#20BooksTo50K

Sorry about the lack of blog yesterday. Flew out to Las Vegas on Monday night and had to rush to the conference early… and then didn’t have wifi at the conference to post. I’m actually at my hotel right now to write this, running late for day two.

But day one was jam packed with excellent tips and tricks for people interested in the BUSINESS of being an indie writer. There’s a lot more to it than it looks like from ad buys to different content management that folk may not see behind the scenes. I go into it sometimes.

My main takeaway from the conference yesterday was their dissecting of book blurbs by different authors. And my takeaway was I can do better on my amazon blurbs. I’m going to be spending the next couple of days rewriting those but I’ll pass on the basic formula they were saying is gold at the conference for those interested as writers:

HOOK

Introduce Character

Follow character’s emotional journey

Raise the stakes

Leave the readers wanting more

Ask for the sale.

I may do a periscope stream on this at some point later to explain why this is crucial and why so many amazon listings make a miss here. Here’s a quick one I did for For Steam And Country as a result of this. I haven’t changed it on amazon yet (this may not be my final wording) so you can compare my current to what’s here: 

The Baron’s airship will fly again. 

Zaira Von Monocle could never live up to the epic adventures of her dead father. Rather than follow in the footsteps of the man who abandoned her, she’s resigned to living a quiet life alone on a farm. Her ordinary world shatters when she inherits her father’s airship, The Liliana.

War looms over the horizon, as the the Wyranth empire invade  Zaira’s village in search of her airship, the deadliest weapon Rislandia’s ever produced. Zaira is forced to abandon her home in service of king and country, when she discovers and incredible military secret—her father might still be alive.

Can Zaira take command of the Liliana and rescue the great Baron Von Monocle? Find out by reading For Steam And Country, the first book in this #1 Bestselling YA Steampunk Series and CLFA Book of the Year Award winner!