Episode 3 of Many Hands Make Write Work - First Draft and Book Description

Welcome back! 

If you haven't had a chance to read the previous episodes, you can do so here and dive right in from the beginning.

We are just about halfway through working out the book and today I am going to talk about finalizing the first draft.

The first draft is a sloppy, marked-up-with-red-pen sheaf of papers at this point, but we are well on the way to cleaning it up and making it suitable for reading.  

This is when I would reach out to a professional editor to have them go through my manuscript with a fine-tooth comb. In all honesty, I did not always use an editor when I first started out because I didn't know any better, but now I do and it DOES make a difference.  

Authors are too close to their own work to view it objectively, so an editor is definitely necessary.

Anyway, once the editor looks it over, I get it back and make the necessary changes. Then they may or may not go over it once last time to be sure that it's perfect and then it's time to look at the blurb.

A book's blurb is basically a description of what a book is about. It is always on the back of every book in order to entice readers into, well, reading it.  

But the blurb has to be very carefully written in a way that will capture a potential reader's attention(after the front cover makes them pick it up in the first place, of course - more on that later).  

For instance, I am working on the blurb for my current WIP(work-in-progress) titled "Dissemble".  

Here's what I originally 'mapped out' some time ago when I started thinking about a book description.  Maybe this was two years ago before I even wrote The Doctor:

Detective Millicent Harvey receives a case about an unpopular high-school girl bullied into committing suicide, she jumps in with a blazing desire to solve it and bring closure to Elsa Butler's family.

Tormented that she didn't know how painful things were for her daughter, the victim's mother Caroline wants the students to be held accountable.

Hostility and a blatant lack of cooperation from both the school administration and parents of the accused prompt Millie to dive deeper into the situation.

What really happened to Elsa Butler? Who wanted to kill her and more importantly, why? 

This is A Detective Millicent Harvey Case File novel.

But after looking at it recently, I decided I could make it sound a little more exciting, so I came up with this. I have a basic formula I use when I do a blurb:

(hook the reader with a strong opening line)

How far would you go to solve a murder and bring a killer to justice, even if it meant risking your career and your life? 

(talk up your main character, the one whose point-of-view the story will be told from)

When NYPD Homicide Detective Millicent Harvey is assigned to assist local authorities with a case involving the sudden death of 14-year-old Elsa Butler, she learns that the victim was being bullied by a mean-girl clique who call themselves The Hive.

(set up the story, but don't give away too much or make the blurb too long)

As she begins to examine the evidence at the pond where Elsa's body was found, it becomes apparent to Millie that things have been staged to make the girl's death look like a suicide.

(now we build the tension....)

As she digs deeper into Elsa's background, Millie is met with open hostility and a blatant lack of cooperation from everyone in the sleepy, upstate New York town as both the parents of the girls involved and the private school's administration do their best to shield them from accountability. 

(and then raise the stakes by the introduction of a very important character)

Amidst credible threats against her during the investigation, new information from an anonymous source reveals more about Elsa than was first perceived.

(set the overall tone of the story)

What really happened on that fateful day and who wanted her dead?

More importantly....why?

This is A Detective Millicent Harvey Case File novel.

 

(and then to add onto the blurb to seek out readers who like books like mine, I would add something like the below to further get them to pick my book) 

For fans of Rachel Abbott, Danielle Girard, and Stuart James, Dissemble is a tense, suspenseful crime-fiction thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page.  

(then I finish it off with a CTA - Call To Action - to be sure that they are going to purchase the book before it comes out. Pre-orders, sold at a lower price prior to the book launch, will help it rank high on Amazon and other retailers based on this number.  The higher a book ranks, the more likely it will sell well so this is important!)

Get Dissemble today at an exclusive pre-order price of ($).  

(pushing an earlier book in the series definitely does not hurt here!)

Be sure to check out Detective Millicent Harvey's first case, Code: PINK, available now.

So, what do you think? Would you be tempted to pick up this book? If no, then please feel free to share why not. I love hearing from readers.

Now that you have a better understanding about book blurbs I just know that you will enjoy episode 4 - book cover creation.  I will too because this is my favorite part since I have a graphic background. :-)

See you then! 

Erica