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DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
I am debating on creating a short-story anthology of a few pieces I have, and have been trying to come up wtih a blurb. I am hitting a bit of a stonewall, since most of the short story anthologies on amazon are using their clout and prestige to market the book. Ursula Le Guin I am not, and I don't think my name will sell any books.
I have a few comp titles that I am mimicking the blurb off of. Would you be able to let me know what you think, and if you have any short story anthologies you can recommend, I would love to research them!

Comp Title:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0180T0INQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
https://www.anvilpress.com/Books/bad-endings

Title Of Book:
The Light Shines Through

Advice:
Do not start with a rhetorical question.

Blurb 1
In The Light Shines through readers will encounter two immortal thieves scouring Belgium, one of them desperately searching for a legacy, the other hiding the answer. A wayward child searching for his grandma jumps to a family reunion full of time travelers. A TV desperately trying to save its owner.
Each story explores incredible characters in unique situations, and how each of them reacts to the dark storm clouds in their lives. And in the end, they will learn that even in the darkest of times, the light shines through.


Blurb 2
Two immortal thieves scour the night, one of them desperately searching for a legacy, the other hiding the answer. A wayward child searching for his grandma time travels to the family reunion, only to encounter future consequences. A sentient TV desperately tries to save its owner, but finds it lacks the power.
Each of these five short stories explores incredible characters in unique situations, and how each of them struggles in their bleakest moments. In the end though, they will learn that even in the darkest of times, the light shines through.

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DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
Thanks everyone! I slept on it, and edited it a bit more. Are there any rules/advice on having "Comp titles" in your blurb? ((See first paragraph))

For fans of speculation fiction and Apex Magazine comes a debut collection of short stories that focuses on the human struggle during dark times.
Two immortal thieves scour the night, each desperately trying to create a legacy. A wayward child searching for his grandma travels through time to the family reunion, only to encounter past consequences. A sentient TV tries to save its owner, despite its programming.
Each of these five short stories explores unique characters and how they struggle in their bleakest moments. In the end they will learn that even in the darkest of times, the light shines through.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
Just wanted to say thanks for the comments on my blurb. I rewrote it, managed to get it to the point where its not good, but I know I put the effort in.

Dunno if this is allowed, but I used booksidemanner.com for some copy edits, and they were awesome! Now, onto making a cover :)

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

newts posted:

I’m actually not sure of the right genre yet. Paranormal mystery? Psychic detective? Sci-fi mystery? Mystery? Police procedural? It doesn’t fit neatly into any of those, although there are very similar book series in each of those categories.

Still, none of those have illustrated covers as the norm.

Ohh, you're lucky. Lot of Urban Fantasy/Psychic Detective covers you can follow. Might want to look at A Murder of Mages cover. (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23590634-a-murder-of-mages)

Actually, I could use some help. Most of the pre-design covers I look at are more Person/Object in frame, which isn't something I can do with my anthology. I found a cover I like



Would I be completely crazy if I asked any of these pre-design cover places to mock up a cover like the above?

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
It will be a short story collection that I'm making. I'm going into it with no expectations, and It's been a lot of fun. I've already learned a ton of what not to do!

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

Captain Log posted:

The hard thing to really grasp is the "Choose your Adventure" publishing game. My father, last publishing in 1989, very much thinks -

- You write
- You submit to everywhere, expecting a poo poo ton of rejection letters
- You get published or offered a contract

I'd kill for such a streamlined process.

Not doing this as a living, that's how I got my works published in 'zines. I am going to assume you are doing it differently and pursuing getting an agent, and making this a career?

Just wondering how it is different nowadays? Is it more networking/representation?

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

The Fuzzy Hulk posted:

100 times this. I wrote a bunch short stores back during the borrows phase mostly as a joke, and them bundled them when it changed to page reads. I have not written/published a drat thing since 2017. I don't think I have checked my sales/KENP in months.

But Amazon keeps putting a few hundred bucks in my account on the 29th.

That passive income made every single payment on the loan for my car. It was like getting a brand new Ford Fusion for free, and to be honest my books are terrible.

Oh, I'd be interested in hearing more! Are you doing KDP publishing?

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

KrunkMcGrunk posted:

hoooo boy, lemme tell ya: if you're selling paperbacks, do NOT choose a 6 x 9 trim. Doing so will lower your page count on Amazon, and, as much as writing in an art form, there is still a value proposition that readers care about, and if they think your book is too short for the price, they ain't buyin'.

I switched from 6 x 9 trim, and a 192 page count, to 5 x 8 trim, and a more genre-appropriate 280 page count. it's been kind of a hassle with phone calls to KDP support, but I think the higher page count will make a big difference for me.

Also, by going 5 x 8 , you don't have to stretch out your ebook cover.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
Launch day is in a few days for me. This was very much a first-time publishing thing/vanity project. Would there be any value in me posting my thoughts/processes here?

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

oliveoil posted:

Has anyone paid attention to litrpgs? Wondering what the best examples of the genre are. From both quality and popularity, if those are different in this genre.

Edit: lmao why do half of these have women with huge boobs on the cover? Did I just stumble on the male-audience equivalent of alpha male shape-shifting billionaire romance novels?

Take this worth a grain of salt, but LitRPG shares an audience with the Iseakai genre and readers of Reader Player One. Typically anime has explored the litRPG before, .hack/Sign being a great example. Since that makes your audience pre-dominantly male, maybe that's why they are advertising with some TNA.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
Hey my ebook/paperback released, and I wrote up a quick guide on how I did it! Feel free to critique, or offer pointers!

Who this is for?
This is for people who want to know how to format their manuscript into an ebook. We won’t be covering how to write, I am going to assume you already have your manuscript written. I am going to admit that I didn’t do this for the money, though some of these stories had already sold. Mainly I wanted a small book to give to my family members and friends.

TLDR - just tell me what resources you used]
  • Scrivener - To write and compile manuscript to .epub format
  • Libre OfficeWriter - To convert manuscript into PDF
  • Kindle Previewer - To review the .epub
  • https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201834230 - To grab the proper size template for my paperback
  • Fiverr.com (NicoleClare91) - Cover
  • BookSideManner - Copy Editing
  • GIMP - Converting Cover to 300 PDF DPI

Formatting The Manuscript - Epub
I use scrivener for writing, as I find it helps me keep organized. When it came to formatting, I found it useful for the ebook format, less so for the paperback. A quick note about formatting, keep in mind I just wanted a basic-rear end book. I didn’t incorporate any themes.

Within Scrivener, I setup each “Chapter” into it’s own folder, and gave the folder a name.


Each Scene is the full story, with scene breaks manually denoted by ***



Front Page matter (Dedication and Cover) I let Scrivener setup in their own folder. Amazon overwrote the "default" cover, so that was good. For now I was mainly focused on turning this into an ebook. To do that I used Scriveners compile method.



Scrivener lets you compile your manuscript into many different formats, epub included. So I choose to use Scrivener, messed around with the section layouts, and got a decent .epub version out.

Reviewing Manuscript - EPUB
With the .epub version done, I was able to download Kindle Previewer and check through the manuscript. I had to recompile a few times, either due to spacing errors, or just not liking what Scrivener did with sections. Once I had what I liked, I then uploaded my .epub to Amazon, and went to work on the Paperback version.

Formatting The Manuscript- Paperback
I had a devil of a time getting Scrivener to work with Paperback. When I tried to upload a formatted .docx, Amazon disliked that, and some of my text even bled over the pages. I decided to use Amazon’s paperback templates, and decided to use standard 6”X9” size (this later proved to be a problem).

So, now that I had the template, what I did was go into Scrivener, compile my manuscript into .docx, then manually copy and paste into the amazon template. Are there better ways to do this? Yes, oh god yes. Did this work? Yes.

I had to mess a bit with my table of contents, and fix some of the spacing and headers, but eventually I got my manuscript converted and ready to go! I promptly uploaded my .docx to amazon, and immediately hit issues.

Turns out, that converting it to a PDF was the way to go. I followed the documentation here, tweaked LibreOffice Writer to convert it as PDF, and uploaded. Finally I had it working, and it looked decent.

Reviewing Manuscript - Paperback
Amazon is rather helpful for the paperback version. After you upload your manuscript, you are forced to review the paperback. It shows you your cover, your pages, bleedthrough and other things.

Making Sure I Can Sell my Stories
Before we move further, just a quick note. Some of these stories were sold to magazines. I had to read the contracts to verify I could publish those stories in my own collection, and even reached out to the editors of the magazine. The editors were very helpful, and if you are in my situation I would recommend you ask the magazine first, rather than take my advice.

When reviewing the contracts, the stuff I had to pay attention to was:

Please note that 1 week is not standard, the magazine was incredibly generous :).

Editing/Critique
Another quick note, make sure whatever you are publishing is critiqued. I am fortunate enough to have a few writer friends that critiqued my work, and that I trusted to give me honest critique.

As part of that critique, questions of whether or not I was still in third grade came up, so I used Bookside Manner (Thanks thread!) for the copy edit. Their service was great, and I am going to use them again.

Theme and Title
Allright, now that the editing, critique and legal stuff is out of the way, I immediately ran face first into a wall. That wall was “What should I title this thing.” and “What is my theme.”

*Cough* We are going to get moopy here for a second *Cough*

I highly suggest you leave your emotions in the dedication and in the stories, not in the title and theme. Don’t do what I did and come up with the title during a time of family-crisis.

I would say this is where my problems started. My aim for the theme was “feel-good” stories, kind of like Chicken Soup for the Soul,and the title was supposed to involve silver lining in clouds.

Instead what I got was a title more akin to a christian novel, and it didn’t help that another author with the same name wrote a how to masturbate guide for christians. When I do this again, I will spend a lot more time on the Theme and Title.

Cover
So, now that we have a terrible theme and a terrible title, its time to get a cover! This was actually the most frustrating part of the process (That 6” by 9” paperback formatting is going to bite me in the rear end)!

Before we delve further, I want to point out how much of a pain in the rear end the cover was.

  • First, I decided to do a collection of short stories, which meant I couldn’t do the standard cool person standing definitely in a cool stance cover.
  • Second, a lot of short story collections have the authors name in FULL BOLD PRINT on the cover, to try and get your attention. Nobody except my Mom and Dad cared that Mike McArthur wrote this. So my comp covers were few and far between
  • Third, I ignored a lot of advice given in threads and online. And if you are going to do that, you don’t get to belly ache about the your sales number, or quality of work.

What I did do, was find some covers I did like, and noticed that I was going towards a more artsy cover, rather that design focused. This helped me narrow things down, and provide examples to designer creators.

So I promptly went to a custom cover creator, put some money down, laid out some instructions and waited… and waited… and waited.

Then I found out the cover creator got covid. With not a lot of time left (More on that in marketing) I decided to go to Fiverr. I tried out a few people, and found that my ill decisions on theme and title were causing some people some grief. Lot of covers with lightbulbs, or seagulls and lens flares. (Again, this is MY fault, not the designers fault).

Fortunately, one person got what I was looking for, mainly thanks to my comparative titles. I received an awesome cover! It’s not a “Buy me” cover, and admittedly goes against a lot of the advice, but it was a cover I liked.

So with the cover ready, I promptly attached it to my ebook and it worked great. When I went to add it to the paperback, two things came up

  • I had to convert the image to a PDF, using 300DPI
  • I had specified that my book was 5” by 8” for page count (Smaller area == more pages) and for image quality (5” by 8” is typical ebook size, so I wouldn’t have to expand the cover)

So I immediately had to reformat my paperback version to accommodate the size. After an hour or two of fighting with Libre Office, I got it done.

Marketing
DO NOT USE REDDIT, UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEF, OR AN AMAZING COVER

First off, anyone hoping to learn the marketing secrets and how to make $100 off ebooks is going to be very sad. Please note this was mainly a vanity project.

I am fortunately enough to be known in my regional writing circle, and was part of a live-reading. This was going to be my primary form of marketing, and I was okay with it. During the live-reading I read one of my stories from the collection, and announced the preorder of my book.


This was well received and I immediately jumped to #3 spotlight in Fantasy Anthologies (For approximately one hour), which just goes to show you should be skeptical when authors announce “I’m #1 in XYZ category”. I had 11 preorders to get to that spot, and I was very grateful to be there.

When the book launched, I advertised it via word of mouth to the writing groups I am in, as well as facebook. Again, mainly selling to an audience of my friends and family.

What happened next was weird. I had another 2 orders from the ebook, and promptly got roughly 30 orders for my paperback. The paperback orders only show up when they ship, while the ebook versions showed up immediately. This made figuring out how many books I sold a bit cumbersome, but I was very grateful never the less.

Sales Numbers and Royalty Rates

So in total, I had about 45 orders of my book. My Kindle Edition Normalized Pages was about 56 (I have no idea what this graph is trying to tell me)

I am going to assume 56 pages is great for a first-time, no marketing, book, and would like to pre-emptively thank my mother for reading it.

My pricing structure was as follows
Ebook: 2.99
Paperback: 5.99

I’ll comment on the pricing a bit later. The actual royalty rates were
Ebook: 70% , so 2.06 a book
Paperback: 60% but Printing costs are deducted first. 5.99 - 2.82 (Printing Costs) * .60 = .77 a book

Since my primary marketing method was word of mouth, it made sense that everyone wanted a paperback version. I think this is also where I did a bit of a oopsie. Next time I'd offer a bigger book, and price it around $8.99. Also for anyone going the same route, figure out what you are going to write in your signature BEFORE you sign the book.

What I Would do Differently

Theme and Title. I would first come up with the theme, then write stories to fit that theme (Instead of diggint into my collection of well-received stories and coming up with a theme). On the creative side of publishing, this was the biggest thorn in my side.

Page Length/Story Count: I don’t mind selling an ebook for 2.99, but a paperback for $5.99 is too expensive (For only 5 stories). Next time I’ll try and do 15 stories in a collection, and bump the paperback to $7.99 or something.

Formatting: I would love to play around with ebook and paperback formatting. Maybe add some cool crows at the start of every story, and have a nice looking Table of Contents.

Editing: Maybe, just maybe, there was a typo in my cover/blurb. I maybe had to manually edit the PDF cover and correct that typo. What I would do next time is triple check my work :P

Marketing: Next, I wouldn’t mind dipping my hand in Marketing, although I have to take a good look at how to market a short story collection.

The Actual Product
SHILL MODE ACTIVATED

If you want to see the cover of my book, you can see it here:

https://www.amazon.com/Light-Shines-Through-Mike-McArthur/dp/B099JTMSSB

DropTheAnvil fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Jul 26, 2021

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

oliveoil posted:

drat, you really put a lot of thought into that. Thank you!

For me, marketing always seems like the biggest issue. Why do you say not to use reddit? Or was that just a warning not to use it the way those first few examples did, where they just dumped a link and ran away?

I'd be interested in everyone's opinion about using reddit.

Typically I find that self-published authors get raked over the coals. The LJStanton reddit post had a lot of interaction, but got removed due to self promotion. A lot of subreddits do not allow self promotion, and you see posts in /r/pics get demolished as soon as people find out its self-published. It's hard to come across as genuine, and unless you know the community and are a part of it, it feels like the water is already poisoned by others.

I know the author of "order of the magi" did well in their post in /r/fantasy, but I also LOVE their cover! So in short, self promotion is banned in many subreddits, and even if you do get past, a lot of people dislike self-promotion/self-published works.


I had a question about, well, hiding your self-published status. I have noticed a common theme of authors (See the ljstanton post) making their own publishing company, to obfuscate the fact that their book is self published. I am privileged to not have to make a living off of my writing, so I don't want to bash this behavior, but I would love to get some more perspective on it.

DropTheAnvil fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Jul 26, 2021

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
Thank you everyone for the kind words! I hope it helps you, and I'd love to see what you are publishing! (Cough, Order of the Magi guy is a SA person). I'd love to publish a novel, but I think if I go that route I have to put some effort into marketing ;)

White Chocolate posted:

Oh that is interesting can you talk about your decision to go on kindle unlimited?

My decision to go with kindle unlimited spawned because I didn't want to deal with multiple marketplaces. Since I was only going to go on amazon, and I know that many of the people would want to buy my book, going to Kindle Unlimited seemed like a smart choice.

From my understanding, it might hurt your royalties if you go to KDU? I.E: say you know 50 people are interested in your book, but they all have KDU. If you put up your book on KDU, you will miss out on 50 sales, and instead get (KindleUnlimitedFund / TotalPagesReadByKDUPeople) * 50 * PageCountOfBook. So you lose a lot of control over pricing, but you get lumped in with everyone else, and may turn a profit.

Since my goal was to make the book as available as possible, I went KDU. The cherry on top was many of the people wanted to support me, so most of my target audience bought the ebook, or paperback.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

Leng posted:

So there are three big authortube channels making trending "unpopular writing opinions" videos that have all said they agree with the hot take "indie/self-publishing well requires financial privilege", which made me kind of mad. Mad enough to make a 13 minute video about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_D-9JXCRHg

I don't fully understand what the context is around self-publishing requires financial privilege. I do know people can have polarizing opinions around privilege, so I don't want to go in with a half-assed response here. I'm gonna watch the videos you sourced from and come back if I have anything worthwhile to add.


newts posted:

Okay, guys. I haven’t posted in here before because I haven’t had a reason to. But I wrote a book. Now I need a cover for my Mystery/Detective/Sci-Fi novel. It’s the first in a series. Please tell me how much it sucks.



Looks cool. Judging by the cover I believe this is a mystery novel, with a woman being a central character. Would flip over and read blurb. Send a link when it's out!

Below is only minor nitpicks:
I don't know what "joint-investigation" is, or rather, I don't know why I should care. "A Sherlock Holmes Mystery" on the front cover tells me what to expect, and what the novel is about.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

Leng posted:

So there are three big authortube channels making trending "unpopular writing opinions" videos that have all said they agree with the hot take "indie/self-publishing well requires financial privilege", which made me kind of mad. Mad enough to make a 13 minute video about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_D-9JXCRHg
/rant over

So I watched the videos you sourced. Something to note is all of the videos are answering the same question, and they all reference each other's channels.

The question is too vague to answer correctly, so I think everyone hedged their bets. You even touched on it in your video, the question asked is "To do Indie publishing well (... more details ...) takes a level of financial privilege that many don't have. Well is vague and each response covers things from marketing, editing and even profitability.

If I ignored how vague the question was, I would agree with the videos you sourced. Taking a look at developmental editing costs, at 9 cents a word, an 80,000 word manuscript can cost $7,000 just for a developmental edit https://marykole.com/how-much-does-an-editor-cost. That gets into numbers where people may not have the money to take that gamble. I haven't researched into marketing, or covers, but I think to do "Well" in those categories, the costs there are hitting a thousand dollars.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
Would you be able to talk more about how you formatted your ebook?

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

Admiralty Flag posted:

All -- great thread, from what I've read (first few pages and then the latest ten or so, since the market changed so much from the time of the OP). It gives me hope that 2-3 randos might actually read my book someday.

My situation is this. I'm halfway through the second pass on my first novel, currently a 113K word fantasy work that I'm sure will come to redefine the genre, assuming anyone makes it past the second chapter.

All joking aside, when I do publish, it'll be a high-quality work, however long and however much work that takes. But because I have no name recognition and it's only the first book, it's not likely to move many units, so I want to keep the cost for the cover reasonable.

I also want to get a head start on the cover as I know that may take some time if I go down a custom route. I know Goonread is the bargain basement option, and actually had a couple of good, fitting, and catchy covers that have been taken :doom: Damonza doesn't have any budget covers that'll work, but I'll keep checking that page. Am I stuck at paying $400 for the cheap Damonza design option or is there a more reasonable option for me? I wouldn't know where to start finding a freelance artist, especially one who would come in under $400 while delivering quality work. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Fiver, or goonwrite is great for covers.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

Admiralty Flag posted:



My cover's below (click to embiggen; eta to add it because even though it was in the last post I sniped the page). They have a portfolio of other covers as well as examples of how they put together a cover from stock images on their site.


That's a nice cover! Gets my attention.


oliveoil posted:

Which part of writing do you all find takes the most of your time? Thinking of a plot and characters is what I find most time consuming but I wonder if that's just a newbie problem and others tend to spend most of their time on other things after they get more experience writing and publishing.

Editing and revisions take most of my time. Writing is probably the "hardest" in terms of effort.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

SimonChris posted:

Also, several of these stories are available for free at various online markets. Can I still get away with selling them on Amazon, or will people get mad if they find out? Maybe I will add some commentary and call it a special edition...

When you sell a story you should sign a contract. The contract should say when you are allowed to reprint the story. If you can't find it in the contract, contact the magazine direct.

With you about frustration over magazines taking forever to get back to you. It's the same in the agented space. Kind of feels like the whole magazine/author market has dried up.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

Blorknorg posted:

I've complained about this before in the thread but it really bears repeating that everyone, agents and publishers, just stopped even deigning to say 'no' anymore and somehow that's much more soul-exhausting than it was before. I have two books that are literally professionally finished novels that were briefly published, down to the edits and covers, it's just my publisher closed its doors in 2019 and gave everyone the rights and even having that hasn't got me any response from anywhere.

It's been hard to be positive in the querying trenches.

I've started creating a list of agents to be skeptical off. The new scam seems to be creating a literary agency of just your author friends and coming out as a new "agent" that just so happens to have their own book out.

Take this with a healthy does of bias.

DropTheAnvil fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Jun 21, 2023

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
You don't lose money by publishing to amazon. There is no capital cost, just time.

Also, depending on the category, it is incredible easy to get into the top ten. Watch out for authors that claim their book is in the top ten of an amazon category.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

SimonChris posted:

Can I get some feedback on this blurb?

When a Kristian Vinther decided to do his postdoc in a robotics lab in future Copenhagen, he did not expect the doctor in charge to be building Power Armor for Poltergeists!

Now, spirits who once idled away their days sending spooky messages though Ouija boards stalk the streets of the city in gleaming, military-grade power armor equipped with bazookas, booster rockets, roller skates, and any kind of tool known to man.

Business is booming as people are reunited with their loved ones, but the government is not about to let private enterprise monopolize such useful technology. If the bureaucrats of the welfare state have their way, the wars of the future will be fought by your dead grandma encased in chrome and steel.

As the city burns, Kristian must decide whether his loyalties lie with the doctor, the government, his girlfriend, or the hulking monstrosity that was once his wife. His decision will shape not only the fate of the world but also the nature of death itself.

Typo right off the bat: What is "A" Kristian Vinther?

Edit: My Opinion, get others.

As a standard blurb, it's not good. As a blurb selling you on the idea of Power Armor for Poltergeists, and preparing you for the hilarity that ensues, it works. I think overall, this blurb is best supported by the crazy title you have, rather than its prose.

Lot of cool ideas "Wars will be fought by your dead grandma encased in chrome and steel". However the third sentence has no foundation, as the reader has no idea what Business is booming. ((f Spirits can talk through Ouija boards, can't they already connect with people?) and already we are talking about a world when we don't care about the character, nor about the supporting characters, and we don't care about the world.

After that, we raise some vague threats and say our character has to make a decision (What decision? What's at stake? What can our character even do!?!?!) that will effect cliche items and effect vague ideas.

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

SimonChris posted:

However, I am still not sure how to make people care about the world and characters in a 150-word blurb. I've tried looking at some other goon book blurbs, but they also seem to mostly include vague statements about how protagonist must deal with problem. Does anyone have any advice?


The blurb is the toughest part of the book to write. If you can, try and get one of your other writer friends to write the blurb. Keep in mind my advice is like any advice, should be held under scrutiny and might be for a particular genre.


First off, your title does a great job of generating interest. The first paragraph in your blurb does a great job of continuing that interest.

Your blurb posted:

When a Kristian Vinther decided to do his postdoc in a robotics lab in future Copenhagen, he did not expect the doctor in charge to be building Power Armor for Poltergeists!

However, we don't know what K-dawg wants and why he is doing this. We are missing motivations and wants.

Your blurb posted:

Now, spirits who once idled away their days sending spooky messages though Ouija boards stalk the streets of the city in gleaming, military-grade power armor equipped with bazookas, booster rockets, roller skates, and any kind of tool known to man.

This paragraph is explaining telling us about the setting. It gets the tone right: "Here is my wacky world with Poltergeists in Power Armor", but do you notice how your first paragraph, adnd the title, already did that? We are starting to repeat ourselves.

Your blurb posted:

Business is booming as people are reunited with their loved ones, but the government is not about to let private enterprise monopolize such useful technology. If the bureaucrats of the welfare state have their way, the wars of the future will be fought by your dead grandma encased in chrome and steel.

This paragraph is now telling us about a problem. The government wants to use those Poltergeists in Power Armor. However, there is no foundation here. The reader is left confused as to how this connects to Kristian's story. It's good instinct to introduce a problem that the protagonist must solve, but did you notice how we are talking about the world again? And how Kristian doesn't come up in Paragraph 2 and Paragraph 3?

Your blurb posted:

As the city burns, Kristian must decide whether his loyalties lie with the doctor, the government, his girlfriend, or the hulking monstrosity that was once his wife. His decision will shape not only the fate of the world but also the nature of death itself.

Again you have good instincts to include this bit about Kristian. The Main protagonist comes back into the blurb, and must make a decision. Problem here is the reader has no idea what Kristian's motivations are. The Girlfriend and his wife show up out of the blue, and the consequences of our actions are incredibly vague.


Reading this, I think the "Poltergeists in powered armored" took over the blurb. Let it go. Stop mentioning it. Focus on the character. You've already sold me with the title.

I want to challenge you to do something. I want you to write the blurb, but don't mention power armor until the very end. I don't think you will use that blurb, but by getting rid of Poltergeists in powered armor, you can focus on the characters, their motivations and the problems they will encounter.

DropTheAnvil fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Sep 4, 2023

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
This is a horrible version of the blurb, kind of focusing on the characters. You can see how I crash out and burn on the third paragraph.

A horrible blurb posted:


Kristian Vinther only wanted one thing: The blessing from his dead wife to remarry. When he is recruited by Doctor GoodSex to build Power Armor for Poltergeists, he is skeptical, but his girlfriend Jane Doe convinces him to take the job.

Now, Kristian is infamous, known as the man who made spirits stalk the streets in gleaming, military-grade power armor. Jane is questioning their relationship, his dead-wife wants him to accept his wedding vows (In sickeness and death, you figure out how to make this ominious), and Mussolini is back, making sure the trains run on time, all thanks to Kristian and his drat invention.

Kristian might have had this under control. He could handle two doomed relationships, and thanks to his own machnications, death is no longer a barrier. The government is just dying to deal with an ex-dictator in powered armor. And man I just hosed that up, Kristian literally loses nothing, but lets do a hail mary here. Then, he learns that the Good Doctor wants to bring back Hitler.

DropTheAnvil fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Sep 4, 2023

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021
Real quick analysis, will do more later. Also remember, the best advice you can follow is: The query is meant to get them to read the pages. Break all other rules if you are confident. Important to get feedback from agents/people in industry.

Strotski posted:

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros meets Squid Games in STARBOUND

Bad formatting. Can confuse who is the author and what book they are presenting. Yank out the "By Rebecca Yarros" and put your title of your book first.

Strotski posted:

an action-packed new adult sci-fi/fantasy romance

"action-packed" is generic. SCi-Fi/Fantasy romance is a weak way to describe the book. Everything is generic here, ticking boxes. This will still probably work.

Strotski posted:

which follows Rayne as she fights for a place in this new world amidst a perilous game and an attraction she can’t suppress. It’s completed at 115 000 words and stands alone with a potential for series.

Mixed mind here on summarizing your novel after the query. Gives agent opportunity to toss your query by asking "What is she attracted to, a planet? Why couldn't you be more concise."

Strotski posted:

I have a BA in Japanese studies and currently work in tech after obtaining a MS in Computer science. Having lived in Japan, Eastern Europe and the UK, I draw inspiration from my past and current experiences to create diverse worlds with high stakes and relatable characters.
Thank you for taking the time to consider my query. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss the potential of this novel further with you.

You need to research the agent to see if you need to include ANYTHING here. My main issue here is this is all about you, its boring, and at worst its generic.

Oh wow you write diverse worlds. Sorry, but every query in my inbox says that. You need to prove it. You need to stand out, and you need to do it in 10 words or less.

I'd cut everything after the "BA In Japanese Studies", and might even cut the BA part if Japanese studies doesn't include language.



Here is, my very fast, attempt. I am focusing on being concise, while also expanding on the Comps. I also picked a genre, and used a comp to show how the setting is sci-fi. Feel free to mix those two up.

Some dude so take this worth a grain of salt posted:

I am excited to present my standalone novel STARBOUND, complete at 12 words. The book is written for romance readers who enjoyed the birds in FOURTH WING, the tension of krakens in SQUID GAMES and the sci-fi world of MY HEAD HURTS.

I have a BA in Japanese Studies, and drew inspiration from Japanese mythos, and my degree in bird culture , to write this novel.

Thank you for your time;
WingLady

DropTheAnvil fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Oct 15, 2023

DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

Sally Forth posted:

Agents aren't part of the self pub process - you're right, this should be a conversation for the trad pub thread (if there is one?)

Don't think we have Trad Pub thread. Should just call this the Published Goons thread?

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DropTheAnvil
May 16, 2021

Captain Log posted:

so the possible income is

Bountiful optimism should be measured by cups forged in cynicism.

If you are aiming at readership, expect to lose money. I know there are some goons here that have self published and done quite well to expand their readership.

A buddy of mine that does well for self publishing expands his readership by writing in a niche market, generally being a cool dude in the writing community in my area, and doing marketing.

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