I finished Xmas Carol. I know you never expected to hear those words, but it's true. The book is done. Now all I have to do is assemble Kindle and ePub versions . . . and write the damn blurb. Dang, but that's unappealing. In case you're not familiar with the term, blurbs are those short paragraphs on the back of a book that try to lure the reader in.
I don't know about you but I don't read blurbs. I go by the title, the cover, the subhead and the author's reputation. The reason I don't read them is that half the time they give the whole damn story away! That drives me crazy. I mean, they'll tell you stuff that doesn't appear until page 398. This is not helpful.
And now I have to write one for Xmas Carol. I wrote a blurb for a documentary once and it sounded fine -- but that was non-fiction. A novel is a different animal entirely. The question is how much I should give away. My gut response is: nothing. Yet it's the nature of a blurb: it reveals. A reader needs to know what she's walking into.
So tomorrow I'll take 10 or 20 sci-fi or horror books down from the shelves and read the blurbs. Hopefully this will drive me to the keyboard where I'll write something compelling and intriguing . . . that doesn't give away the farm.
This has been your Xmas Carol update. It looks like the timing of the book's release is off by a full year. Guess I missed, huh? Ah well. It means I'll have a whole year to build momentum for the book. And in the meantime, perhaps visitors to this blog will read the book and spread the word.
Xmas Carol is almost here. Hang on.
I don't know about you but I don't read blurbs. I go by the title, the cover, the subhead and the author's reputation. The reason I don't read them is that half the time they give the whole damn story away! That drives me crazy. I mean, they'll tell you stuff that doesn't appear until page 398. This is not helpful.
And now I have to write one for Xmas Carol. I wrote a blurb for a documentary once and it sounded fine -- but that was non-fiction. A novel is a different animal entirely. The question is how much I should give away. My gut response is: nothing. Yet it's the nature of a blurb: it reveals. A reader needs to know what she's walking into.
So tomorrow I'll take 10 or 20 sci-fi or horror books down from the shelves and read the blurbs. Hopefully this will drive me to the keyboard where I'll write something compelling and intriguing . . . that doesn't give away the farm.
This has been your Xmas Carol update. It looks like the timing of the book's release is off by a full year. Guess I missed, huh? Ah well. It means I'll have a whole year to build momentum for the book. And in the meantime, perhaps visitors to this blog will read the book and spread the word.
Xmas Carol is almost here. Hang on.
