If you ever wonder about how to think like an expert, the difference between your inner critic and the actor within, your ability to be heard, the value of being a musician, how to protect yourself from liars or how to overcome fears, you will find answers in this book.
Through each chapter there is a magic wand taking you into an area of life that you may have experienced yourself or it will be something new to consider. There is synthesis between the known and unknown, the seen and unseen, the mental and the physical, the desires of the heart and the aspirations of the spirit; and the overall theme of we are all just trying to make it from one day to the next with joy, peace, and happiness.
Joseph gives his own insights throughout the pages of what he believes are the backbone of our life experiences – both the great and the not so great. He leaves it up to the reader to discern what is true for them. You will find yourself wanting to explore more of each of his analysis of life’s nuggets, many of which we create ourselves through questions, desires for specific outcomes and the need to be heard.
It happened that I read this innovative book at just the time in my life when I really needed it. My job of eight years had just come to an abrupt end, and I was trying to figure out how I was going to carry on and where I would go from here. It felt as if my life was over, as if I were balancing precariously on a ledge, on the verge of toppling over, with no where to go but down. Okay. I know that seems a bit melodramatic, but that’s what it felt like.
That Th!nk You Do, by Joseph Carribis takes a look at human thought processes, explanations for why we do what we do, and techniques for dealing with life’s challenges. I have to admit that this book offered several ‘Aha!’ moments for me. Carribis offers unique insight into human behavior, and compassionate advice for handling the curve balls life throws at you. He is not a professional health expert, but an intelligent guy with some good ideas, which may or may not work for you, but probably worth a try.
This book showed me new ways to chase away self-doubt, overcome fear and worry about what the future holds, and set some goals for myself to work towards. Of course, I’ve been working toward taking my writing business full time as means of making my living for many years, but facing the fact that now I was at a point where I needed to make it all work was really scary. If I couldn’t, I didn’t know what I would. If I didn’t find a way to pay my bills and fast, I knew I would topple from that ledge and it would be all down hill from there.
Everybody has those times when they let self-doubt creep in, or allow their own fears to bring about inaction. It happens to all of us. That Th!nk You Do holds some insightful solutions which just might help. If nothin g else, it made me look at the situation a bit differently. Joseph Carribis may not be a professional, but he offers some great insights and suggestions that can benefit us all.
For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.
Content for Everyone is a must-read for creative entrepreneurs looking to improve the usability and accessibility of their website, email and social media content.
With over a billion people living with some form of disability worldwide, it’s more important than ever to make sure your content is accessible. In this easy-to-follow practical guide, you’ll learn techniques to make your content more accessible, without needing any in-depth technical knowledge. From adding meaningful alternative text to images, to choosing colors with enough contrast for easy readability, to adding captions to your videos and more, Content for Everyone has everything you need to reach a wider audience and improve the user experience for everyone.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to improve your content and reach more people.
We all want to be inclusive, right? Of course, we do.
But how do we, as authors and creatives do that? Many authors don’t have the first clue as to how to do that. I know I didn’t.
Content for Everyone, by Jeff Adams and Michele Luchini is a book which tells you how to make your website content more accessible to a huge audience who many authors overlook or bypass. Adams and Luchini talk about how we can create more accessible content for visual or hearing impaired readers on our websites, in emails and newsletters, in blogposts and in social media posts. They talk about ways in which we can reach a much wider audience by making our content inclusive for readers regardless of whatever adaptive technoloy they’re using, or whatever device is their preference for consuming content.
With the right amount of time and effort, websites and digital communications can be made accessible to those with disabilities or use adaptive technology in accessing digital content. But it requires work and/or money to make that happen, and many authors probably wonder why they should go to the trouble.
I’m here to tell you why. When you make your website or your books accessible to those with disabilities and impairments, you are reaching out to a whole new audience with your writing. It is a large community, “with millions of impaired or disabled readers, who would read if they could access the content” (Patty Fletcher, email March 24, 2023), and it makes good sense to make your content inclusive to these potential readers. Awareness of the large audience of potential readers who are visually impaired was the main reason that I sat up and paid attention when I heard about this book.
Content for Everyone deals with how to make digital content accessible. There are many things we can do to make our content more accessible including providing the right contrast for visually impaired individuals, or even the proper use of headers. It’s no secret that I’m a bit old fashioned and I’m not always aware of the incricate details of the tech I use, although I am always learning. Content for Everyone discusses many ways in which you can make your content accessible to those with disabilities, who must use adaptive technology in order to access online and digital content. Some of these areas wouldn’t seem to be problematic to those of us without disabilities, but they are for individuals who are impaired.
Although all of this is a lot of work, Adams and Lucchini offer up individual steps which can be performed singularly, instead of trying to undertake the enormous task of accessiblility as a whole, which could be daunting. Picking one area of accessibility at a time seems to make the goal more attainable. I found that I hadn’t been using my headings correctly, and this is something that I never dreamed made any difference to anyone. But it does make a difference to those using adaptive technology, such as screen readers. after finishing the book, the first thing I did, was to go and change all the headers on my upcoming blog posts. Then, I went through and fixed them all through my blog site. It’s not anything a sighted person would probably notice, but for someone who uses a screen reader, it can make a difference as they try to navigate my site. Knowing that it makes a difference to some people, and knowing that by making it accessible, I will be widening my potential reader audience considerably, makes my decision to use headings correctly from now on seem a small step to take.
Something else which I’ve been working on since reading this book is adding the alt text for the screen reader crowd. Doing this is not hard, and should be done when you set the image in the post, but it does take extra time. I work with several visually impaired authors who use screen readers, so I know this audience is quite large. This is a simple thing to do, which really doesn’t take much time if you do it as you go. My site is image heavy, with lots of book covers, so it may take some time to add alternate text to the visuals which are already there. Even though it does take time and effort, the increase in portential readers from taking a few simple steps is so great that I have to ask, why would you not want to take this step to ensure that your content is accessible to more potential readers?
I am so pleased to be able to work with the wonderful authors within the visually impaired and print disabled community. It would be a shame to not be able to include their content within the WordCrafter tribe because of inaccessibility. And it would be a shame to have them miss out on WordCrafter content because they can’t access it. As Poetry Treasures 3 comes out this month, I’m pleased to be able to say it is the first book I have ever published with alternate text for each image. It’s just a small step in making Wordcrafter Press books more accessible to all.
You can learn more about these authors and their book, as well as learning a few things you may not know about accessibility in their interviews on the Stark Reflections podcast (episode 294), and on The Creative Penn podcast (March 13, 2023).
National Library Services
My grandmother was blind, and as a little girl, I often listened to her “talking books” with her and didn’t think much about it. I’m not sure, but I am thinking that those little cassette tapes that used to come to her in the mail, were sent by the National Library Services for the Blind and Print Disabled Library of Congress was behind them, even then. Yep. The visually impaired were doing “audio books” before they were even a thing. Today’s audio has caome a long way from those talking books on cassette, and there are now many adaptive technologies available to make books accessible to visually impaired and print disabled readers. And it makes sense for authors to tap into this audience by enrolling their their books in the NLS programs that are available. You can find out more about the National Library Services here.
Author Patty Fletcher encourages authors to enroll their books in the National Library Services to make them accessible to those who are visually impaired or print disabled to widen your audience and make many overlooked readers happy. She recomends that you read “That All May Read: Technological Innovations Extend Reach of National Library” by Wendy Maloney and then, if you are interested in making your books accessible, email nlscollections@loc.gov to find out how.
What is Accessibility and Assistive Devices?
“To know what accessibility is, one must first know what assistive technology is.”
Author Patty Fletcher
You can find out more about accessibility, what it is, and why we need it in our content. Patty Fletcher shares the following articles, which talk about assistive technology, how it works, and why it is important:
The subject is vast, and this book and the above articles are a good place to start.
Patty Fletcher is a visually impaired author and member of the American Council for the Blind, which is a large community of visual and print disabled readers. Patty’s goal is to bridge “the great chasm which separates the disAbled from the non-disAbled.” Toward that end, Patty is organizing a virtual event to help authors understand what adaptive technologies there are and steps we can take to adapt our websites, digital correspondence and books to be inclusive of these potential readers. Please reach out to myself or Patty if you would like to participate in this event.
For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.
Booked to the Gills by Aisley Oliphant is designed to help those participating in the National Novel Writing Month challenge to write 50,000 words in thirty days. Many writers who would like to be more prolific may find the advice and strategies outlined in this book to be quite helpful. In fact, many of the time management tips, such as time blocking, can come in handy for any writer who juggles several projects along with a day job, and relationships with family and friends, and ‘me time’.
For many of us, that ‘ me time’ is what is forfeited when things get to hectic. And the author openly admits that she has not a fun person to be around during previous NaNoWriMo challenges. For others, relationships might be strained when family and friends are put on the back burner and writing takes the forefront. And the author openly admits that she has not been a fun person to be around during previous NaNoWriMo challenges. This book is packed full of strategies to salvage relationships and keep your sanity, while still cranking up the word count.
Topics which are covered include time management, setting boundaries, adjusting wordcounts, prioritizing…
I have mentioned before that I am not a prolific writer. Authors such as Kevin J. Anderson, who can crank out right or ten books in a year, totally blow me away. But in these pages are strategies which will certainly be useful in increasing my writing output and helping me be a more productive writer, as well as giving me organizational tools that will be helpful in managing the numerous writing and publishing projects which I always seem to have going.
I attempted the NaNoWriMo challenge once, back in 2010, and failed miserably. When I picked up this book, doing this challenge was the furthest thing from my mind, but thinking about putting some of the strategies in Booked to the Gills to the test, I’m thinking it might be worth another try this year.
Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.
Fearless Author, by Ashley Emma, is a self-publishingbook launch Plan and checklist, which was not as valuable to me as I had hoped, because nowhere did it say that this was an Amazon author exclusively, so I did not realize what I was getting. Don’t get me wrong. This was a free book, so I’ve wasted nothing but my time, and it was not a total waste. For those who don’t understand why the advice of an exclusive author might be of lesser value to a wide author, such as myself, let me paint a word picture of the state of the independent publishing industry currently, as I see it.
In order to be a KDP author and have your books featured in Kindle Unlimited, Amazon requires an author to download directly to thier site, (you can’t use a third party aggregator to publish your book and they demand exclusivity. Kindle Unlimited can be a substatial income stream for authors, because page reads add up to comprable sales, and some authors, in genres with voracious readers, earn more from page reads than they do from actual sales. I can see why some authors might feel that to be a fair trade for exclusivity, but that exclusivity means that you can’t sell your book anywhere else, including on your own website. That’s why I chose to publish wide. I didn’t want to give up that much control over my books. It is up to me where my books will be sold, which allows me more opportunities to reach more potential readers.
And tactics like rapid release, or free or .99 cent first in series, may not be as effective with other distributors as they are on Amazon, because other distributors don’t use the same algorythyms that Amazon does. For example, Ms. Emma recommends utilizing Amazon’s free days, which are only available to KDP exclusive authors. That is why I didn’t find Ashley Emma’s Fearless Author to be of more value. While her advice for launching and taking a book quickly up to bestseller status may be quite valuable to an Amazon author, but many options are only available to exclusive authors.
All of that to say that Fearless Author might have been more helpful by indicating in the description the fact that Ashley Emma is an Amazon author, offering useful tip to be used with KDP and Kindle Unlimited. At least then I would have known what to expect when I downloaded the free book. There were some tactics which could be of value to all authors, even those who publish wide, like myself.
The lesson learned from this experience: the importance of accurate book descriptions which don’t mislead potential readers. Although I may use some of the advice found in Fearless Author, I would probably not download more of Ashley Emma’s books, even though I might find portions of it useful and I found no fault with her writing.
For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.
One aspect of book marketing I’ve been delving into is newsletters, or reader’s groups, if you prefer. It sounds a lot better to say, “Join my Reader’s Group” than it does to say, Subscribe to my Newsletter”. This is a suggestion that Andrea Pearson of the Six Figure Author Podcast offers, and I like it. Andrea Pearson is like the newsletter queen, marketing her own books through her newsletter successfully and teaching others how to do the same. She offers courses on Newsletter marketing among others through her website, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have taken the basic course, and I also have her Publish Strong box set. You can read my “Review in Practice” for that set here.
Other things that Andrea recommends is emailing frequently, like once a week, and I believe Kevin J. Anderson also follows this practice. To me this sounds like a lot. I feel like I would have to really like an author to not be annoyed to receive emails that frequently from them. After signing up for KJAs newsletter and receiving his auto-sequence, I found that it was kind of cool, and because some of them included newsletter bonuses of free books, I didn’t mind receiving those frequent emails at all.
But, let’s face it. We’re all not as prolific as KJA, or even as prolific as Andrea Pearson. Especially if you’re just starting out, you may be lucky if you can produce a book a year. I realized a while back that I wasn’t prolific and wrote a post about that here. Just as you need a hook for your stories to make readers want to read more, you also need a sales hook in your newsletter to make them want to read other things which you’ve written so you can grow your fanbase and email list. If you don’t write fast enough to produce several books a year, and if you don’t have a big backlist to draw from, don’t overlook the value of a good short story. While it’s true that short fiction is tougher to sell than novels, when it comes to newsletter magnets, short fiction can be an author’s friend.
In order to better understand how to make a newsletter work for me, I’ve subscribed to the newsletters of several big name authors to see how they set up their reader magnets and auto-sequences.
The Case of the Vanishing Boyis a short mystery story by Kristine Kathryn Rush that I received for free for signing up for the WMG Grab a Book and Chill newsletter; what indie authors call a reader magnet, designed to draw in new readers. ‘They’ say short fiction is harder to sell, whether we’re talking single stories, collections or anthologies. As a creator of anthologies, I believe ‘they’ are right. But short fiction can be great to use for newsletter bonuses, and/or reader magnets. This little mystery story was just the right length for me to enjoy and to made me feel as if I’d received a good value in exchange for my email address
Kristine Kathryn Rusch and her husband Dean Wesley Smith are both hybrid authors who have been in this business for many years and are both masters of short fiction, so receiving this story really was a treat. It was a fun mystery that could be read in one sitting. It’s hard not to give away spoilers on short stories, and for mysteries, spoilers could mean death. So instead of giving the whole brief plot away, let me just say that it was a fun mystery that could be read in one sitting. It was well-written and entertaining, stirring up questions throughout and providing a satisfying ending, just as a mystery story should.
A much darker read is He Meant No Harm, by Dean Wesley Smith, which serves as a second reader magnet for the WMG Grab a Book and Chill newsletter. I guess they figure at least one of the two books will appeal to you. Again, I’m not obligated to review, but did enjoy this brief trip down memory lane with the protagonist, although it left me walking away with a very different feeling from the one I had after reading the Rusch story, so perhaps they are onto something by offering two very different stories. This story was very brief, so my complaint here was that I was disappointed that there wasn’t more to it, (but that might just be me). It did have a full story arc, I just would have liked to have a bit more before it ended, so I guess I felt a little cheated.
I can’t say that about the reader magnet for the WMG Newsletter, The Rusch Reader: A Newsletter Exclusive, however. Just the opposite in fact. This collection of short fiction provides a delectable sampling from Kristine Katherine Rusch’s various short fiction series and spans across her genres, of which there are many, written under various pen names, as well as her own. The Rusch Reader is a book length collection of short fiction, all well-written and entertaining, all quite enjoyable to read, some which were downright memorable. And when you read as much short fiction as I do, that’s saying a lot. But the thing that adds the most value for me was the last sample book, which wasn’t a story at all, but a short non-fiction book on how to negotiate, which is invaluable for authors everywhere. Signing up for the newsletter is the only way you can acquire this fantastic collection, a sampling that may turn you into a die-hard Rusch reader, you must subscribe to Kristine Katherine Rusch’s newsletter, which makes it a great reader magnet and well worth giving up my email address.
For signing up for the Kevin J. Anderson reader group, I received a copy of one of his Dan Shamble Novels, Working Stiff, which I had previously read and reviewed in his Zomnibus. (You can read my review here.) His Dan Shamble books are always entertaining and fun to read, so this is an excellent choice for a reader magnate. Although it is not typical of his science fiction or fantasy series, but it is a way to get readers to take a look at what else he has available.
His second email in his auto sequence delivers a link to listen to his Clockwork Livesaudiobook for free, which is pretty cool and making me feel even more value delivered.
His second email in his auto sequence delivers a link to listen to an audio reading by KJA of “The Percussor’s Tale” from the Clockwork Lives steampunk novel, written with Rush drummer Neil Peart, for free. This is pretty cool and making me feel even more value delivered.
The fifth email in his auto-responder offers another free book, The Kevin J. Anderson Complete Booklist and Reader’s Guide. What a clever way to make things easy for his readers. I’m impressed.
The sixth offers another free ebook, Blindfold. Which all leads into an offer to join his “KJA Special Forces” street team in the eighth email to be delivered over a month’s time from when I subscribed.
Previously, I had let my newsletter fall to the wayside for more than a year, but this research endeavor has convinced me that my Newsletter is one of my most valuable marketing tools. The subscribers are added to your email list, providing you with a direct way to engage with your readers, and you own that, not some third party middleman.
When I went back into my Mailchimp account, I found that they’d made a lot of changes and I had difficulty finding my way around and locating my past newsletter campaigns. I have since revived my newsletter, but I’m still struggling to figure out the auto-responder and other technological stuff. I’ll get it eventually. For now, I’m emailing monthly and figuring it all out as I go. I’ve managed to change my reader magnet, so when you join, you receive a free copy of my short story collection, Last Call & Other Short Fiction, and set up a Book Funnel link to deliver it, (I think – If you decide to join, I’d appreciate feedback to let me know if it is working properly).
My subscribers are not growing very fast, but I figure that will come in time, too. Different genre books target different reading audiences, so it’s more difficult to market as a multi-genre author, but with time, I’ll figure that one out, too. My newsletter journey is just beginning. If you’d like to join my new reader’s group to receive updates on new releases from WordCrafter Press, myself and others, as well as upcoming writing events, you can join here: https://mailchi.mp/64aa2261e702/klb-wc-newsletter. You’ll receive a copy of my short story collection just for joining. I do hope you’ll all come along for the ride.
For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.
Let me just start by saying that I’m a big fan of Andrea Pearson, the author of these books. I listened to her on the Six Figure Authors podcast, along with her two co-hosts, Lindsay Barker and Joe Lallo, all through the fall and spring semesters. So, when I found out we were going to be using Rock Solid Newsletter in our class, I jumped at the opportunity to buy the whole set, even though I only needed the one book for class. Which is just to say, that I knew these books would have lots of valuable information for me as an author before I ever cracked them open, and indeed they did.
In Book 1, Rock Solid Book, Andrea offers tips for making sure you have a book that readers will want to read. Book 2, Rock Solid Platform, gives advice on finding and acquiring fans who will read just about anything you write. Book 3, Rock Solid Promotion, discusses book marketing, protons and deals that sell. And finally, in Book 4, Rock Solid Newsletter, she tells how to set up your newsletter and automation sequence and clean your newsletter email list, so you know you have true fans who want to hear about you and your books, which increases your open and click rates and is more effective at selling books.
Self-Publish Strong Books 1-4 is filled with valuable information for independent authors, which I’m using to improve and grow my newsletter list, which is soon to become my readers’ group, and set up promotions for all of my 2022 releases. Andrea Pearson offers tips, advice and good strategies for producing a quality book which readers will buy, getting the word out about your books and finding readers who will buy them.
What she doesn’t do in Rock Solid Newsletter, is to instruct on the technical set-up of the newsletter, because each newsletter platform is different. I don’t hold that against the book though, as these books are not instruction manuals, but instead, they offer strategies to leverage your books into a better selling position. I managed to change my reader magnet and my welcome email so it will be delivered as intended. (I think,. I still need to test it.) And that’s where I’m stuck, because I don’t understand the technicalities of setting up an automation sequence, but I know I need to set one up. I may have to find someone to help me on that one. So, although I haven’t put all of the advice offered in Publish Strong Books 1-4 to use yet, I’m well on my way.
You can get your copy of Self-Publish Strong Books 1-4 here:
Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works, and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing and a M.A. in Publishing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you.
She has short stories featured in the following anthologies: The Collapsar Directive (“If You’re Happy and You Know It”); Relationship Add Vice (“The Devil Made Her Do It”); Nightmareland (“The Haunting in Carol’s Woods”); Whispers of the Past (“The Woman in the Water”); Spirits of the West (“Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”); and Where Spirits Linger (“The People Upstairs”). Her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, and her short story collection, Last Call, are both available in both digital and print editions at most of your favorite book distributors.
When not writing, she keeps up her author’s blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. In addition to creating her own imprint in WordCrafter Press, she offers quality author services, such as editing, social media & book promotion, and online writing courses through WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services. As well as serving as judge for the Western Writers of America and sitting on the editorial team for Western State Colorado University and WordFire Press for the Gilded Glass anthology and editing Weird Tales: The Best of the Early Years 1926-27, under Jonathan Maberry.
In her spare time, she is bird watching, or hiking, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.
Sign up for the Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for and book event news for WordCrafter Press books, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of Kaye Lynne Booth’s paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, just for subscribing.
Today’s author must be both writer and marketer. Authors in the the world of digital media and the rise of independent publishing are responsible for not only writing the book, but selling it, too. Even authors who are traditionally published are often responsible for a good portion of the promotional efforts.
These days, everyone knows that people can and do judge books by their covers. Most authors emphasize the importance of a a good book cover in selling books, but they’re talking about more than just the image and text on the front. Perhaps as important as that front cover, is the book’s description or blurb, found on the back cover for print books, or in your ebook’s meta-data.
A good book description’s job is to capture reader interest and make them want to know more,. Whether we’re talking about the hook of the first line, which must make you read on to the next sentence and then the next, or about the description as a whole, which must hook the reader, making them want to buy the book to learn the rest of the story, the book description is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal to sell books. According to Brian D. Meeks, a good book description has three elements: a powerful hook, engaging copy, and visually appealing formatting.
Mastering Amazon Descriptions
In Mastering Amazon Descriptions, Brian D. Meeks offers a formulaic plan for writing book descriptions that will sell books, including examples of description re-writes for books in varied genres. Although these descriptions are specified as Amazon descriptions, I’m sure this technique will work equally well with Kobo, or Barnes & Nobel, or even the Apple Store. By the time you’ve read through this book, you’ll be writing back cover copy like a pro, because Meeks’ method is simple enough that almost anyone can do it.
To prove it, I’ll share with you the re-write I did of the description for Delilah, which I am preparing for its re-release in the coming year.
Here is the original description:
“Brutally raped and left for dead, her fourteen-year-old ward abducted, Delilah’s homecoming from prison quickly turns into a quest for vengeance. Tough and gritty, sheer will and determination take her to the Colorado mining town of Leadville in her hunt for her attackers and the girl, Sarah. Somehow along the way, the colorful inhabitants of Leadville work their way into Delilah’s heart, giving her a chance for a future she thought she’d lost along with her innocence.”
Here is the description I wrote for the re-release before I read Mastering Amazon Descriptions:
Delilah is a woman haunted by her past. Her homecoming from prison quickly turns into a quest for vengeance when she is brutally raped and left for dead, and her fourteen-year-old ward is abducted. Sheer will and determination take this tough and gritty heroine up against wild beasts of the forest, Indians and outlaws to the Colorado mining town of Leadville, where the colorful inhabitants work their way into Delilah’s heart, offering a chance for a future she thought she’d lost along with her innocence.
Now, here is the description I wrote using Brian D. Meeks’ method:
Haunted by her past.
Raped and left for dead; her fourteen-year-old ward abducted.
Sheer will and determination take this tough and gritty heroine up against wild beasts of the forest, Indians and outlaws.
Can the colorful inhabitants of Leadville work their way into Delilah’s heart, offering a chance for a future she thought she’d lost along with her innocence?
I don’t think anyone would argue that this last description is an improvement. It has a better hook, shorter sentences, and leaves the potential reader with a question to make them want to learn more and read the book.
How to Write Fiction Sales Copy
How to Write Fictin Sales Copy, by Dean Wesley Smith offers three different formulas for writing back cover blurbs and sales copy, which are aimed toward a wide distribution, and several different approaches. Smith is an old pro in this writing game and he’s good at what he does, (which is write). While his methods are not as formulaic and are not specific to Amazon, they are never-the-less effective in posing unspoken questions about the book and making readers want to know more. Smith also offers 32 actual story blurbs as examples in multiple genres.
To experiment with one of Dean Wesley Smith’s techniques, I thought I’d try to rewrite the blurb for my paranormal mystery novella, which is riddled with what Smith calls “The Author Problem”, which results from too many passive verbs and too much focus on the plot. My description doesn’t have a lot of passive voice, but it does focus on the plot too much, revealing more than necessary, which is a common author error. The idea behind the blurb is to give potential readers just enough to pique their interest and make them want to purchase the book. If you reveal too much of the plot, there’s no reason to buy.
Cassie is nervous about her return to her ancestral lands with her boyfriend Tony for more reasons than one. She hasn’t been up in these mountains since the unexplained drowning of her parents. And her parents aren’t the only ones who have died or mysteriously disappeared in the area. Cassie doesn’t really believe the old legends passed down from her Native American ancestors, but she harbors no desire to become the keeper of her tribal legacy or the protector of the gold that goes with it. In fact, she plans to tell her Grandmother to pass the legacy to someone else, perhaps her cousin Miranda, who has been searching for the treasure for years. Cassie wants nothing to do with it now that she carries Tony’s baby in her womb. When Cassie forces herself to go out on the lake that took the lives of her parents and she discovers a cave which holds the treasure of her people, she must admit that the legacy is real, which means the curse that guards the treasure and threatens the males of her tribe must also be real. When Miranda’s boyfriend, Jake disappears on the lake, Cassie must find a way to stop the curse, before Tony becomes the next victim.
So here is my attempt at a rewrite, using Smith’s basic blurb pattern, beginning with a character summary that “nails the genre if possible”.
Cassie wants nothing to do with the legacy her grandmother wants to hand down to her. She doesn’t believe in all those Native American legends anyway.
She and Tony plan to be married and start a family. They’re only returning to her ancestral lands now to tell her grandmother to pass the tribal legacy on to someone else, along with the cursed gold that goes with it.
When she forces herself to go out on the lake where her parents drowned, she discovers the cave which holds the tribal treasure and the lake takes another life. Now Cassie must rethink all that she believes. If the treasure is real, could the curse be real, too?
Can Cassie find a way to stop it before Tony becomes the next victim?
If you love paranormal mysteries, pick up a copy of “Hidden Secrets”.
Which one of these descriptions would make you more likely to buy the book? You can see what a difference a few simple changes can make.
Authors must be able to write sales copy, as well as fiction or nonfiction, because stories don’t sell themselves. On The 6 Figure Authors podcast suggest that if a book isn’t selling well, the first things to look at are cover art and blurb. We see here with the examples I provided, what a difference changing up the blurb can make. I recommend both Mastering Amazon Descriptions, and How to Write Fiction Sales Copy to any author who wants to polish their blurb writing skills and improve their sales copy.
For those of you that don’t know, I am currently embarked on a journey to earn my masters degree in publishing at Western State Colorado University. Some of you may know this because I mentioned it when I posted the submission guidelines for the Mirror, Mirror anthology that we are putting together for our class thesis project. I was really excited about sharing this paid writing opportunity with all of you and I hope many of you will craft out a story that fits the guidelines and submit it. I was recently reminded that the submission deadline is just two weeks away, so get those stories in.
With work and school and trying to write, I’ve been struggling just to get my Monday blog post out. I’ve been blogging here on Writing to be Read since 2010 and it is important to me and hopefully to my readers, so I can justify feeling a need not to drop the ball here even though I’m extremely busy. My solution, which I thought was rather smart, was to create a new blog series, “Review in Practice”, where you can join me through book reviews that reflect lessons taken from books I read as I work to improve my craft and learn the publishing industry. In this way, the books I need to read in order to learn and improve will do double duty as I share them with you here. These reviews will offer my opinion of the book, and also tell you about my experience with it and share what I have learned. I do hope you will join me.
My Review
Reading Slush Pile Memories: How Not to Get Rejected, by New York Times Bestselling author, Kevin J. Anderson helped to prepare me for the onslaught that is already flooding the submissions box, because it offered me a better idea of what lay ahead. But, this book was written for authors, to give them an idea of what editors are looking for and improve the chances that your submission will read and accepted. It is a brief book, which doesn’t take long to read and the lessons contained within could prove invaluable. As I have begun working my own way through this year’s slush pile, I’ve already learned that the experiences contained within Slush Pile Memories: How Not to Get Rejected is spot on.
Of course there’s never any guarantees of acceptance, but there are ways to increase the odds. Kevin J. Anderson relates his own experiences from the last two anthologies the graduate publishing program at Western put together. (Yes, he is really my professor. How cool is that?) If you are thinking of submitting a story to Mirror, Mirror or any other anthology, Slush Pile Memories: How Not to Get Rejected is a must read. I give it five quills.
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