I’m driving myself crazy over the blurb for my novel, Force of Corruption. My editor and I have written and trashed about three each. I might have trashed a few more. It’s very difficult to summarize a book you wrote. When that summary needs to be under 200 words, it’s exponentially more complicated. My editor just combined two that we had and now I think it might be the one. I have to step away from it for a little bit.
This week has been a merry-go-round as opposed to a rollercoaster. Spinning in circles while gently cresting waves. I may have figured out how to get my book to Barnes and Noble. However it hasn’t gone through yet so as I shrug and I cross my fingers. I did some interesting things on some of my Facebook groups. Lastly, I have approved the cover for Force of Corruption, my debut novel.
I’m on a few different writer groups on Facebook. One of them is an ARC group. Advanced Reader Copy. I’ve been lurking there for several weeks but I haven’t been brave enough to ask for ARC readers. A lovely woman posted that if any authors were willing to send her a hard copy of their book, she will read and post reviews. She will also post on her socials. I made the leap and offered her my shorty story Haunted Hunting Camp. She sent me her address and I will mail it out tomorrow. When I posted not only did she reply, but a few other readers jumped in and offered to read and review it. So I will mail out those tomorrow as well.
I did another thing on a Facebook group. This one is for writers to help other writers. The hosts believe in supporting other indie authors. They offer a week of focused free publicity on all their sites for a week if you have a new or debut book coming out. Then they give you a day where you are the monitor/host of the group. They call it an author takeover. I will able to post as much as I want and talk to everyone who wants to chat. So I will have quite a bit of publicity with little effort on my part and no cost. A deal even I couldn’t pass up.
The other thing that happened is…My Cover is DONE! The third mock up was the charm. It’s better than my initial vision. I’m really excited about the cover. It makes it more real somehow. Which is crazy. Because I’m online with a lot of authors I see their tales about how they wrote their book or how long it took. I’ve seen 20 years or more a few times. I’ve wanted to write a book since I was a kid. The summer before 6th grade, the movie Grease came out. When school started I asked our music teacher if we could perform it. She said no, the language and situations are too grown up. I made my mom buy me a “Grease” book. It was pictures from the movie and all of the lines. I sat at a TYPEWRITER for an entire weekend and rewrote all the words and scenes that wouldn’t be acceptable. On Monday I brought my “Grease Lite” script to my music teacher. She still said no, but I got extra credit for writing a script.
My point is that was more than 20 years ago. But I don’t think of my writing this book as starting back then. I started writing this book in the second half of June, 2023. I was done with the first draft in a couple weeks. For me, my novel writing began this year. I never finished a novel before. I truly thought I wasn’t capable. But I have to say, typing “the end”, that was pretty great. This journey is real. I’ve written a book. If I can do it, anyone can. It doesn’t matter if it takes decades or if you’ve never typed “the end” before, you can. Take one step and think about a plot.
I continue to interact with other writers in my Facebook g pups and I try to post a video or photo or a meme at least once a day. I post on Facebook but they keep putting me in jail so I have no clue if my posts are working or posting. My friends and followers are growing in leaps and bounds. I’m getting a few followers on Instagram and TikTok too. None of my connections have lead to sales, but hopefully the reviews from the ARCs will help with that.
As someone who came into this against any marketing at all, I think I’m finding a tolerable balance. Mostly I just be me and talk to strangers. That’s something I can do.
One last piece of news: My daughter passed the state bar exam!!
She’s officially a lawyer.
Thanks so much for reading! Have a wonderful week!