The Hard Part
One of the last things I had to do before putting up Pax Victoria for pre-order was write the description for the Amazon page. It's the tenth one I've done and was only slightly easier than the first.
The temptation early on is to describe everything, because everything is Very Important and I spent so much time on it and the characters do the thing and this bit is super cool and don't forget that funny part and-- it's very easy to turn it into an essay or a treatise.
So what are you supposed to do? One, keep it short. Like, 250 words short. Doesn't sound like much, but giving yourself a hard limit forces you to strip it down to the essentials. People click away from walls of text, so keep it to the important parts that are the most compelling: setting, characters, stakes, obstacles. That's it, really. Who is it about (character), where (setting) why should I care (stakes), what does the character have to overcome to prevent that (obstacles). Laid out that way, you may notice that that is pretty much the description of what a story is. Exactly!
Easier said than done, though. Writing a book is one thing, describing it is another. As the author, it's even harder. I know what happens, so it's hard to know what some people will consider a spoiler. I try to only use information from the first act, with maybe a little bleed over into the second. The end of the first act usually provides the 'But...' in the description, and oftentimes the obstacles won't be obvious until act two anyway. But absolutely nothing from the second half! Think about movie trailers that have the big action scene from the climax in them. Lame, right? You wanted that in the theater, not on your phone while you're on the toilet. Book descriptions should be (I think) treated the same way.
I've messed up before, having November's true identity in the initial description for Remember, November took the fun out of it for some people. Personally, I think the story is more about how and why she is November, not who, but others might like to figure it out for themselves, or realize it at different times, so I took it out. Making assumptions can backfire, but I have to assume certain things when nobody's read the story yet. This was particularly hard for Pax since I have to assume anyone interested in the last book has read the first few and knows what I've been setting up; I can't know that, though.
One thing you might not have noticed, for example, is that I've stopped including character's surnames in the descriptions. Again, that's from assumptions that you already know who these people are.
Which brings me to my next consideration: describing a sequel versus a standalone book.
In a sequel, especially one as deep as a sixth book, describing the setting is less important for the same reasons as the name thing: if you're here, you probably know already. Longstown is a familiar place to any Ashes reader, so I just mention it. What's important to a sequel are the stakes and the obstacles, which is what the Pax description focuses on.
For a standalone (especially fantasy), setting is more important. It could be anywhere, based on anything. Take Without Words, for example. The initial setting is essentially a redwood/rain forest kind of place, and that plays into how the characters behave and see the world, especially since one of the main characters is from the desert. Without Words is also a romance, so character is as much if not more important than a normal fantasy book. Why are these characters going to fall in love? What's missing from their lives that can be filled with love? Answering that also gives you the obstacles. Recently divorced, burned one too many times, too shy, whatever reasons a romance may not work. The stakes in a romance are generally not very high (they're personal, yes, and important on an individual level, but that's not, like, a nuclear war being touched off), so they generally don't get emphasized. (If she doesn't find love, then she'll... stay single. Okay, got it.) Without Words is as much fantasy as romance, however, so it's sort of a hybrid description.
The cold reality is that the author only has control over two things to convince you to read our books: the cover and the description. Everything else is out of our hands, so both have to be a) good and b) work together in the seconds that the average book browser takes to decide if they will even go so far as to click on the preview bit and read the beginning, let alone commit to the rest.
So if you hear other others going on about how stressed they are writing the description for their books, now you know why. Condensing 100,000 words down to 250 isn't easy, but it can be a fun challenge once you know what you need to do and why.
Pax Victoria will be released September 20!
The temptation early on is to describe everything, because everything is Very Important and I spent so much time on it and the characters do the thing and this bit is super cool and don't forget that funny part and-- it's very easy to turn it into an essay or a treatise.
So what are you supposed to do? One, keep it short. Like, 250 words short. Doesn't sound like much, but giving yourself a hard limit forces you to strip it down to the essentials. People click away from walls of text, so keep it to the important parts that are the most compelling: setting, characters, stakes, obstacles. That's it, really. Who is it about (character), where (setting) why should I care (stakes), what does the character have to overcome to prevent that (obstacles). Laid out that way, you may notice that that is pretty much the description of what a story is. Exactly!
Easier said than done, though. Writing a book is one thing, describing it is another. As the author, it's even harder. I know what happens, so it's hard to know what some people will consider a spoiler. I try to only use information from the first act, with maybe a little bleed over into the second. The end of the first act usually provides the 'But...' in the description, and oftentimes the obstacles won't be obvious until act two anyway. But absolutely nothing from the second half! Think about movie trailers that have the big action scene from the climax in them. Lame, right? You wanted that in the theater, not on your phone while you're on the toilet. Book descriptions should be (I think) treated the same way.
I've messed up before, having November's true identity in the initial description for Remember, November took the fun out of it for some people. Personally, I think the story is more about how and why she is November, not who, but others might like to figure it out for themselves, or realize it at different times, so I took it out. Making assumptions can backfire, but I have to assume certain things when nobody's read the story yet. This was particularly hard for Pax since I have to assume anyone interested in the last book has read the first few and knows what I've been setting up; I can't know that, though.
One thing you might not have noticed, for example, is that I've stopped including character's surnames in the descriptions. Again, that's from assumptions that you already know who these people are.
Which brings me to my next consideration: describing a sequel versus a standalone book.
In a sequel, especially one as deep as a sixth book, describing the setting is less important for the same reasons as the name thing: if you're here, you probably know already. Longstown is a familiar place to any Ashes reader, so I just mention it. What's important to a sequel are the stakes and the obstacles, which is what the Pax description focuses on.
For a standalone (especially fantasy), setting is more important. It could be anywhere, based on anything. Take Without Words, for example. The initial setting is essentially a redwood/rain forest kind of place, and that plays into how the characters behave and see the world, especially since one of the main characters is from the desert. Without Words is also a romance, so character is as much if not more important than a normal fantasy book. Why are these characters going to fall in love? What's missing from their lives that can be filled with love? Answering that also gives you the obstacles. Recently divorced, burned one too many times, too shy, whatever reasons a romance may not work. The stakes in a romance are generally not very high (they're personal, yes, and important on an individual level, but that's not, like, a nuclear war being touched off), so they generally don't get emphasized. (If she doesn't find love, then she'll... stay single. Okay, got it.) Without Words is as much fantasy as romance, however, so it's sort of a hybrid description.
The cold reality is that the author only has control over two things to convince you to read our books: the cover and the description. Everything else is out of our hands, so both have to be a) good and b) work together in the seconds that the average book browser takes to decide if they will even go so far as to click on the preview bit and read the beginning, let alone commit to the rest.
So if you hear other others going on about how stressed they are writing the description for their books, now you know why. Condensing 100,000 words down to 250 isn't easy, but it can be a fun challenge once you know what you need to do and why.
Pax Victoria will be released September 20!
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