The cover for Battlesongs came in today, courtesy of Daniele Serra, and it is fucking awesome.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
"Sooner or later...
... if you're any kind of man, you got to step up, step out, and see what the fuck you got."
Battlesongs of Hope manuscript went out to Lucky Bat Books today for formatting.
Battlesongs of Hope manuscript went out to Lucky Bat Books today for formatting.
Friday, August 19, 2011
The blurb process
Whether you call it a blurb, a product description, or a pitch, writing it sucks. The goal is to convince someone in 200 words or less why they should read your 200+ page book. If you have a short book and a long blurb, you get one word per page. This is something you've spent, at minimum, several months writing, and you have about 30 seconds and one or two paragraphs to convince someone that it's worth reading.
It SUCKS.
When I first sent off Battlesongs of Hope to agents, writing the queries was a nightmare. My thought process while writing the pitch part of the query went something like, "JUST PLEASE READ THE FIRST PAGE YOU'LL LOVE IT PLEASE JUST SKIM THE ACTUAL BOOK IT'S SO GOOD!"
What it actually said was this:
This is a decent summary of what happens in Battlesongs, even three years and some extensive edits later. But it kind of... skips. There's no coherent story, because it's missing about 350 pages that turn that summary into a story. You can see my intent in this blurb; the descriptions might be interesting enough to get someone to say, "Huh. I like wizards, maybe I'll take a look." But this approach depends on two assumptions I have no right to make.
1: The summary of the setting of BSOH is interesting to someone who is unfamiliar with it.
2: People are willing to take a chance with their time reading an unfamiliar fantasy by an unknown author. There are THOUSANDS of books that fit this description, and there's nothing in the blurb above to set me apart.
Both of the above assumptions violate one of my key tenants as an author: NO ONE CARES!
People do not owe me their time. Fact is, no one cares about my story unless I give them a good reason to, and because the above blurb does nothing to set me apart from anyone else, I haven't given the reader a good reason to give me their time.
That blurb racked up about 20 some rejections, for good reason. Two years later, Girlfriend came along and made me revise it. My thought process went something like, "Hey, movie trailers get people interested in movies; why not make my blurb read like a movie trailer?"
This is how it turned out:
If you squint, you can see how a particularly active imagination could tag along with this blurb and become interested enough to give the first page of the book a try. It's certainly more exciting than the first, but it still jumps around for someone who's unfamiliar with the book. In 192 words I introduce the main character, Jacob, Wizards capital W, some major events in Jacob's life, something called the Anarchist Murmur that somehow relates to Wizards capital W, and then an army that somehow Jacob has to fight because of the Anarchist and oh dear I've gone crosseyed.
No one owes me the time it takes to decipher this. It works as a moderately interesting account of events in the book, but there's too much proprietary information in too small of a package for anyone to really get their brain around it in the time it takes them to throw the query away or click off the Amazon page.
This second blurb racked up another half dozen rejection letters from agencies, but did get one small publisher interested enough to extend an offer which I ultimately walked away from. It was better, but it wasn't good.
When I started working with Lucky Bat, I now had to write something that ACTUAL READERS would see when the "Buy Now" button was staring them down. This is for actual dollars, not a contract, and I came up with this:
First, it's cleaner. Not nearly as much information, about half as long, and a much more direct focus. At this point, the real underlying problem starts to emerge: this paragraph says what HAPPENS in Battlesongs. What it does not do is describe what the book is ABOUT. Girlfriend, being the editor she is, had some stern words for me when I showed her this.
Something wasn't clicking for me. And because I need to kick ass wholesale at this blurb if anyone is going to buy the book, I strip mined my bookshelf and spent a couple of hours studying the back covers and trying to figure out why I bought the books I bought.
I thought I bought books because of all of the cool shit that happens in them. I expected to see blurbs talking about how bitchin the stories were, because that's what I remember from reading them.
What I actually found was that was true for exactly ONE of the books I own. The VAST majority of the other back cover blurbs made me interested in the main character, in one way or another. A slightly smaller majority doubled up on that and made me interested in the main character's personal conflict. This is NOT the main conflict of the story (news to me). When I revealed my discovery to Girlfriend, she had more stern words for me, but in the "How the hell didn't you know that?" sort of way.
She explained that the appeal of books for most people is NOT:
"Isn't it cool that [plot happens / setting exists]."
Instead, the appeal is:
"Wouldn't it be cool if I[were the MC / did these things]."
A couple of days later I sent the blurb that is going to accompany BSOH when it goes off into the wild.
Each of the first three blurbs took one or two solid writing days to craft. The final one took a week. I have no idea how much it will help or hurt BSOH when real people read it, but I do know that I have a much better chance to get someone to sample the first page of the book now than I did when I was begging them to.
Onward, in 150 words or less.
It SUCKS.
When I first sent off Battlesongs of Hope to agents, writing the queries was a nightmare. My thought process while writing the pitch part of the query went something like, "JUST PLEASE READ THE FIRST PAGE YOU'LL LOVE IT PLEASE JUST SKIM THE ACTUAL BOOK IT'S SO GOOD!"
What it actually said was this:
Civilization fell apart, and no one knew why. After years of anarchy, broken spirits languish in the ruins waiting to die.
Jacob Vogel scrapes together a living and a sense of purpose by working as a mechanic in a sprawling, ruined city once ruled by an oligarchy of Wizards. But the violent murder of his only surviving friend drives him out of the city on the verge of suicide.
Jacob wanders the hinterlands battling disease, dehydration, and wild animals for weeks. His travels bring him to clues about civilization's fall, a woman who teaches him to love life, and to the discovery of an impending crisis that dwarfs what came before.
Jacob's story is told in honest, direct language that shows the reader a man who doesn't consider himself or his experiences extraordinary. Four chapter-length flashbacks broaden the scope of the story beyond Jacob's immediate perspective.
This is a decent summary of what happens in Battlesongs, even three years and some extensive edits later. But it kind of... skips. There's no coherent story, because it's missing about 350 pages that turn that summary into a story. You can see my intent in this blurb; the descriptions might be interesting enough to get someone to say, "Huh. I like wizards, maybe I'll take a look." But this approach depends on two assumptions I have no right to make.
1: The summary of the setting of BSOH is interesting to someone who is unfamiliar with it.
2: People are willing to take a chance with their time reading an unfamiliar fantasy by an unknown author. There are THOUSANDS of books that fit this description, and there's nothing in the blurb above to set me apart.
Both of the above assumptions violate one of my key tenants as an author: NO ONE CARES!
People do not owe me their time. Fact is, no one cares about my story unless I give them a good reason to, and because the above blurb does nothing to set me apart from anyone else, I haven't given the reader a good reason to give me their time.
That blurb racked up about 20 some rejections, for good reason. Two years later, Girlfriend came along and made me revise it. My thought process went something like, "Hey, movie trailers get people interested in movies; why not make my blurb read like a movie trailer?"
This is how it turned out:
Five years ago something killed the Wizards and plunged all of civilization into anarchy. No one knew how, or why.
The Chaos that followed forced Jacob Vogel to become as hard and as cruel as the gangs that claimed his friends and family. Years of violence and futilely trying to forge an honest, dignified life drive Jacob to the verge of suicide and into the untamed hinterlands.
The hinterlands offer Jacob a new life. A wife and family, peace, work that makes people’s lives better; unimaginable blessings after a lifetime of suffering. But the city’s mysteries and malice have a long reach. In an abandoned farmhouse, Jacob learns the true nature of the Anarchist Murmur, the Wizards' bane, as well as the terrifying reason for the Wizards' extermination. A monstrous army led by the last magic-users in the world survived the Anarchist Murmur’s crusade, and have returned to scourge humanity from the Wizards’ realm.
Fighting means launching an impossible crusade, returning to violence to defend the only peace he’s ever known. But the truth behind the Anarchist Murmur turned Jacob’s life upside down, and he swears he'll never be a slave again.
If you squint, you can see how a particularly active imagination could tag along with this blurb and become interested enough to give the first page of the book a try. It's certainly more exciting than the first, but it still jumps around for someone who's unfamiliar with the book. In 192 words I introduce the main character, Jacob, Wizards capital W, some major events in Jacob's life, something called the Anarchist Murmur that somehow relates to Wizards capital W, and then an army that somehow Jacob has to fight because of the Anarchist and oh dear I've gone crosseyed.
No one owes me the time it takes to decipher this. It works as a moderately interesting account of events in the book, but there's too much proprietary information in too small of a package for anyone to really get their brain around it in the time it takes them to throw the query away or click off the Amazon page.
This second blurb racked up another half dozen rejection letters from agencies, but did get one small publisher interested enough to extend an offer which I ultimately walked away from. It was better, but it wasn't good.
When I started working with Lucky Bat, I now had to write something that ACTUAL READERS would see when the "Buy Now" button was staring them down. This is for actual dollars, not a contract, and I came up with this:
When the Wizards died, Jacob Vogel thought humanity could finally throw off the shackles of slavery. The years of chaos that followed left Jacob's family dead, his personality warped, and the Wizards' city in ruins. Wracked by guilt after failing to prevent his only remaining friend's murder, Jacob wanders to the edge of suicide and there discovers the truth. The mysterious force that killed the Wizards has been driving the violence plaguing humanity, ensuring no one would be prepared for the unthinkable. The Wizards have transformed into a monstrous, genocidal army, and they're returning for revenge.
First, it's cleaner. Not nearly as much information, about half as long, and a much more direct focus. At this point, the real underlying problem starts to emerge: this paragraph says what HAPPENS in Battlesongs. What it does not do is describe what the book is ABOUT. Girlfriend, being the editor she is, had some stern words for me when I showed her this.
Something wasn't clicking for me. And because I need to kick ass wholesale at this blurb if anyone is going to buy the book, I strip mined my bookshelf and spent a couple of hours studying the back covers and trying to figure out why I bought the books I bought.
I thought I bought books because of all of the cool shit that happens in them. I expected to see blurbs talking about how bitchin the stories were, because that's what I remember from reading them.
What I actually found was that was true for exactly ONE of the books I own. The VAST majority of the other back cover blurbs made me interested in the main character, in one way or another. A slightly smaller majority doubled up on that and made me interested in the main character's personal conflict. This is NOT the main conflict of the story (news to me). When I revealed my discovery to Girlfriend, she had more stern words for me, but in the "How the hell didn't you know that?" sort of way.
She explained that the appeal of books for most people is NOT:
"Isn't it cool that [plot happens / setting exists]
Instead, the appeal is:
"Wouldn't it be cool if I
A couple of days later I sent the blurb that is going to accompany BSOH when it goes off into the wild.
In this final version, Jacob as a character takes precedence over Jacob's experiences. His internal struggles take precedence over the external conflict that drives the plot. This gives the reader a foothold in an unfamiliar world, because Jacob's character and conflict are familiar: someone who stands up for what's right, even when the whole world is against him. It's short, it's focused, and it's interesting.Jacob Vogel considers himself one of the few decent men left in the world. During the riots following the ruling Wizards' downfall, he tried to provide for those close to him through his work as a mechanic. But the chaos kept spreading, and his skills with machines couldn't keep the violence at bay; he watched his sister's murder and killed his best friend with his own hand. The years of brutality finally broke him and drove him from the ruined Wizards' city. The hinterlands are a new world and offer a chance to build a new life. He finds peace, compassion, even love. But the city's corruption has spread farther than he could have imagined.
When the Wizards' legacy returns to enslave humanity, Jacob has a choice. He can run, abandon his family to their fate, and acquiesce to the world's depravity like he has so many times before. Or he can face his past, discover the power of redemption, and wield the human spirit as the only hope against tyranny.
Each of the first three blurbs took one or two solid writing days to craft. The final one took a week. I have no idea how much it will help or hurt BSOH when real people read it, but I do know that I have a much better chance to get someone to sample the first page of the book now than I did when I was begging them to.
Onward, in 150 words or less.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Harnessing anger
I spend a lot of time being angry and not a lot of time showing it. When I write, or when I want to write, I get rather emotional, and the productive, healthy way to work through that is to write. I pace, I talk to myself, I yell at my computer, I act out the things that I'm describing, etc. I do it and then I can return to being a normal human being and function as if I wasn't constantly imagining spaceships flying around the room while wizards fight on the table.
But when I can't write when I want to write, I get angry. And since I spend about 60% of my waking life either at work or doing work-related things, I get angry a lot. Not in the petulant, "Baww, I is bored and so I wish I could do stories," kind of way. Rather in the "My life is ticking away while I sit here and read an email debate about the number of characters that should be allowed in a software field and holy fuck no one fucking cares and I'm dying while I sit here and my brain capacity is slowly withering from neglect and routine and AAAAAAAAAA LET ME DO SOMETHING THAT MATTERS."
You could say that stories about wizards and spaceships don't matter. My reply to that is if you can't see how a story matters more than a software field, please tell me where your soul is buried because it's DEAD and you're pissing on the dreams you had when you were a kid but are too scared and apathetic to recognize what you've lost.
Also, fuck you. You'll be fat by 30 and will surround yourself with shiny objects that you think give you self worth.
So I sit at work and seethe. Like the saying goes, I like my job just barely more than I like being homeless. I could quit, but I can see little benefit to swapping mindless tedium that I'm familiar with for mindless tedium that I have to pay attention to. All that does is overwrites a little more of my brain with nonsense, and makes me a little more tired when I come home. Maybe I'd even start to get satisfaction out of my day job, which saps the need to find it in writing, so I'll try a little less and write a little less, and before I know it I'm 40 and looking forward to painting my new deck on the 2 weeks of vacation I get a year.
Hell no. I LIKE being angry at work. Keeps me focused. I just can't SHOW it. I have to laugh at the small talk jokes, and I have to pretend to care about component version numbers. And every once in a while I put on some music and remind myself that the alternative to being angry is being complacent. Complacency is stagnation; stagnation is death.
Fuck that. Onward.
But when I can't write when I want to write, I get angry. And since I spend about 60% of my waking life either at work or doing work-related things, I get angry a lot. Not in the petulant, "Baww, I is bored and so I wish I could do stories," kind of way. Rather in the "My life is ticking away while I sit here and read an email debate about the number of characters that should be allowed in a software field and holy fuck no one fucking cares and I'm dying while I sit here and my brain capacity is slowly withering from neglect and routine and AAAAAAAAAA LET ME DO SOMETHING THAT MATTERS."
You could say that stories about wizards and spaceships don't matter. My reply to that is if you can't see how a story matters more than a software field, please tell me where your soul is buried because it's DEAD and you're pissing on the dreams you had when you were a kid but are too scared and apathetic to recognize what you've lost.
Also, fuck you. You'll be fat by 30 and will surround yourself with shiny objects that you think give you self worth.
So I sit at work and seethe. Like the saying goes, I like my job just barely more than I like being homeless. I could quit, but I can see little benefit to swapping mindless tedium that I'm familiar with for mindless tedium that I have to pay attention to. All that does is overwrites a little more of my brain with nonsense, and makes me a little more tired when I come home. Maybe I'd even start to get satisfaction out of my day job, which saps the need to find it in writing, so I'll try a little less and write a little less, and before I know it I'm 40 and looking forward to painting my new deck on the 2 weeks of vacation I get a year.
Hell no. I LIKE being angry at work. Keeps me focused. I just can't SHOW it. I have to laugh at the small talk jokes, and I have to pretend to care about component version numbers. And every once in a while I put on some music and remind myself that the alternative to being angry is being complacent. Complacency is stagnation; stagnation is death.
Fuck that. Onward.
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