Writing Blurbs

Kitty's little dog Spade, sometimes known as 'No-Spade-No!'

Dognapped? A Dog Show Detective Mystery is almost ready for release. As the cover is getting put together by the team at Book Cover Cafe, I'm writing the blurb. Hey, it's just a short description for the back of the book, how hard can it be? 

Um, yeah. How to summarise the story without making it sound dull or too complicated? 

There are no rules, but, I try to include: Character (this is the most important part for me), premise or plot, setting, conflict and a hint at the theme or message of the story (although I don't think it needs to be stated). Then I try to find a creative way to portray this, so it doesn't read like a list.

So how do you start? I cheat. Yep, I do. I grabbed about twenty novels in the same genre (girls' mystery novel) then rewrote their blurb out with my story's information. 

Here's an example changing Trixie Beldon's story to suit mine:

Kitty can't believe she's stuck in this sleepy little town with nothing to do and no friends. Then she enters her miniature schnauzer Spade into the local dog show, and things start to liven up. A lost dog is found, and another stolen, a secret inheritance is revealed and Kitty teams up with an unlikely sleuthing partner. Could all this lead to murder? Maybe living in the country won't be so boring after all!

I didn't stop there. I rewrote at least ten more. By the time I finished this exercise I knew which things were important for me to include, and what could be left out. If the blurb is too long, the reader will lose interest. Then I took the parts I loved, tweaked and merged them and came up with this:

One dog found

One dog stolen

A mysterious will

All this equals murder!

Introducing Kitty Walker and her mischievous dog Spade in the first Dog Show Detective Mystery: 

Twelve-year-old Kitty, friendless bookworm and amateur sleuth. All she wants is to gain her mother's attention, spend time with Spade and avoid Miss Perfect, Jessica Jones. But now she needs Jessica's help to find the owner of a lost dog, hunt down a dognapper and solve a murder!

Can you solve the mystery before Kitty?

And look, I managed to get a list in! What do you think, does it work? Do you like writing blurbs? Any tips on blurb-writing?

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10 Tips for creating classroom resources to promote your novel.

Have you written a novel for kids or teens?

One way to reach your audience is through schools--lots of kids there!

How can you get your book into the classroom? One way is to offer author talks at your local schools--you can speak about the novel and offer a few fun activities for the kids. Another way is to create classroom resources that teachers can download from your website.

That's what I've been busy doing and I have a whole worksheet booklet prepared for download:

Click on the image to open the PDF

If you want to create classroom resources for your book, here's a few tips:

1. Make it a PDF, it'll be easier to share and download. I use Adobe InDesign for mine.
2. Include images. Straight out text can seem dry and boring. You want it look life fun! I mostly use Shutterstock for images, they've a huge range and they're cheap.
3. Check curriculum and syllabus requirements on the Education Department's website. I aim at years 6-7 English (novel studies, genre study and themes), but if you have a historical novel you might find it fits in History studies.
4. Include activities that enable students to explore their own opinion on topics. Don't just have questions where the answer is right or wrong. Allowing children to reflect on their own experiences and express their ideas is just as valuable, if not more, than testing information retention.
5. Relate to a variety of subjects. I include creative writing, essay, craft, art, puzzles, poetry and genre study in mine. This means teachers can choose to use your worksheets any time through out the school year.
6. Include games. I have doubts that a wordsearch really tests any skill. You don't even have to know how to spell to find the word. BUT kids enjoy solving these and they're easy to create. Just Google 'create your own word search puzzle'. You could include mazes, or crossword puzzles or anything that adds a bit of fun to your worksheets.
7. Promote your website. Every page should show your web address, or some way for potential readers to find your books. I list my www.charmaineclancy.com address on every page.
8. Prepare for sales. If a teacher loves your resources and wants to acquire a class set, are you ready with information on price (class sets can be up to 30 books, and budgets are usually tight). Can you offer a discount? How will you handle distribution?
9. Don't make it all about your novel. What? Isn't that the idea? No. It's not. You're offering a resource to enhance the education of children. My novel is a humorous horror for kids, so I include exercises on the horror genre that do not mention my book. Your web details will still be available on the sheet.
10. Create a link to your PDF on your website/blog. On Wordpress you can insert the PDF right onto your blog (I created a Wordpress page to host mine). There may be a widget for Blogger, or you could use Google Docs or Scribd. Place a link in your navigation bar. Make it easy to find!

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Writers for Writers

Yet more proof of what a supportive bunch we writers are.

Stephen Tremp from Breakthrough Blogs is hosting a Writers for Writers blog hop. This group aims to help promote members' books via twitter. It's quite simple, each month (the third Monday) a few writers will be highlighted. By visiting their blog you can pick up the promotional tweet to be retweeted. The tweet will promote the book, include a link to Amazon and ask others to retweet for you. This should help create a buzz about the book, increase sales/downloads and lift the book in Amazon's ratings. Then, when it's your turn, you'll write a tweet about your book and members will retweet it for you.

It's worth noting that this at times will require tweeting about a book you haven't read. I will in no way mislead followers to believe I'm endorsing the book, but am happy to simply send out a link and description. If a tweet sounds like a review, I'd probably reword it. For example, I wouldn't send out a tweet that read: Best mystery fiction ever! You must read DETECTIVE ZOMBIE GETS HIS MAN link.com if I hadn't read the book. I will still send out a link with a description of genre. I might add 'sounds like a fun read', or 'I'm keen to check this out'.

So if you're keen, sign up here:

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8 Steps to Launch Your Children's Book

Promoting ebooks is easy, one quick click and the potential customer is at Amazon, but how do you sell your paperback?

Have a launch!

My invitation design

Launches are a whole heap of fun. If you're not sure how to go about organising one, here's a list of things that I tried for My Zombie Dog:

Give clear instructions

1. Choose your location. Ideally see if you can get a bookstore (that has a great children's section) to host your launch. Independent bookstores are sometimes happy to set you up for your book launch, especially if they have a cafe or plenty of space. If you can't find a good bookstore, try a family-friendly cafe or restaurant or even your local park (get council permission first).
2. Plan the launch. Launches aimed at adults can include talks on the topic of the book or how you came to write the book. Kids are not interested in your speech. Keep it short. Introduce the book, have a little (preferably interactive) talk about it and then include some activities. Include some stories and jokes. Read part of your book (you could read the whole thing if it's a short picture book). 
3. Have giveaways. I've had magnets made up with zombie dogs on them, they cost me very little from Vistaprint. You can also get bookmarks (kids love bookmarks) or postcards.
4. Include a few quick games or competitions. I'm asking kids to come dressed as zombies for an undead fashion parade, I'll be giving away book vouchers from the store as prizes. Emily (my teen girl) will be offering zombie face painting to create a whole little army of undead.
5. Promote your event. Facebook is awesome for this, but you might need to get out and about in your community. Offer to speak/read at local schools and libraries. Have invitations to the event printed up (again, Vistaprint are awesome for this) and hand them out. Try to get a buzz going.
6. Advertise - Do a letterbox drop in the area near the bookstore and put up flyers at local shopping centres. You could even put an announcement in the local paper. Get a banner made up to put outside the store on the day of the launch.
7. You can also promote through mums and word of mouth. Get to know the school mums or visit some Mummy blogs and see if they'll review your book for a free copy.
8. Order your books way ahead of time. No point booking a launch only to find your books haven't arrived yet!

My magnet give-aways

That's it! Most of all, make sure you have a LOT of fun, don't let it get stressful!

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Bookmarks as Promotional Tools

Designing bookmarks for the book - will have rounded corners when I'm done.

What a busy time it's been! My Zombie Dog ebook has been selling well on Amazon, and I'm now producing a paperback for the Australian market with help from The Book Cover Cafe. Exciting times. So, I've started thinking of different ways to promote the physical book. One popular idea is bookmarks.

Like most booky people, we love bookmarks in our house. Instead of giving birthday cards to their friends, my girls create bookmarks on the computer, print and laminate and usually finish off with a bit of ribbon through a hole in the top. These are usually treasured by the receiver. So, how do you do up bookmarks for your novel?

I had to play around with design. At first I tried putting the book cover at the top of the bookmark. I've seen this done before, but it didn't work well for me, the book looks too small. So instead, I put the title of the book on the front of the bookmark, and you don't have to stick to the traditional portrait direction (vertical), I went with a landscape (horizontal) look. I stuck with the same font as my ebook, because that's what will appear on the paperback book cover, plus I just love it. You can find out more about using fonts in this post: How to Font your Cover. I went with a bright purple background because it makes the font colour pop and... well, purple is magic.

You can design your bookmark in Photoshop, Word, almost any design program. I like to use InDesign and Photoshop. Before you start, you'll need to know what size your bookmark is. I've been a long time fan of Vistaprint, but sadly they don't do bookmarks (but if we all keep tweeting them about it, they might give in). I found this printer: Overnight Printing they print bookmarks and even provide a template for you to download.

If you go through a regular printer, you can choose your size. If you have a business that gets a lot of things printed up, you might be able to get them printed cheaply at the same time, because they are long and thin, they can be printed in the 'off cut' area.

If you only need a few to start with, you could always design them on your computer, print them yourself (you should be able to fit 4-5 to a page) cut them out and laminate. Home laminating machines are easy to get and quite cheap now, ours was under $20.

Back to the design; I also found too much text cluttered my bookmark. Now my novel is aimed at kids 8-13yrs (even though my readership seems to include a lot of grandparents), so that's another reason for me to keep it short and snappy. You want to make sure the design suits your genre. Mine is humour/horror, so I wanted a funny tagline. 

Some authors prefer to keep the back of their bookmark plain, so it gives them something to sign. It's a good idea, but I've decided to put the important details on the back. Here's some things you could include:

• Very short blurb, what's the book about?
• Testimonial from happy reader, or another author if you can get it.
• Who would like your book?
• Where can they buy your book? This is the most important.
• Where to find out more about the author and other books they may have, so a link to your website or blog. I chose my website, because my blog is aimed at writers, not really kids. I also have a QR code for my website, so if the kids scan it with a smart phone, it goes straight there.

Have fun with the design, something quirky is more likely to peak the interest of potential readers. You could play with shape, or try folded bookmarks with magnets... the only limit is your imagination! These will be great to hand out when you have book launches, or host a stall at a market/expo, or just when you meet people. And if you want to generate a QR code for your site, try: QR Stuff, it's easy, here' mine:

Do you have any other bookmark suggestions?

And it's that time again! Insecure Writer's Support Group - hope this post was supportive for you! You can find a lot more great posts by clicking on the picture and heading to Alex J Cavanaugh's site.

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