have been in since  Ann Rice made the big splash so long ago. And how about the original Dracula? Barnabas Collins?

I have a book with zombies too but I don't feel like working on that. It's 500 pages. I'm not sure how that fell out of my head, but the rewrite will be hell.

Pic is the desk parts. Sketching in where the burn will be. Next step --> the top sketch.

So, when you finish a book do you take a break or jump right in? Are vamps really out?

Writer's Desk

 They may look like random pieces of wood, but soon they will be my new writing desk.
With pictures
and colors.

I'm going to burn it with images and words that will inspire me. Some just because they're pretty, some because they mean something.

Below is the rough sketch of ideas. It might or might not end up like that but only time and paint will tell.

I think writing is part creativity, part tools, part time. And mostly ass in chair.
Thinking about the old writers advice, "Ass in Chair" I'm thinking of burning those words into my desk in an inconspicuous place where I'll know they're there, but others might not notice. then I wonder if it would be too crude?

But first I have 50 more pages to finish editing for my new ebook, Disregarding Heaven. Hopefully it will be up on Amazon in a week or two.

And I need a cover. Unemployed, I'm probably going to do it myself. Something simple. When my books actually start making money, I'll hire a cover artist. For now, I'm all I've got. Maybe tomorrow we can talk about covers and how to figure that stuff out.

Writer, Writer, get in your chair

Writing...I'm supposed to be writing...
Yet here I am blogging, but I have a good excuse. Something landed in my email box today that I wanted to share.

Galley Cat has a page with free ways to promote your book.

BookBaby lets you put your book on their FB page. I put mine up and it disappeared. I don't know what's up with that. Did I do it wrong? Anyway, go check it out on this page

I think I found BookBaby on J.A.Konrath's page but don't quote me here. He lists a couple he's used on his blog. I also want to say to those new to my blog, Konrath's site has lots of good marketing ideas.

Ok, I'm in my chair...now I just have to get off the internet!

Picture is of Hemingway over his fireplace in Key West. I think the artist missed something in the calf muscle or Hemingway had a problem.

Later gators....I got a book to finish.

Writing Degrees and Careers

The writing seminar was fairly informative. It covered what to do with a career in creative writing, poets, and fiction writers. It really didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

First they covered poets. If you want to do this the best thing is to go into teaching at a college level. Get your masters at least. They discussed how to work as a TA so you don't have to pay for the masters program and it will give you experience teaching. However it was suggested you get a doctorate because most colleges are now insisting you have that to teach. (Stockton College in New Jersey will only hire Phd's and had that rule for at least the past 10 years)

To go into the industry as editors, publishers, etc it's best to get the Masters to make you more competitive in the job market but you can do it with a Bachelors.

On line content mills usually just want a degree or some creds behind your name but that varies. The presenter didn't seem to really know much about this or the effect of Google's Panda on the mill life. I'm not even sure if she knew what I meant when I questioned her about online writing and content mills. My own experience with the Panda got me booted from Demand Studios (ehow, Livestrong).  I think because the Panda hit them so hard, they got rid of anyone without a degree. Reading ehow articles now I think they did a disservice to their writers. In my own opinion, the quality is not what it was before Panda. I'm sure someone with a degree who is making a measly $15 an article isn't spending much time to research what they're writing about, they have ways to make better monies. It shows. Most ehows don't have the details they once did. I'm sure this could have been editors too. If an editor is unfamiliar with the information given, they could remove necessary content from an article. (I don't want to just blame the writers here--we can blame everyone!) Instead of just axing good writers, they should have concentrated on reminding writers  how to use keywords and redesign the sites for the new way Panda evaluates.

Fiction writers?  A bachelors was suggested but the talk here mostly was information about networking with other writers at conferences. The presenter LOVED conferences. She listed all the big ones on the board and spoke of ways to get in for free. Several conferences will give a sort of scholarship for writers without the funds to attend or for various other reasons. She suggested trying for these. She didn't mention Romance Writer's of America which has a local conference here in NJ once a year. Although you don't have to write romance to belong, this is also a cheaper conference and you can still network with agents and publishers. She didn't mention Liberty State Fiction writers, a multi-genre organization, also has a conference this month and much cheaper than the big conferences. They too have all the NYC agents and publisher in to give seminars on writing and publishing.

Then she talked about agents and how necessary it was to get one and that led us back to networking at conferences. She also said agents take 10%. I thought it was 15% and never heard of an agent taking less. Am I out of the loop here?

Most of what she talked about I already knew. I could also have added to to it from my own research and experience. I suggested literaryagents.com in a search for an agent. She also didn't mention the option to publish on Amazon. (I didn't bring it up.) She said if you send that book out to an agent a dozen times with no bites maybe it sucks! I didn't like that remark because John Grisham is on record for saying he sent A Time to Kill out over 100 times before an agent bit. What if he had stopped at 12? I didn't say anything there either, but felt it did the group a disservice.

One thing I've found now that I'm back in school and taking classes related to writing is how hard it is to keep my mouth shut! :-x

I've been studying about the publishing, agents, content mills, and writing in general for years so I already knew a lot of this stuff. Some of my teachers have a more limited scope of things and seem to approach writing only from one side when there are so many options out there for writers nowadays.

As we continue our tour of Hemingway's estate in Key West, this is a picture of the outside of his upstairs office. Its a building behind the main house.