I.H. Laking's Blog, page 9

Writing a Compelling Amazon Book Description: A Challenging Process.

Who’d have thought that something so short could be so challenging?

I’m fairly sure those was Goliath’s last thought as he faced down David. It’s also been my thought tonight as I’ve spent considerable time updating my Amazon descriptions. This process has involved reading several (lengthy) articles on how to nail a good book description, and also doing research into book descriptions around Amazon, especially among bestsellers and popular books in the mystery genre.

The bottom line that I came to was that my descriptions up until now haven’t provided enough impetus for readers to want to download. The covers have been fantastic and certainly gone a long way towards driving downloads, but I know that there’s always plenty of room for improvement in how I present my work.

With my new-found knowledge in hand, I started reworking my descriptions. My goals were to:

Avoid any assumed knowledge
Entice people by including elements of my stories that are unique
Include open-ended questions that prompt people to find out more

So here we go. This was my old description for What Went Wrong With Mrs Milliard’s Mech?:

If you’re a fan of classic detective stories, look no further! Mrs Milliard’s Mech will keep you guessing right until the last moment.

When Mrs Milliard’s baker forgets his secret recipe, she turns to the best detective in town for help. Inspector Ambrose sets out to solve a mystery that could ruin Mrs Milliard and her fellow shopkeepers. Faced with a race against time to discover the truth, Ambrose will have to work quickly to find the surprising solution to this curious case.

Join Inspector Ambrose and help him solve the mystery of Mrs Milliard’s Mech today!

As you can see, the description was fairly basic. I was hoping to let people know my story is somewhat traditional (a classic detective tale) and also give an overall sense of the issues facing the lead character.

Here’s the new description:

If you’re a fan of detective stories, look no further! I H Laking’s debut novella will wrap you up in the new world of the Empire.

Mrs Milliard is on the verge of financial ruin. With a business deal about to expire unless her mechanical baker remembers his secret recipe, Mrs Milliard turns to Inspector Ambrose for help. But as Ambrose soon discovers, no one in Mrs Milliard’s neighbourhood is ready to talk.

 Will Inspector Ambrose uncover the truth before Mrs Milliard’s midnight deadline? Can he solve a mystery that seems impossible on first inspection? The culprit is closer than it seems, and time is running out.

Join Inspector Ambrose and help him solve the mystery of Mrs Milliard’s Mech today!

I want people to know that this is the first story I released: It’s new! I then went back and re-read my whole story (including picking up a few spelling and grammar issues – yikes!) and upped the drama and urgency in my description. I also included several prompts in the form of questions. Will Inspector Ambrose solve the case? Time is very short in this story, and I tried to get that across.

Now on toThe Vanishing Villa. Here was my original description:

If you enjoyed Mrs Milliard’s Mech, you’ll love The Vanishing Villa!

Inspector Ambrose returns in his second detective story. And this time, he may not survive to solve the case.

Francis Finney arrives home from holiday to find his house has vanished, and Inspector Ambrose must find the cause of the villa’s sudden disappearance. The neighbours aren’t talking, and Ambrose can’t believe that things are as they seem. His search for answers will lead to him deep under Traville to a place forgotten by time, and haunted by danger.

Join Inspector Ambrose as he faces his most dangerous case yet!

I wanted people to know this was the sequel to Mrs Milliard’s Mech. The problem was that people might not have read my original story… so not heaps of value there. I kept the rest of the description brief, and probably skipped a very important part of the story: assassins!
Here’s the new description:

Inspector Ambrose returns in his second detective story. And this time, the Assassin’s Guild awaits.

Francis Finney arrives home to find that his house has vanished, and Inspector Ambrose is called upon to discover the cause of the villa’s disappearance. When it becomes apparent that social tension may be behind the crime, Ambrose and his partner begin looking for a suspiciously absent butler. Their search for answers will lead them to the slums of Traville, capital of the Empire, and deep underground, where dark secrets lie in wait, along with a group of exploring assassins.

Will Ambrose discover how a whole house disappeared? What mysteries will the detectives find underneath the great capital? And can the great Inspector Ambrose survive a brush with the Empire’s most feared Guild?

Join Inspector Ambrose as he faces his most dangerous case yet!

As you can see, I’ve upped the focus on the Assassin’s Guild (who also return in the third story), because I think this is a really interesting part of the story (and a very important part of the Empire world in general). I’ve adjusted the rest of the story outline to make it clear that things are about to get dicey for Ambrose and Percy, and that they may not even survive. Again, I’ve added in questions to prompt people more.

So there you have it: two new descriptions which give more information, and hopefully get more people interested in the Inspector Ambrose mysteries! I’m now in the final stages of reworking the final book in the series, The Murder at Mansfield Manor, which will be released soon – so my description writing days are not done yet!

Please me know your thoughts on the new descriptions, I’d love to hear what you think!

Friday Focus: Three Lessons in Pacing from J. K. Rowling & Harry Potter.

There are many aspects to J. K. Rowling’s writing that I could focus on today; from her amazing ability to weave a story, through to her colourful, intricate characters. This week, though, I’ve decided to focus on three of the ways Rowling keeps the pacing of the Harry Potter series lively.

She moves between scenes effortlessly: Rowling isn’t afraid to jump forward in time a long distance, and she does it with ease. Since the Harry Potter books are based around school years, Rowling can move forward very quickly by describing a change of season, or a coming holiday. On the other hand, Sometimes a scene will change as you’re reading it – from being in class to suddenly sitting in the Common Room doing homework. The way in which Rowling phrases her transitions doesn’t leave you feeling disconcerted, though – instead it’s just a natural flow: One moment Harry is being harassed by Professor Snape in class, and the next moment, Hermione is calling him names in the common room. It’s a wonderful use of conversation to move between settings, since you know that Hermione is unlikely to have an outburst in class, you’re subconsciously ready for the fact that the characters are talking in another setting.

She keeps conversations flowing: Rowling keeps conversations moving through small asides about what’s happening as the characters are speaking. A great example of this is in The Order of the Phoenix when Harry, Hermione, and Ron are chatting inside during a rainy lunchtime. Peeves the ghost is floating overhead firing ink pellets at people:

‘What?’ said Harry and Ron together. 

‘Hermione, it was your idea in the first place!’ said Ron indignantly.

‘I know,’ said Hermione, twisting her fingers together. ‘But after talking to Snuffles …’ 

‘But he’s all for it,’ said Harry. 

‘Yes,’ said Hermione, staring at the window again. ‘Yes, that’s what made me think maybe it wasn’t a good idea after all …’ 

Peeves floated over them on his stomach, peashooter at the ready; automatically all three of them lifted their bags to cover their heads until he had passed. 

‘Let’s get this straight,’ said Harry angrily, as they put their bags back on the floor, ‘Sirius agrees with us, so you don’t think we should do it any more?’ 

Hermione looked tense and rather miserable. Now staring at her own hands, she said, ‘Do you honestly trust his judgement?’ 

‘Yes, I do!’ said Harry at once. ‘He’s always given us great advice!’ 

An ink pellet whizzed past them, striking Katie Bell squarely in the ear. Hermione watched Katie leap to her feet and start throwing things at Peeves; it was a few moments before Hermione spoke again and it sounded as though she was choosing her words very carefully. 

‘You don’t think he has become … sort of … reckless … since he’s been cooped up in Grimmauld Place? You don’t think he’s … kind of … living through us?’

The conversation moves the plot along, whilst the presence of Peeves moves the scene along. It’s a simple tool that Rowling uses to great effect.

She writes compelling villains: Throughout the Harry Potter series, Rowling sets up her villains really well – they’re often in positions of influence, such as Rita Skeeter or Dolores Umbridge. In these cases, the villain leaves you feeling powerless as they run around causing havoc, which compels you to read more in order to find out if and how justice will be served. This really plays to a child’s sense of right and wrong, and the need to make sure Harry Potter is alright in the face of such villainy.

The other aspect of Rowling’s villains that keeps you reading is when their identity is unknown. When you don’t know who the character under Voldemort’s influence is, you’re compelled to read on to find a resolution. I won’t list any specific examples of this here out of respect for spoilers, but one of my favourite moments in all of the Harry Potter books is the reveal of the villain in The Goblet of Fire. It’s a twist that’s very hard to see coming, and just blows you away. The need to find out who’s pulling the strings keeps you reading right to the end.

Through these three techniques, J. K. Rowling keeps scenes flowing, and compels her readers to keep turning the pages. It’s rare to find someone who weaves characters, narrative, and plot so well together – but it’s such a treat to see these aspects of writing come together in Rowling’s work.

I hope I can incorporate even a jot of her narrative style into my stories in the future.

Monday Motivation: You can do it.

You can do it!

I don’t often use this blog purely for motivation, but I wanted to share an encouraging story from my recent writing experience with you.

I was thinking back on the moment I decided to leap into writing fiction last year, and how grateful I am that I took the leap and gave it a go (as mentioned in my last post). If you’re considering publishing your work, starting a blog, or sharing your thoughts online, I want to encourage you to do it. Success is totally possible – you just need to decide what success is for you.

The best thing you can do is set your goals realistically wherever you’re writing. When I first hit ‘publish’ on Amazon, I wondered if anyone would take notice of my work. I had pretty moderate success up front, so a few months down the line, I decided that I’d rather have people reading my work than wait for some miraculous media coverage to drive heaps of people to buy my book. Based on that, I decided success would be a bunch of people downloading my book for free. After setting Mrs Milliard’s Mech to perma-free on Amazon I’ve achieved that goal, and it’s really built up my confidence to keep writing. In no way am I claiming that I’ve arrived; there are so many things I want to achieve in my writing. But by setting an achievable goal, I was able to get on my journey and keep my motivation up.

I know that a lot of people who read my blog are writers seeking to get noticed or make their way in the self-publishing world – and that’s a tough space to be in! I love the feeling of having my work out there, but I’ve had to put in a lot of work to build a platform that gets my work in front of people. Many days I still battle with doubts and discouragement. I want to leave you with this thought, though: Every story that we find memorable involves adversity. When you think back on the classic villains, obstacles, and challenges that dot the stories you love, it becomes obvious that without a challenge, there wouldn’t be a triumph. So what’s the challenge you’re looking at in your writing today?

Whatever it is, you can overcome it.

You can do it.

Seven of my best and worst choices as a self published author.

Time has flown by!

I reached an important milestone in my writing career recently. It’s been 6 months since I published my first eBook! So in light of this auspicious occasion, I thought I’d look back at some of the best and worst choices I’ve made as a self-published author so far.

Best:  Getting out there and publishing my work.

I still remember the first time someone purchased one of my Inspector Ambrose stories. It was amazing. Since then people have downloaded over 3,000 copies of my eBooks.

Worst:  Spending too much time fretting over sales.

If I took all the time I spent fretting over sales and how I could improve things and actually spent that time writing, I think I would’ve got another story pumped out by now.

Best:  Getting book covers professionally designed.

I went through Artcorgi.com (now Artforauthors.com) for my two Inspector Ambrose covers, and they helped to get interest flowing in my stories. Before then, I was relying on my own hack-job covers, which were average at best. A good cover makes a HUGE difference.

Worst:  Waiting a long time to get an independent, informed critique of my work.

I was nervous about investing in a manuscript assessment, but I shouldn’t have been. It helped me in many ways, and will chart my path forward. I understand many authors may not have the funds to do this, and there are other places you can get critiqued for free, but I found that having a credible source reading my work was a massive asset, and worth every cent. Before I did this, I had nothing to measure my work against. Now I know key things I have to work on, which is helping me focus in the right areas.

Best:  Paying for a decent website.

I took the plunge and invested in a web address early. but what really helped me was buying a package with WordPress that included all their premium themes – it was half price on Black Friday! I love the feel of the site now, and it gets a lot more traffic. My original site was too simple, and hard to navigate. If you’re not savvy with web design, I’d  recommend getting a friend who is set you up with a teaching session. Something is better than nothing! Just avoid Comic Sans MS.

Worst:  Leaving my second Inspector Ambrose story at $1.49.

When I dropped the price of The Vanishing Villa, I saw a massive (seriously, massive) lift in sales. I barely moved anything at $1.49, but at $.99 people are much more likely to give it a go. I wish I’d reduced the price earlier.

Best:  Building my Twitter audience.

This part… took quite a while. But now I have an audience that engages with me regularly, and people actually click on the links and photos I put out there! I find social media quite easy to navigate, but if you’re a bit daunted by it, check out my post on what I did here.

Well, there we go! I hope you’ve found this enlightening. I’ll do a focus piece on getting a book set to perma-free on Amazon, which was also another great choice I made, but really needs it’s own article.

The bottom line is that I’ve loved my journey as an author so far, and I’d encourage anyone out there who’s thinking about self-publishing to give it a go.

You’ll love every milestone.

A Dozen Small Changes Part II: A Valuable Lesson.

Updates, updates, updates.

I’ve been hard at work enacting changes to my Inspector Ambrose stories these past few days – and the challenge hasn’t lessened as I’ve moved through the process. The main difficulty I’m facing is around pacing, as I have to add in more information and backstory to make the three stories work as one complete series without slowing them down too much.

I’ve added in some small pieces of information to Mrs Milliard’s Mech in order to at least tie the first two stories together, and now I’m working on giving more context to The Vanishing Villa. The last piece of work will involve adding an extra scene or two into The Murder at Mansfield Manor.

The main lesson I’ve learnt from this is around planning ahead. I wrote Mrs Milliard’s Mech in a very short amount of time, before I developed a lot of the depth to the society of the Empire, before I drew a map, and before I established the main timeline I’d like to use for my novel. The key for me here is to make sure that the novel is complete in and of itself, with no parts left out early on, lest I have to go back for more rewriting.

A valuable lesson to learn early on.

A Dozen Small Changes: Editing The Inpector Ambrose Mysteries.

Lots of small improvements are afoot!

Following on from the recent arrival of my Manuscript Assessment, I’ve moved into full revision and editing mode for The Inspector Ambrose Mysteries. The story that will be getting the most attention will be Mrs Milliard’s Mech, which is the shortest of the three mysteries by far.

The main narrative will remain the same, but there are parts of the wider narrative of the Empire which I hadn’t fully fleshed out when I write the original mystery, such as the social structures and in-depth history of the wider world the Empire resides in. So the challenge is how to fit in extra (highly necessary) information without slowing the flow of the story.

The other stories will receive minor tweaks before I compile them. The release of The Murder at Mansfield Manor will also coincide with the release of the three stories as one complete eBook as well.

Exciting times ahead!

The Manuscript Assessment Strikes Back.

Today was the big day!

My writing assessment from Writers Victoria has come in, and I’m really happy with the result. I was really nervous putting my work in to be assessed, because it’s a challenging thing to put your work out there specifically with the question “Is this actually any good?”

I broke down my request for feedback into three areas: The overall flow and pacing of my stories, characterisation, and suitability for the middle readers age bracket (11-13 years old). I think that giving the assessor specific areas to focus on is a great idea, since it plants seeds for them to consider as they read the manuscript. Like a filter they can run the stories through.

The results were positive regarding the stories, especially the characters and flow of the stories. There were plenty of questions raised about the setting of the stories, and this makes sense, since when I began writing the Inspector Ambrose mysteries, I only had a limited view of where I wanted the overall fantasy world to go. As I’ve mentioned in my post on mapping out my novel planning, I’ve now done lots of work around the world the Empire is set in, so I have that clarity ready to go.

There was also solid feedback around suitability for my chosen audience, which means I’m going to have to do some thinking around my characters and audience a bit more. This is encouraging, however, as I had a lot of thoughts around this.

So was the assessment worth it? Even at this early point I would say yes, absolutely. I’ve received objective feedback at an early stage in my writing career that will shape the editing and publishing of my third story, and enable to me to grow as a writer. That’s totally worth it. There’s also work I’ll need to do putting extra pieces of information about the Empire and its inhabitants into my first two stories, which will help readers view the three stories as a complete package.

I’ve got a lot of work to come now, but I’m feeling really encouraged and challenged. If you’ve ever considered doing a writing assessment, I’d encourage you to take the leap and do it.

I’m totally glad I did.

A New Short Story: The Sparrow & The Falcon.

It’s been a busy summer! I’ve been dropping in on Reddit to write some flash fiction, and working on the next book in the Inspector Ambrose series. As of this week, I’ve also begun writing another short story based around two new characters: The Sparrow and The Falcon.

This story will give a third perspective to the Empire, adding to the perspectives of Inspector Ambrose and Qan. Check back here for regular updates as the story grows and progresses! I’ll put up a raw writing sample once I get towards the end of the drafting process.

The Vanishing Villa – Now 99 Cents!

Happy new year everyone!

To get into the swing of things, and to enable as many people as possible to get into the Inspector Ambrose Series before The Murder at Mansfield Manor is released later this year, I’ve dropped the price of The Vanishing Villa to 99 cents – so you can get hold of a great Inspector Ambrose mystery for less than a dollar!

Hope this year is a great one for you and your family. Keep an eye out for a release date for Mansfield Manor soon.

Grab a copy of The Vanishing Villa from Amazon or Smashwords today!

The Reddit Residency.

Happy holidays, everyone!

This is just a short post to let you all know that I’ve taken up an online holiday “residency” on Reddit!

During the coming weeks I’ll be posting writing responses in the r/WritingPrompts subreddit, which is dedicated to giving people prompts to write short pieces from. My regular planing and writing is still in full swing, but if you’ve been waiting for a new release for a while, this is a good way to keep up with my creative process.

You can check out some of my writing on Reddit here!