David Kudler's Blog, page 6

Thanks, Cristopher Paolini! (Or how Eragon led to Risuko)

 When Cristopher Paolini’s epic dragon-rider fantasy novel Eragon came out, I had just conceived of the book that would become Risuko.

And Eragon depressed the heck out of me.

Certainly not because I didn’t like it ��� quite the opposite!

Of course, it wasn’t a particularly ground-breaking piece of high fantasy. As I read it with my daughters, I could spot bits and pieces of JRR Tolkien, Ursula Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey (of Dragonriders of Pern fame), and Star Wars, among others. Heck, even the title character’s name was obviously derivative of Tolkien’s Aragorn.

It felt as if I could tell what Paolini had been reading the night before he wrote a particular scene, but that was okay ��� it was still a good read. The language was not bad, the characters were mostly engaging, the action sequences fun. The less trope-y bits of fantasy were interesting. The non-magical characters were some of the most compelling.

Mind, the romance felt adolescent. And the world-building was a bit��� odd. (Really, if you���ve got an enormous empire, your capital is going to sit in the middle of a huge wilderness? How do the economics of that work?)

Even so, honestly, it was an impressive first novel. Especially for a teen.

Because Christopher Paolini was just 16 when the book was originally published.

So what actually depressed me?

Well, I���d been working on writing novels for years ��� decades ��� and I���d never finished one. Mysteries. Fantasies. Literary Fiction. Few got past more than a couple of thousand words. False starts and rough outlines still litter my hard drive. My only published work at the time was a children���s picture book.

And this little punk had not only conceived a fully worked-out, fairly original story, he’d completed it. With his parents��� help, he���d developed it, refined it, edited it, and published it. All by the age of sixteen.

It was that audacity that kicked me in the butt and made me decide that, by hook or by crook, I was going to learn the craft of writing a novel and finish the project I had just started: Risuko.

Which took me way longer than I thought it would, but hey! I did it! And I���ve finished the sequel, Bright Eyes, too ��� and now I’m at work on Kano, book 3.

So thank you, Christopher Paolini.

Punk.

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How Accurate Should Historical Fiction Be?

I got into a conversation recently about whether historical fiction should be “prohibited” if it wasn’t “accurate.” (The discussion started over swearing in historical novels, but spread out from there.)

As a historical novelist��� yeah. No.

I think that, of course, historical fiction should be as true to its time and place as it can be. But writing a story set in another time with 100% accuracy isn’t for historical novels — it’s for textbooks. (And even then, it isn’t possible, since so much of history remains up for debate.)

In fact, writing fully accurate historical fiction isn���t always possible. Or even advisable. So I���m glad there aren���t any HistFic cops out there to beat down my door.

There���s a lot that���s almost impossible to find out about life in former times. Dates, names, and outcomes of big battles, marriages, deaths ��� the important, history-making events of the ruling classes ��� are easy to learn. What people in a particular part of rural Japan would have had for breakfast in May, 1571? Not so easy.

And even those battles and things don���t always cooperate to allow you to tell the best possible story.

In Bright Eyes, my latest Seasons of the Sword novel, one of the historical characters had changed his name by the time in which the book is set. But if I used the correct name, it was going to be too much like that of another historical character, and I was worried that similarity would confuse readers. Also, the new name was a very famous one ��� and I didn���t want to give away what happened to him later to the historically literate. (Mind, if they���re real Japanese history buffs, they already know. But why make it easy, right? )

Historical fiction isn���t pretending to be historical fact. It���s just doing it���s best to weave a consistent tale within a long-ago setting. Like fantasy or science fiction, it���s trying to tell a good story ��� only someone���s already done the world building.

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Book Descriptions 101: Have I Got a Book for You!

Great! You���ve gotten a potential reader to visit your book���s product page. Maybe it was your fabulous cover that intrigued them, or the brilliant title, or ��� hey! ��� maybe it was your name, you celebrity author you!

In any case, it���s now time to seal the proverbial deal. Make the sale. Get the interested customer to become a reader and, hopefully, a fan.

How?

Your book description, that���s how.

While not the most prominent piece of metadata attached to your book, the description is the one that does the heavy lifting.

Your keywords help them find your book. Your cover and title help draw them closer. But it will ultimately be your description that pulls them in and convinces them to buy ��� or pushes them away and loses the sale.

That���s a lot of pressure to put on a small clump of words. But they can do it!

You���ve spent hours, days, and weeks polishing the language inside your book. Take the time to craft book descriptions that shine just as bright, and they will reward you with sales for months and years to come.

I���m going to lay out an effective way to structure your book descriptions. 1 There are other ways to do it ��� but this is a proven approach, and if you chose a different one, make sure it���s for a reason!

The Inverted Pyramid ��� Start with the Hook

When you���re planning out your book descriptions, it���s a good idea to approach it as if you were writing a news story. Journalists never know how much page space or air time their story is going to get, so they are taught to write in what���s called an inverted pyramid. The idea is that the essential information is communicated up front. If anything needs to be cut, it can be trimmed from the bottom ��� where the less pertinent (and less exciting) information gets gathered.

The most important, exciting, sexiest nugget of information, what journalists call the lede, 2 should always go at the very top. Putting it further down in the story is what���s called burying the lede, and it���s considered a mortal sin in journalism. Subtlety and complexity may be virtues in storytelling ��� but in writing news copy or book descriptions, you have to grab the reader immediately.

In writing ad copy ��� which is what a book descriptions are ��� that exciting, sexy nugget is called the hook.

The most popular hook with major publishers tends to be a review in a major news source or a major award. Lacking that, the hook should be a one- or two-sentence summing up, not of your book���s plot/subject, but of what makes it worth reading. It should pique the reader���s interest and make them want to read more. As with the cover, it should make a promise, implying your book���s genre and tone, but mostly, it should leave the reader thinking, Oh, wow! I wonder how that works out! 3

Say we���re trying to come up with a hook for Jane Austen���s Pride & Prejudice. This is where you, as the author/publisher, need to break out your inner English major and decide what you think your book is actually about. Is Pride & Prejudice a great love story? Sure. But is that what it���s about?

Me, I think the book is about what the title tells us it is: it���s about two people who are strongly attracted to each other from the beginning, but whose pride prejudices each of them against the other. You may think it���s about something else, but play along with me, here.

Okay, that���s what the book���s about. However, the hook isn���t a thesis statement in an English paper. So the hook can���t just say what I think my book���s about. What I want to do is tempt the reader with that idea and make them want to find out more ��� by reading more of the description and, hopefully, hitting the BUY NOW button and reading the whole book.

So the hook could be something like this: Love at first sight can take a long, long time.

It���s a paradox, a mystery ��� but if the reader is a romance fan, it will (hopefully) spark their interest and make them want to read more.

If I were writing a non-fiction book about, say, marketing ebooks, perhaps I would start with a hook something like this: If an ebook is just a website in a box, how do we get readers to want to look inside??

See what I did there? I asked a question ��� a time-honored marketing technique that (hopefully) intrigues the reader and makes them want to read on in order to find out the answer. 4 As with the paradox I created for the Austen novel, it sets up a narrative tension; if the reader is pulled in at all, they���ll have a hard time stopping reading. And once they���re pulled in, you���ve hooked them.

Find the strongest, most irresistible hook you can ��� but make sure that your book delivers on that promise. When I first published my YA historical novel Risuko, 5 the first title in my Seasons of the Sword series, I used a pretty kickass hook: Can one girl win a war? As with the P&P hook above, it sets up a paradox that makes the reader want to find out more.

The problem was that, though the hook was appropriate for the whole series, the first book didn���t actually answer that question ��� it was just the beginning of the protagonist���s journey. And so I had a number of readers who were disappointed. Overpromise and underdeliver may be a good way to get a reader to buy your books ��� once. But it sure won���t turn them into fans. And it won���t result in good reviews.

I changed the hook to read, Samurai, assassins, warlords ��� and a girl who likes to climb. That communicates the setting and subject matter for the book, and sets up a question: What the heck is a girl who likes to climb doing with samurai and assassins?

I now use that first hook as part of the description for the series.

The hook, then, is a phrase or sentence that gets the potential reader excited about your book and looking to find out more. It likely is, incidentally, the same as the tag you use in any ads.

Once you���ve found the hook, make it stand out. It should stand alone as the first line or two of your description. If the retailer (KDP for example) allows you to use HTML, use

or tags to make it pop. 6 Here���s what that code looks on my KDP setup:

And here���s the book page on Amazon:

(Note the follow-up question ��� the subhook, the barb on the hook, if you will ��� that I set in

tags below the main hook: Can she come to terms with who she must be? Remember: Questions are your friend.)

The HTML adds emphasis. It makes the hook pop, drawing the reader���s eye where you want it drawn.

For sites that don���t allow HTML coding, see if you can add boldface and italics; most retailers and aggregators do at this point.

Tease and Pay-off

Once you���ve hooked them ��� once you���ve piqued their interest and gotten them hyped about checking out your book ��� you need to tease them. The tease is a sentence or two that drops them right into the meat of the book. Gives them a taste of what makes your book exciting.

In the case of a piece of fiction, you probably want to establish the central conflict ��� or at least, the establishing event. In my description above, I set the scene and introduced the central character.

Here���s the hook and tease for the recent bestselling mystery The Cuckoo���s Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling):

���After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator.��� Immediately, I get a sense of who the protagonist is and what he���s struggling with; if I like hard-boiled detective stories (which I happen to), then that tease is definitely going to pull me in.

If you���re working on selling a piece of non-fiction, the tease is where you establish the problem that your book is going to solve. Here���s the hook and tease for Yuval Noah Harari���s Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind:

Note two things: first of all, New York Times Bestseller is a pretty good hook; and second, the whole tease does a good job of establishing just what the book is about.

In either case, the tease should be quick and pithy. A powerful, evocative statement of what your book is going to be dealing with.

Once you���ve teased them, you can���t exactly leave them hanging ��� you���ve got to have a pay-off.

For fiction, you should give the reader a taste of how the protagonist(s) will be dealing with the challenge you established in the tease. Here���s the payoff for The Cuckoo���s Calling:

It does my heart good to see the typo in that description, by the way. Did you spot it?

For non-fiction, give an overview of how you are going to solve the reader���s greatest problem ��� the one that drove them to look for your book in the first place. This is your opportunity to show that your book is exactly the answer they need.

Now, that doesn���t mean you should give everything away! This isn���t a plot synopsis or an outline. Remember, you���re not satisfying them here, you���re promising them that the book will deliver satisfaction. If the hook and the tease were selling the sizzle, this is the picture of the juicy steak. Not the steak itself ��� but doesn���t that look delicious?

But Wait, There���s More!

So you���ve gotten their attention with the hook, the tease, and the pay-off.

But that doesn���t necessarily mean you���re done.

Here���s the thing: if they want to click BUY NOW at this point, they will. But if they���re still on the fence, can you find more ways of drawing them in?

Sure. Remember the inverted pyramid we talked about at the top? Well, this can be an opportunity to add some of the material that wasn���t quite as essential or as sexy as what you���ve already dropped in, but that might still catch the reader���s interest and make them want to read the book. The sorts of thing we���re talking about:

Blurbs by other authors in the genreAny editorial or even customer reviews that you think will give the potential reader a taste of what makes your book so great���Perfect for������A short excerptA short list of highly pertinent keywords

Now, Amazon offers you 4000 characters of space in your description ��� and it makes sense to use it. However, not every retailer is as generous. So it���s a good thing that you are working with an inverted pyramid. You can always cut from the bottom!

Blurbs & Reviews

Along with editorial reviews, blurbs can offer the potential reader a kind of social proof ��� ���See! These other people, some of whom you admire, really think you should buy this book!���

Now, you can in fact add both blurbs and editorial reviews to your book���s Amazon listing through Author Central. However, those show up way down at the bottom of the page, far, far away from the BUY NOW button; why not list them twice? The reader is only likely to notice them in one place or the other, not both.

Also, other retailers don���t necessarily give you the opportunity to include them as a separate piece of metadata. So why not take the opportunity to drop them in here?

(If your blurb comes from an internationally renowned author or world-famous celebrity, or if you���ve got a glowing review from The New York Times, 7 consider using it as part of your hook. Otherwise? It belongs down here.)

���Perfect for������

I���m not a huge fan of these, but some folks absolutely swear by them: ���Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers!��� ���If you loved Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, you���ll love XXXX! ��� ���La Femme Nikita meets Orphan Annie in feudal Japan!��� 8

Try it out. See if it works for you.

But make sure that the comparisons are really apt. You don���t want to promise Jane Austen and deliver James Patterson. Or vice versa.

Excerpt

���Why add an excerpt? They already have the Look Inside/Sample feature!���

Because they���re still reading your description. Don���t make them click or download and look somewhere else. You���re trying to get them to BUY NOW ��� now!

The excerpt should be short, and it should be chosen to entice and intrigue. A friend of mine who writes steamy novels says she always chooses a brief scene ���just before the clothes come off.��� Your book has just such a scene ��� even if the clothes always stay on: a scene where things are really about to get exciting. Choose a hundred words or so that will lead them right up to the edge��� And leave them wanting to jump.

If you���re writing non-fiction, it might be good to share a brief section where you lay out the central problem that your book is going to tackle ��� again, you want to leave them wanting more. Or perhaps you can share a short how-to or recipe that will whet the reader���s appetite.

Keywords

You should be using carefully chosen keywords throughout your description as clues to both your readers and to the search engine that runs the online store. 9 If your book is a science fiction western or a home-repair how-to or a silly alphabet book for toddlers, it���s a really good idea to drop the appropriate phrase in somewhere. But only if it actually works. 10 Keyword stuffing ��� dropping as many synonyms for search phrases as you can into a chunk of text ��� is ugly, it turns off readers, and a lot of search engines penalize that kind of bad behavior.

So if you can work your keywords into your text organically, great!

But if you can���t ��� if you���ve put your whole description together, and there���s no elegant way to add steampunk mystery or YA paranormal shifter thriller into it ��� consider dropping a short ��� SHORT ��� list in brackets or parentheses at the end. Often, I���ll add the length and any specific piece of information I haven���t been able to mention elsewhere:

(60,000 words, clean lesbian romance, HEA11)

Or perhaps:

(120,000 words, American Civil War historical fiction; book 1 of 3)

By adding this kind of listing at the very bottom, you���re doing two things:

Including keywords for search engines ��� both inside and outside the retailer siteGiving the reader a very clear idea what they���re going to getWhen in Doubt, Change, Change Away

Remember, everything on a book���s retail page should be designed to entice exactly the kind of reader who will get the most out of the book. You should at this point have compiled an interesting, intriguing Venus fly trap custom-made for your ideal reader: your book description.

Once you���ve posted the description, see what kind of response it generates.

And then, once you get some sense of whether it���s working or not, you can always change it! You can change any part of a book���s metadata except the ISBN as often as you like: Title/subtitle, 12 price, description, cover ��� you can even change the author name, if you insist. 13

Experiment. Test. Improve. Keep what seems to work, change what doesn���t. There���s no such thing as a perfect book description ��� or cover, or���. ��� so feel to keep striving to make it better.

1 Oh ��� and this same text can serve as the basis for the back-cover copy if you���re creating a print edition!
2 It���s spelled that way to avoid confusion with the metal out of which movable type used to be made or the leading ��� space ��� between lines.
3 Or, if your book is non-fiction, it should leave them thinking, Wow! That���s just what I need ��� how can it help me do that?
4 This technique also works for email subject lines and for posting links to articles. It���s the absolute essence of clickbait, I know, but that doesn���t make it less legitimate or effective.
5 Since some folks have groused about it in the past, I want to make it clear that I���m not plugging my book, but rather giving an example from personal experience. As you���ll see below, that experience hasn���t always been positive!
6 Why not

tags? Because, by convention, those are supposed to be the title of the page ��� in the case of a page on a retailer site, the title of your book ��� and there���s only supposed to be one per page. Also, in my experience, they are just too big. ETA: Since I originally wrote this, KDP has limited publishers to , , and tags. They still work! Use them!
7 Or at least a sentence that can be construed as a glowing review from The New York Times.
8 This last was, believe it or not, a blurb suggested by an agent who wanted to represent Risuko. Never liked it. But it sure catches the eye!
9 And also Google, which indexes all of these retail sites.
10 You can also consider using these sorts of phrases in the sub-title ��� in fact, you really should put them in both places.
11 As any fan of romances would know, HEA = ���happily ever after��� ��� a must-have for many romance readers.
12 I recently changed a book���s title. Twice. The final version works much better ��� and fits the series better.
13 The author name, however, is a part of the brand that you���re trying to build up. You probably don���t want to change it if you don���t have to.

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Book Covers 101: You CAN tell a book by its cover

Let’s Talk Covers…

Your mother probably taught you many things, among them the truism ���You can���t tell a book by its cover.���

Now, while that wisdom holds in most of our lives, one place where it doesn���t, ironically, is in publishing.

Oh, it���s still true ��� the cover doesn���t necessarily communicate what���s inside (though it should). But potential readers ignore it almost universally ��� especially when it comes to ebooks.

The cover is the first and (in many cases) most important piece of information those readers get about a title. This time out, I���m going to look at what should go into designing a cover that works for, rather than against, your ebook.

The Cover���s Job

Whatever format a book is in (print, audio, or ebook), the cover has a very important job ��� apart from and in addition to being visually attractive. As readers of TheBookDesigner.com probably already know, that job falls into several very important parts. It must communicate:

The genre/subgenre of the bookThe tone of the bookThe subject matter of the book

A cover makes a promise . It tells the reader very clearly ��� through words, but also through design ��� exactly what they���re going to read.

Genre

There���s no mistaking a Harlequin Romance book. The covers regularly feature virile, bare-chested men and beautiful women, themselves often less than fully clothed. Harlequin���s Historical imprint features similar characters, but with clothing from the English Regency, the Middle Ages, or Hollywood���s Golden Era. The colors will be bright and running toward the warm side of the color wheel.

It���s easy for non-fans (and non-authors) to make fun of such covers. Even so, they���re an important part of Harlequin���s huge success. They communicate to the potential reader with great efficiency exactly what kind of book it is they���re going to be getting if they purchase it. The promise they���re making is extremely clear.

Now, if I���m looking for a space opera novel in which romance isn���t a primary plot theme, those covers won���t make a promise I���m interested in. Instead, I���ll be looking for a cover with stars and space ships or possibly characters (human and non-) holding futuristic weapons. The color scheme is likely to be dark and cool.

We could make the same kinds of observations about a thriller, a business non-fiction book, an inspirational title ��� each genre and subgenre has certain tropes (characteristic elements) that identify it. Even literary fiction!

If you aren���t sure what the tropes for your subgenre are, go to a bookstore ��� online or in person ��� and spend an hour looking at every single book that matches your book���s narrow category.

Are there design elements that repeat?Are there ways that the cover designers let readers know, for example, that a book is urban rather than epic fantasy, say, or police procedural rather than gumshoe detective or cozy whodunit?Inspirational books for children as opposed to for their parents?

Educate yourself as to the design tropes and clich��s for your subgenre.

You don���t have to follow all of those clich��s in your own design ��� and probably shouldn���t. But they���re clich��s for a reason. You need to know them before you choose to discard them.

Tone

A cover should let the reader know what sort of tone to expect. This is just as important as communicating genre. In the covers that you were looking at above, did the designs promise:

quirky humor?brooding, steamy romance?blood-chilling terror?

How did the cover manage that?

There���s probably some combination of artwork, font choice, and color that works to promise the reader a particular tone.

The book had sure better deliver on that promise!

There���s nothing worse than picking up a book with an amusing cover and finding that you���ve purchased a grim drama ��� or vice versa.

You know what tone dominates your book. Make sure that the cover communicates that.

Subject Matter

It can be important for the cover to let the reader know what the book is about ��� literally. This is separate from genre or even tone.

In this case, the cover actually tells the reader this is a book about time management or this is a book where there are gun fights or this is a kissing book , (as the grandson in the film of The Princess Bride would say). If the subject matter is central to your reader���s choice whether or not to buy the book, then definitely make sure that the cover communicates that subject.

However, please don���t feel as if the cover needs to tell the story of the book ��� or illustrate a scene from the book. Remember, they���re looking at the cover before they���ve read it . You don���t have to overdo it. But just as you would follow the dictum show, don���t tell in your writing, it���s good to give your reader a clue as to what they���re going to find once they crack the book open.

Ebook vs. Print Covers

Up to this point, everything that I���ve had to say pertains to all book covers ��� print, audiobook, or ebook.

There is one major distinction between ebook and print covers, however, that you really should bear in mind as you are creating your own cover (whether you are the designer yourself, or you���ve hired someone else to do the work for you). It���s kind of an obvious distinction, but it���s an important one, nonetheless.

Print covers are designed to be seen person on a book shelf or table ��� whether at a book store, a library, or a friend���s living room.

They are designed to be seen at full size, up close. Whether it���s a 6���x9��� trade paperback or a 8���x10��� picture book, it���s meant to be picked up and examined in detail.

Ebook covers, on the other hand, are largely seen at thumbnail size in a list of other ebooks, or at best at fairly small scale.

Here���s a listing of the results on Amazon for the search word kunoichi :

That���s the size that matters ��� what is known as thumbnail size, maybe an inch or so wide by an inch and a half tall. If the details of the cover don���t communicate at that scale ��� if the cover can���t communicate its promise ��� what do you think the odds are that a potential reader will be drawn to click through to see the cover at a (slightly) larger size?

Not very high.

If you look at the first two titles in that list, they read very clearly at this scale. (Yes, the second one is my novel Risuko . Shh.)

How about the third book, The Ninja Girl ? Can you tell anything about that book���s genre, tone, or subject matter? It���s dark, so I wouldn���t expect a lighthearted comedy, but aside from that, I can���t see a thing.

If I were to click through��� I���d see this:

Okay. So that���s a little bit better ��� I can (if I look closely) see a woman���s back with a snake tattoo; she���s wearing a conical Asian hat and a sword. So that tells me something. But it���s still not much. 1

This isn���t a terrible cover ��� if this were a print book.

Tell me, the white box on the upper-left edge ��� can you read it even zoomed in? It���s the series/imprint logo. Which is nice, but not particularly helpful, and at the scale that Amazon shows, even on the product screen for the book not particularly legible.

Now, here���s the page for the ebook edition of my novel:

James Egan of Bookfly Design created that cover for me, and I���m pretty comfortable in saying he did a fabulous job. 2

It clearly communicates the genre (YA historical adventure set in Asia), it communicates the tone I was looking for (mysterious), and it communicates subject matter ��� a girl with a sword.

When James sent me his initial design, the central figure was somewhat smaller and there was text down the left-hand side ��� the series title.

However, one of the things we noticed when we looked at that cover at thumbnail size was that you couldn���t see the sword . It just looked like a girl���s silhouette. So we deleted the series and expanded the whole central circle. Problem averted!

However, this is the ebook cover.

Here���s the print cover:

Notice anything different?

There are two major differences

First, the height-to-width ratio is different. Where the ebook is 1.6 times as tall as it is wide, the 6���x9��� paperback is 1.5 times as tall as it is wide. That���s pretty minor, but means that I had to stretch the circle a bit.

But second, because this version was meant to be purchased at bookstores (and conventions, and���), I felt comfortable adding a blurb below my name. See that red text at the bottom there? Here���s a closeup:

Okay, sure, I���m pretty pleased with that blurb ��� but notice, you can���t read that on the Amazon product page. If anything, it just muddies the design. But if you pick up the physical book, it���s right there, promising you a good read.

I don���t bother putting that on the ebook cover. Why bother, when the first time someone���s going to see it is when it���s loaded onto their ereader ��� after they���ve already bought it?

So, an ebook cover should be clean, attractive and easy to read at thumbnail size. Even at that small scale, it should promise the correct genre, tone, and subject matter, so your reader won���t be disappointed.

You may decide to use higher contrast to make them read better at thumbnail (though I think that might help sell your print book as well). To fit the online bookstores��� thumbnail image slot, its dimensions should be 1.6:1. The long side should be at least 2560 pixels ��� which means that an ideal size would be 1600 pixels by 2560 pixels (or larger).

Audiobook covers are a completely different ball of wax ��� they need to be square (like old CDs and LPs). Their ideal dimensions are 3000 pixels on either side.

Next time, we���re going to be talking about how to make your ebook���s description field work as hard to sell your book as your cover does.

1 And the description gives me almost nothing more than the little that the cover already promises.

2 I feel comfortable saying that for a couple of reasons. First of all, people have told me many times that it���s a gorgeous cover. And second, it won an award in TheBookDesigner.com���s monthly ebook cover design contest.

The post Book Covers 101: You CAN tell a book by its cover appeared first on Stillpoint Digital Press.

How old are Risuko and the others?

I’ve been asked many times how old Risuko and the other girls are in the Seasons of the Sword books.

Since these are young adult novels, it’s a good question. It’s one, however, I specifically chose not to answer in the text of the books. Before I answer, I need you to know that my answer will include some spoilers for Risuko. Just so you’re not surprised.

How old are Risuko, Emi, and Toumi?

So, if you’ve read the books, I’m going to guess that you figured out that the young girls ��� Risuko, Emi, and Toumi ��� are all just about at puberty age. A couple of things to remember: young women reach puberty much earlier now than they did even a hundred years ago. There are a lot of theories about why that is, but one of the reasons is almost certainly improved nutrition. All three of the girls were living in poverty, on the edge of starvation, up until they reached the Full Moon.

Under Kee Sun’s care, they receive a high-protein diet for the first time since they were young. All three girls grow quickly, though Emi grows the most.

All of that is to say that though she seems younger in some ways, Risuko is thirteen. The other girls are a bit older ��� about fourteen. (The Japanese count age by New Year’s Day, not birthday, with everyone going up a year at the same time. So in Japan, they’d all be thirteen.)

I don’t mention their ages in the book for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I wasn’t sure it really mattered.

Second, I wanted Emi and Toumi to hit their first moon time during the later chapters ��� and I didn’t want to go through the whole explanation that I just gave you. Didn’t think it moved the story forward much, and I wanted to talk about periods as little as possible so as not to get anyone too squeamish without any reason. (Some of my readers are obviously going to me more comfortable about the topic of menstruation than others ��� but it was a somewhat taboo subject in traditional Japanese culture, so I didn’t think it made sense to go into too much detail in the text.)

How about the others?

Everyone else at the Full Moon is, obviously, older.

Fuyudori, the senior initiate in Risuko, is around sixteen years old (in spite of her white hair), while Mai and Shino are a bit younger.

Mieko, the eldest of the kunoichi, and Lieutenant Masugu are both twenty-five. Mieko has been working for Lady Chiyome for not quite a decade, since she was a bit older than Risuko. (If you want to know more about Mieko, Kuniko, and the others when they were younger, check out the Kunoichi Companion Tales.)

The other kunoichi range in ages from eighteen to their mid-twenties.

Lady Chiyome and Kee Sun, the Korean cook, are both in their forties. She’s a bit older than he is.

There. Long answer to a simple question.

By the way, why do you think I had moon time show up in the book at all?

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Gender, Risuko, and Granny Weatherwax

I���ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about gender.

Woman Combing Her Hair by Goyo Hashiguchi, c. 1920

I���ve been thinking about gender because I���m writing a series of books in which it plays an important role. But it���s also on my mind because it���s very much a part of the global conversation these days. Issues of women���s rights in general and transsexual men and women���s rights in particular flare regularly in my morning news feed. My wife is teaching an online class in theater and gender that looks at these subjects in depth. The subjects comes up frequently in my conversations with my daughters and with my friends.

Sex=Gender

I���m just old enough that when I was young we didn’t make any distinction between sex (as defined by one���s physical appearance) and gender (one���s identification and behavior). Certain toys were girl toys and others were boy toys. Some boys were girly and some girls were tomboys. When I reached high school, we were taught that people with XX chromosomes were female while people with XY chromosomes were male.

That���s just the way it was.

Only, even then, the world was more complicated. I knew people growing up who were what we���d now call intersex ��� their bodies weren���t either male nor female according to the supposedly clear rules I’d learned. When I was 10, a girl successfully sued in the US Supreme Court to be allowed to play baseball with boys.

So “the way it was” wasn’t actually how things actually were.

Gender=Performance

Gender, we���ve come to see, is something we do, not something we are. It���s what my wife would describe to her class as a social construct ��� a concept a group of people decide to treat a particular way. Like race, social class, and numerous other ideas that many cultures treat as real and fixed, gender is less a matter of science and more a matter of agreed-on moral standards of behavior. One society’s ideas of masculine or feminine ��� and whether those ideas mark distinct states or points on a spectrum ��� don’t necessarily match another society’s.

Twelfth Night sword fight: On Training Kunoichi

In Shakespeare’s England, for example, men wore corsets and nail polish, and put on high-heeled shoes to show off their calves. They were applauded for showing emotion and expressing affection. They were also expected to defend their honor with a blade if need be. Trust me: you would not want to call one of them girly. Especially to his face.

Gender in Risuko’s Japan Onna-bugeisha ��� Japan’s warrior women (Ishi-jo, a noblewoman, defends herself with a glaive)

In the medieval Japan I’m writing about in Seasons of the Sword, men and women are much more constrained in their behavior, and Japanese society (then as to a lesser extent now) expected men and women’s lives to be completely separate and completely different ��� especially in the samurai and daimyo classes. Men were held to high standards of personal and family honor, even more so than their counterparts in England. Women were expected to be decorous and soft ��� and yet samurai women were trained to defend their homes, their families, and themselves as onna-bugeisha.

To this day, men and women speak slightly different dialects of Japanese. Gender difference is built into Japanese culture in a way that even traditional European culture can’t quite equal.

It’s that tension that attracted me to the story of Mochizuki Chiyome and her kunoichi in the first place. The strain between women seen as “delicate flowers” yet acting as warriors and killers intrigued me. I was fascinated by the historical account of a war widow training a group of young girls ��� orphans and misfits ��� to do things well beyond the gender norms not only of Japanese Sengoku society, but of modern society as well.

Gender Now

So if gender ��� male, female, and whatever other designations a culture happens to embrace ��� is ultimately based not in something as seemingly immutable as biological sex, but in a kind of agreed-on performance in which men behave one way and women another, why do we still get so uncomfortable at the idea of people not sticking to those standards?

Because folks behaving outside of expectations still makes folks wildly uncomfortable.

Why is this so ��� and why does that discomfort bother me?

Again, I’ve been thinking about this a lot.

Granny Weatherwax tells it like it is

My best answer is to quote from one of my favorite authors, the wonderful late master of satirical fantasy, Terry Pratchett.

Here’s a conversation between a character who holds to a view of right and wrong not far from that espoused by many Western traditions and one of the most unsentimental, clear-eyed characters ever written, Granny Weatherwax:

���There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin. for example.”

“And what do they think? Against it, are they?”

“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”

“Nope.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that���”

“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes���”

“But they starts with thinking about people as things.���

���Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum (emphasis mine)

What does that have to do with gender?

Everything, I think.

When we choose to see a person as a man or a woman (or whatever other social constructs we choose to brand them with) before we see them as a person, we’ve taken the first step down a road that, I agree with Granny, is paved with sin.

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Book Marketing 101: What to do BEFORE you pay for ads

The first thing you need in order to sell your book(s) is a quality product ��� well-written, well-edited (not by you), and well-designed (both the ebook, the print edition, and, possible, the audiobook ��� not to mention the cover). But that’s not enough. If you build it, they probably will not come.

Creating books is only the first half of the job. The other half is actually making sure that you’ve created an audience who want to buy them.

Now, when I say that to new author-publishers, they immediately think I’m talking about paid ads on Facebook, Google, Amazon, BookBub, etc.

But that’s not what I mean.

You mean there’s something more important than ads?

Now, this isn’t an answer that I think is going to please anyone just starting out, but more than ads, there are two things that reliably lead to sales:

Platform: It���s important to build presence that potential readers can be aware of so that when they come across your books you���re a) not an unknown and b) have some reasonable reputation for knowing what you���re writing about (whether that���s fiction or non-fiction). Unless your real-world reputation puts you in a position to be a familiar name/brand to your audience, the way to build those is through creating what���s become known as a platform: an online presence that can include a web page/site (ideally not primarily concerned with sharing sales links, but including those strategically and prominently), newsletter mailing list, social media, accounts on communities and other folks sites where you comment and interact (again, not saying BUY MY BOOK!!! over and over, but actually adding to the level of conversation), etc. Doing these things needn���t cost you much, but can bring a rich reward over time.More books: Yeah. The best way to sell one book is to have another book, so that when someone gets to the end of one you���ve given them somewhere else to go. Obviously, this is especially effective with series, but can also work well even if you���ve just got a bunch of titles connected only by theme or genre �����or even just your name. (This is one of many reasons that I���m not a huge fan of using separate pen names to micro-target; you���re denying yourself and your readers the joy of synergy. There are cases where you have to use a pen name �����I know an author who writes children���s books and erotic romance, for example. But I think it���s a bad strategy except in those kinds of cases.) Discoverability is the key to modern publishing, and having more titles simply allows more people to find you, and makes each marketing expenditure (whether it���s of time or money) more profitable, since by having a larger list, you���re creating economies of scale. Each title doesn���t have to be full-length work. I���ve added a series of prequel short stories to my YA historical series; not only can I use one as a reader magnet to build up my platform and freebies for my subscribers, but these stories increase the number of ways a reader might stumble across me and my books. Again, this is mostly an expenditure of your own time and energy (production costs notwithstanding) and will likely pay off ��� again, over time.

Ads aren���t really going to pay for themselves until you���ve created those two bits of social capital, though you can use them judiciously to help build up your platform.

So… when should I start?

Seth Godin famously said when asked when an author should start marketing a book, ���Three years ago.���

There are times when I feel as if he meant that, no matter when you start, you���re already three years too late.

But I think what he was actually trying to say was that you need to plan ahead, and use those three years (or more) to create a body of work so that when your book is coming out, you���ve got an audience ready for it.

For some other thoughts, check out my posts on free marketing techniques and building your own independent publishing house.

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Bright Eyes has arrived �����and the critics are already speaking!

Bright Eyes reviews:

The sequel to David Kudler’s award-winning YA novel Risuko hit bookstores today ��� and critics are applauding!

“Once again David Kudler has fully succeeded as a novelist with a genuine flair for historical fiction populated by memorably crafted characters and decidedly entertaining plot twists and turns. Like the first novel in the author’s ‘Seasons of the Sword’ series, Bright Eyes is imaginative, original, exceptionally well written, and highly recommended” ��� Midwest Book Review

“The martial arts was well done, the mystery was riveting, and the ending unexpected!” ��� Azalea Dabill, Author

“David Kudler crafts an enthralling. unputdownable tale due in no small part to his outstanding world building. He ties enough aspects of real-life feudal Japanese culture to give the perfect balance of reality in this fictional world. […] The well-crafted mystery, well-honed history and world-building, and Risuko’s adventurousness leave the reader wanting more.” ��� Shailyn Rogers, Ind’Tale Magazine

Have you read Bright Eyes? If you have, don’t forget to share what you thought on Amazon, on Goodreads, on BookBub, on Instagram, on TikTok, or wherever you like to talk books!

If you haven’t?

What are you waiting for?

Can one girl stop a killer? The future of Japan hangs in the balance, and it’s up to a girl who likes to climb to save the day

Two armies have descended on the Full Moon, Lady Chiyome’s school for young shrine maidens (and assassins), and the war that has torn Japan apart for over a century threatens to destroy the fragile peace.

In this thrilling sequel to Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale, Risuko must face warlords, samurai, angry cooks, a monster in the hills, the truth about her father, a spy among the kunoichi…

And a murderer.

Someone kills a Takeda lieutenant, staging it to look like suicide. Can Risuko figure out who would do such thing?

And can she keep it from happening again?

Seasons of the Sword:Risuko (Winter)Bright Eyes (Spring)Summer ��� coming soon!Autumn ��� coming soon!(Young adult historical adventure; Japanese Civil War)Ebook Bundle ($9.99 $3.99):

ORDER

Hardcover ($26.95 $22.95):

 ORDER

Paperback ($12.95 $9.99):

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Audiobook ($24.95 $12.95):

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ORDER FROM YOUR FAVORITE STORE:

ORDER

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Risuko Flash Sale!

With��Bright Eyes less than a week from release, we wanted to let you know that we are offering David Kudler’s award-winning first novel Risuko��on a special sale for a limited time ��� both ebook, paperback, and hardcover!

This week only, you can get a special deal on the first volume of Seasons of the Sword:

The ebook��is only $0.99!Order Direct from Stillpoint�������Order from Your Favorite StoreThe paperback is only $6.99!Order Direct from Stillpoint�������Order from Your Favorite StoreThe hardcover��is only $16.99!Order Direct from Stillpoint�������Order from Your Favorite Store

We’ve never offered the book at these prices before, and won’t be likely to again ��� if you’ve been waiting to order a copy for yourself (or for someone else) now is your chance!

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Is ���Gritty��� Realistic?

In response to a recent post about Ursula K. Le Guin, I was challenged on some of what I’d had to say about George R.R. Martin’s writing ��� specifically, I was told that Martin’s gritty, brutal fantasy was somehow more realistic than Le Guin’s.

Well, to each their own. If you love A Song of Ice and Fire, then great.

I don’t love the series, though I can see the books’ virtues and appeal. But I object to the idea that gritty somehow equals realistic.

When I started reading Game of Thrones, my youngest was seven years old. I got about seventy pages in when (spoiler)���

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Game of Thrones, Seasons 1, episode 1 (copyright �� HBO Studio)

���a seven-year-old was tossed out a window. Put down the book and didn���t pick it up again for four or five years.

When I did, I appreciated Martin���s ability to pull me in, and especially to make me care about the compelling, complex characters. But I also quickly figured out what his game was: pull me in, make me care about the characters��� and then surprise me by treating them horribly. Death. Rape. Torture. Torture. Death. Rape. More rape. More torture. More death.

Now, I���m all for ���realistic,��� gritty fantasy. I���m a big fan of Jim Butcher���s Dresden Files books, and The Lord of the Rings is a wonderful, epic response to Tolkien���s own experiences in the trenches during WWI.

But A Song of Ice and Fire���s gleeful leaning into gory, grimdark awfulness eventually struck me as no more interesting ��� or realistic ��� than the daisies-and-sunshine you get in a lot of bad children���s fantasy. They reminded me of Stephen Donaldson���s books, which I read with pleasure as a teen ��� for a while, before getting similarly bored. When the whole point of a series of books seems to be to draw me in, make me care, and then shock me (over and over), boredom is a clear sign for me to put down the series.

Authors like Tolkien and Le Guin ��� and Rowling and Pratchett and Gaiman and Butcher and Baum and Lackey and Butler and Jemisin and Beagle and many, many more ��� present worlds of both light and dark, and explore the interplay between the two. Which is why I tend to prefer them.

And it’s that interplay evident in the history of the Sengoku Jidai, the Japanese Civil War Era, that inspired me to write Seasons of the Sword.

Images copyright �� HBO Studio

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