I am working on a kick ass book description. It will be the first thing people read on Kindle when deciding if they want to buy the book or not. I have to say that I’m struggling with this task a bit. Here’s what’s making it tricky…
The book, titled Blue Violet, is paranormal (with a little romance thrown in too). Sort of X-men meets Twilight – only no vampires. The tricky part is that many of the coolest parts of the book that would catch people’s attention in a book description are revealed a little at a time.
For example, you start the book not knowing if the main character, Ellie, is a normal girl or someone with powers (and no, I’m not going to tell you which it is). And the “bad guys”, called the Vyusher (see if you can figure out what that word means), don’t really make an appearance until several chapters in.
So the question becomes, how much do I reveal in the book description to make sure I snag people’s interest without spoiling the book? It’s a conundrum.
And this is where the power of the internet is my best friend. There is a lot of great advice for first-time, self-publishing writers out there – if you can wade through a lot of useless drivel. I found this blog post by another self-published author, Karen McQuestion, and it was the exact advice I was looking for – and 30 minutes later, I was done. (Needless to say, I’ll be following that blog from now on.)
http://mcquestionablemusings.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-method-for-writing-book-description.html
To do item #549: First draft of my book description – check. So without further ado, here is the book description for Blue Violet:
I am very open to feedback if you have any. This is a first draft after all.
After years of walking around with stories and book ideas in my head, and trying to write them down non-stop, I am finally getting around to trying to publish a book. I am still in the beginning phases of the process. The book is written. I have found an editor, Wendy, who is incredible. (More about Wendy and the edits later.) My plan is to self-publish via Amazon.com through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). I am swiftly learning that writing the book is the easiest part of this process.
Follow me as I go through the fascinating, and I suspect often painful, process of trying to publish my first book!