Showing posts with label haven't a clue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label haven't a clue. Show all posts

5/16/11

The Art of the Cover Blurb

Just in case y'all thought I know what the heck I'm doing, well, stop right here.  I'm wading through the strait between the waters of "HAVEN'T A CLUE" and "FIGURING IT OUT AS I GO".

For those of you who don't know the publishing lingo. The cover blurb is usually the back cover copy of a print book.

BUT it's more than that. It must:
  • give the potential reader a taste of the story
  • the feel for the author's writing style
  • it must pull you into the story without giving anything away
  • it must entice you to take the next step of opening the book
And I have to say that I failed miserably with FAERIE. I waited to write the blurb, spending over seven days and only God knows how many incarnations I wrote of the stupid thing.

AND I STILL GOT IT WRONG.

At least wrong for that story. I'm going to fix it, but I will say that I'll have my blurbs ready PRIOR to my final edit of the next story.

In fact, I have a potential blurb ready for Book Four, IT TROLLS FOR THEE. Yes, book four. Haven't written it yet. No clue what's going on in it. Oh, have some scene ideas, but that's it. First I have to reread #3 TROLL to see what I wrote to come up with a blurb for #3.

--yes, this is putting the cart before the horse, but it wasn't my fault. I woke up out of a dead sleep with this blurb in mind.

This isn't the final copy. Heck, this isn't even much more than some brain drippings onto a page. It could almost be considered an 'elevator pitch' or a logline. Here it is the rough copy :

Betrayed by her best friend.
Her goblin mentor captured by the Dark Ones.
The war in Celestia is heating up as the evil gains control by pain and death.

With only her human mother to help her, Kyte Webber must rescue her goblin mentor.  She knows she can't do it alone . . .

I'm playing with these lines:

New friends turn up in unlikely places.  Enemies will soon become her allies in the war.

Will I use this?

Don't know.  But I do know that the logline for book 3, FOR WHOM THE BELL TROLLS, basically allowed me to write the entire 50,000 word story in 19 days.

What was the logline?

Half-elven tween steals a Celestian book to help the ‘good’ side in the war, but inadvertently helps the Dark Ones gain power . . . oops.

Not genius, but it didn't have to be to work.

Later, Peeps!  I have a new story to write!