Dwayne’s Comments (group member since Apr 01, 2017)

Dwayne’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Natalia wrote: "Hi..."

We don't allow self-promotion of any kind in this group.

I made her grow up.

Anna wrote: "Will the ghost girl show up sufficiently well in smaller covers? The font will, so that's good. Is it too dark?"

At 20% you can still see her and she still looks a bit wispy. I might see if I can find a photo that will work a little better.

The title is, of course, a reference to Peter Pan. But, in Peter Pan, the phrase is a defiant cry to the world, "I shall always remain a child". The ghost girl is there to, hopefully, help the reader to realize that in this book "I won't grow up" has a more disturbing meaning.

No, there's so much going on in this book, I don't think showing there's a ghost in it will give away much at all.

M.L. wrote: "I like it - nice blurb! I don't mind creepy - the reference to a disturbing journey is intriguing."

Good. The more I work on this, the more disturbing it gets. I may go back to calling it horror instead of paranormal mystery.

Gail wrote: "Too creepy for me..."

Yeah, that's been a huge debate with myself the last few weeks. Some of my earlier attempts at covers and blurbs didn't emphasize how creepy this story is. Looking over reviews and conversations with people who have read some of my other work, I see that's something I really should fix. People often come into my work expecting it to be light-hearted and fun, which it is... to a point. But, by the end things get pretty hairy. I want to make sure the reader is prepared for a disturbing ride.

Gail wrote: " (too many 'is' in the third sentence)."

Is oops is thanks. Is. Fixing is now is.

Fifteen-year-old Hannah Pickett believes she is haunted. Whenever anyone mistreats her, that person is harmed by an unseen protector. Is her guardian an angel, a demon, or something else?

She brings her questions to her teacher, Solomon Gallo, an amateur paranormal investigator and leader of a team of ghost hunters called Creeps. Gallo invites Hannah to join Creeps.

Reports come to Solomon about scarecrows, witches, and scrawny cat-like creatures. All cases seem to point to FairyTale Village, a defunct kiddie theme park, long rumored to be haunted. Stories abound regarding missing or killed children. When freshly murdered bodies are found in the park, it is clear the evil must be stopped. But, how? And why does Hannah feel she is somehow connected to all of this?

I Won’t Grow Up is a tale that takes the reader into the darkest corners of madness and wickedness, a disturbing journey you won’t soon forget.

Terry wrote: ";;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bear no grudge with semi-colons. The poor things look like the bastard children of colons and commas. Send them to me. I will find a place for them in my orphanage for unloved punctuation marks.

Jay wrote: "This is strictly personal opinion, but it seems to me that if a given writer can't write their own blurb... are they doing any better on writing the story? "

Agreed. Blurb writing is tricky, but not impossible. Same as writing a story.

I have unpublished a few short stories. I did it because they never sold and when I had them free a few copies would go out, followed by a poor review. I'd say if you've gotten some good reviews on your books and a few sales, why not keep them up?

I'm not a fan of writers rewriting and republishing what they've already published, especially since you had good reviews on them. Look at KU as someone browsing your books in a bookstore. Just because someone puts a book back on the shelf is no reason to think it's not good enough for someone else.

M.L. wrote: "With the snippet, which I like, it's nice, it makes me think she is a shapeshifter (unless one of the investigators is going to be married), so the girl in the middle, the one first used, is my favorite, and with the new font. I think that is one of the most ominous. The wolf looks friendly to me (or maybe sneaky, like heh-heh-heh who's next?). Maybe it's the blue eyes since wolves have yellow eyes. :)"

I love the speculation.

The cover with the girl in the forest is so spot on for the story. The only two reasons I keep hesitating on it are 1) I've seen it used before and 2) the reader won't have the slightest clue what significance the image has until fairly deep into the novel.

That evil wolf does have a friendly side. And a sneaky side. He's not a raving lunatic. Of course, three pages in, his first appearance, he's slaughtering two young people for no apparent reason. So, there's that.

Gail wrote: "Not sure what everyone is griping about here..."

I gripe because it is annoying to have to remove posts that shouldn't be here in the first place. I don't think anyone else is griping.

Gail wrote: "It would probably be more helpful to new members if someone actually POSTED the places on Goodreads where links CAN be promoted! Especially as the author promotion stuff is so vague on the site"

We're not working for Goodreads, we volunteer to keep an eye on the Support for Indie Authors discussion board. It would take an awful lot of time and energy to compile such a list. A great part of being an Indie author is learning to do some research on your own.

Tacking on to what Eldon said, Goodreads exists for readers primarily. Most readers don't really care to have authors promoting their books in their groups. And groups set up for authors are often a poor place to promote. I have seen groups here and there, long ago, that were set up for authors to promote themselves... and that's really all it was. All the members were authors trying to sell to one another with little result.

I'd remove the mention of the "painful memories", since they aren't important to understanding the blurb. Also, we get a string of adjectives to describe a geneticist who eavesdrops on something and isn't mentioned again. I'd ditch that.

What's left is interesting enough that I think you'd pull in some readers. I might give it a look, if for no other reason than to find out if "ghost girl" is actually the ghost of an alien or just an alien.

One little nitpick: You said the adventure takes Tug across the country and across the universe. It stands to reason if he's crossing the universe, he'll cross the country, too. Just feels redundant.

I read the blurb. I'm going to process it a little.

One question first, do you mean "Ghost Girl"?

Ian, I reduced the size to a bit smaller than they generally appear on Amazon and it was still readable.

Anna wrote: "I saw this and went 'Ooh, that's it!'."

Thanks everyone.

I tried what I think David is suggesting. It feels too generic to me: