Copy is one of the hardest things to write. Personally, I recommend sending this out. At the same time, I realize not everyone has the luxury.  So let’s go over some basic information when it comes to writing good Copy for your Book Jacket.

Your Copy IS your Sales Pitch

That is right; you are going to be your own salesman here. Get used to tooting your own horn, talking in third person and ignoring most of the story in hopes of sparking curiosity and luring in readers.

Should Use Specific Wording

There are specific ‘Key Words’ that copywriters and copyeditors look for when writing good copy. That is because your sales copy for your Jacket is doing more than describing your story, it is using a limited amount of space to elicit an emotion, a connection, spark a curiosity and a desire to find out more about the story. If a potential reader buys your book off a book shelf, you know the copy was good.

Length Matters

Depending on how much room you have to work with in the cover design, how much information is ‘just right’ and details like font type and size, you have a very important decision when it comes to length. It has to fit, be legible, not give away too much but also intrigue the reader in a short amount of time: usually only a paragraph or so.

Do NOT Put Spoilers in the Copy

This is the number one temptation of writers. Putting spoilers in the copy could destroy your chance of someone buying the book (because they don’t have to wonder what happens anymore) or worst yet, you could end up ruining the experience (Uh, because– you already spoiled it). So, NO Spoilers in the copy.

So you see, it’s all about Sales

Overall, your copy is your Sales Pitch. So all of these things, the length, the wording, the description, all have to SELL your story to a potential reader without OVER selling it, UNDER selling it or SPOILING any of the story or experience for the reader. This is why Sales Copy /Book Copy are so hard to write. This is why so many go out of their way to hire a good copy writer and *cross your fingers* and hope for the best.

That’s why I prefer to send the copy out. But be warned, just because you outsource it doesn’t mean you will get a great copy back. Be diligent and be picky. Just because you paid for a copy doesn’t mean you should use it, especially if it’s bad.

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Your author biography should be a short paragraph about you, a small professional photograph of yourself, and anything else you feel might be relevant. This is a short bio, not a full length bio. That means you don’t want to put your entire life story down on paper, but you want to give some basic information. This basic information would look something like:

Who you are: Your Name.

What you write: Particularly your Genre and/or popular titles.

When you began writing, at what age, how long you have been writing.

What is your latest title and what is your next title?

For the most part this should be your basic, well written short author bio that goes on your Book Jacket with a nice professional photograph.

An example of an Author bio might be:

Karisha Prescott is a science-fiction writer. She started writing in the early 1990’s and is living in Scottsdale, Arizona. Her newest work, Past Mistakes, has been featured on many prominent blogs and her next work, Naked Pixels, is due late 2010.

Now, some of this is author bio is fiction but for the purposes of this example: this is a well rounded author bio for a Book Cover Jacket. This also works as a promotion for one of your last books and a quick sales pitch for your next book. Remember – the Cover is all about the sales pitch.

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Writers are constantly asked about their inspiration for hit sensations. I wonder what it is about the human mind that people are constantly questioning ‘how’, ‘why’, and ‘when’ someone came up with an idea. I’m sure a majority of the questions are from aspiring authors, authors wanting to achieve the same success and hopeful that there is a process somewhere that could just be ‘duplicated’ sort of like an assembly-line process.

But an assembly line is a little too far fetched. Should novels, stories and fiction be crafted by a machine I am fairly certain it would come out reading like stereo equipment instructions. My theory is a good one because machines (as of this date) don’t FEEL human emotions and human connections. So how could a machine retell a human emotion and create a human connection if it doesn’t know how, why or when to create that feeling.

There I go with my own How, Why and When.

Inspiration can come from so many places when it comes to writers. A lot of the time you hear about a subconscious awakening – or in laymens terms: A dream happened and the writer simply wrote it down.

This is one of the best methods. I wish I could just go to sleep – see a ‘dream movie’ and wake up going ‘Gosh, that whole thing is perfect’ and word-vomit the entire thing on paper verbatim without missing a beat. I think that would be the number one persuasion for any drug dealer trying to get me to buy LSD. (I don’t condone drug use – Say no to Drugs – It was meant as a sarcastic, humorous bite and I would never partake in an activity that could damage myself or others)

So the Subconscious Mind is a really big factor for some writers when it comes to writing. For the rest of us, we have to rely on People, Places and Things a lot of the time. We have to rely on meeting people that sparks an idea for a character, seeing a Place that we remember in such a way that it would be perfect to write and describe, and Things that we come across in life that we could implement in the story. There are infinite combinations of variables that go into making a really great story – I’m almost positive about it.

Then you have your Collective Life Experiences. I have to say that this could be a big one for a lot of writers as well. Perhaps the writers that dream, the writers that put live people in their books and writers with traumatic/interesting pasts don’t overlap, but I’m sure you have heard about or read about at least a handful of writers that would fit into each category.

Then comes the adventurer. This is the writer that WANTS to live a certain life but does so through words on the page. There is nothing wrong with that. Create a story, create an experience that so many wish they could experience in real life and share it. Just because a writer writes about a serial killer on a killing spree doesn’t mean the writer has first hand knowledge of being a serial killer, or being a forensic scientist or a detective in a busy Miami precinct. It takes research, a willing to learn and a desire to retell a specific story enough to find out what it is like – even if it is just through a Google search.

All of these things leads to writing a story and providing emotion after emotion on paper to create an overall experience that the reader can relive over and over from the comfort of their favorite reading corner. That is the magic of writing. Weaving words into a sirens story, leading the reader to the rocks to show them death and then giving them a happily ever after – or whatever ending you end up writing.

It is amazing  – the Danger portrayed in a story can quicken the pulse and have you sitting straight up in your chair but in another instant the book can be closed, the pages lost and the reader finds they are still sitting safely in the comfort of their living room.

It’s the most dangerous and safest adventure you could offer. It’s a great expectation and a great experience.

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Every writer needs a haven. This is a little place to call your own, to sneak off to and write in quiet, comfort and seclusion. Sometimes writers can’t find it. Sometimes writers have to go on ‘retreats’ and write their entire novel in the span of a few weeks in an uncommon surrounding.

Don’t get me wrong, even under pressure and in the worst surroundings I think a writers story will always come out. All stories are meant to come out. That is why a writer is a writer. They can’t eat, sleep or dream of anything but writing. It’s a sickness, an illness that eats away at your thoughts, prevents sleep and even when you finally find the elusive dreamland it is riddled with plot questions and twists your subconscious dreams up to stump you or help you.

Yes, a writer needs a haven. It could be a plain wooden desk with nothing more than a few sheets of paper, a sharpened pencil and a cup of coffee. Or you could have four walls painted in elaborate colors that are only known to the writer because every inch of wall space is covered in sticky notes for ideas and posters with quotes for inspiration.

I know I have talked about science fiction like decorum and tools. I know that I have talked about writers retreats to get away from the life and the distractions, but the mark of a true writer is being able to write no matter what. The dog could be chewing on your pant leg begging to be let out, the phone could be ringing relentlessly and the door could have a rapid knocking but the only thing that comforts the pounding heart are your fingers typing on the keys trying to keep pace.

As frantic as life gets, try to designate your writers haven even if it means putting all your clothes on the floor and moving into your cramped closet. So long as you have a flashlight and you can somehow prevent the door from opening, it will be your haven. Now…whether or not your hideaway stays secret and sacred for long…it’s anybody’s guess.

But that is my suggestion today. Find a writers haven, create one, borrow one from a friend or lease one from a retreat, but have one. Have a haven where you can get away and write. The closer and more readily available it is, the better.

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There are plenty of tips and guides online that will tell you how to write a novel. There are thousands of tips and tricks for writing. I wanted to take a different perspective and look at the 10 things that unpublished authors do consistently.

This is the list I think every writer can take to heart. It’s the perfect length, the perfect amount of content and you can know immediately whether or not you’re following this path of “never writing a novel” or at least never finishing it.

1. You Never Make Time to Write

This is the big one. This is an obvious one. You will hear this from every single writer around the world, “you have to make time to write” and that holds true no matter what situation. If you’re not writing, you’re just not writing. If you’re not writing, you will never write your novel.

2. You Never Make Time to Better Your Writing

You don’t just wake up one day and have written an entire full-length novel. If you’re not writing, which is number one on our list, a simple solution could just be that you’re not making time. If you’re not making time for writing that you’re not writing. If you’re not making time and are not writing, then you’re never going to write your novel.

3. You Think You’re Already A Perfect Writer

You are not an idiot savant. If you were, the world would already know your name. But that same reasoning, you’re not a perfect writer. Continuing with this reasoning, you can’t just sit down and write the perfect novel whenever you get around to it. You need to research writing, learn more about writing, about plot development and character creation to make your novel perfect. The educational writer is never done. If you think you’re already the perfect writer, you will never write your novel.

4. You’re a Perfectionist Editor

I talked about this topic several times. You can spend six months editing the first paragraph and it could be perfect but you will still have over 300 pages to go with no idea whether you’re plot or your characters work. It stands to reason that your perfectionist editor, you’re never going to write or finish writing your novel. A word of advice, perhaps should send the editing out of house.

5. You Don’t Take the Time to Write an Outline

Some great writers can do this. They can go into a novel without any idea how it’s going to turn out and they can spin it into gold. You, however, will not do that. You need an outline. The majority of writers do, it’s just a fact. If you’re not working on a plot for your novel, then you’re never going to finish your novel.

6. You Don’t Set Goals for Yourself

A life without goals is a life without direction. That means if you don’t have a set routine every day with goals, you’re never going to finish your novel. You need to break your novels up into goals that are attainable. You should have a daily word count to reach, or an editing goal, or some other goal related to your writing that keeps you on track. It’s not only good so that you’ll be able to measure your success in writing and progressing in the creation of your novel, but deadlines are very important thing to be on time for. If you don’t set goals for yourself you’re never going to finish her novel.

7. You Let Other People or Excuses Get In Your Way

excuses, excuses, excuses. The cats in the room, the kids are too quiet, the kids are too noisy, there’s a fire in the kitchen, all of these things can be ignored or deferred to another person, within reason. I could go back to making time to write, and making sure it’s one you’ll have to least distractions. But letting other people and little distractions be your never ending excuse for not writing will ultimately lead to never finishing your novel.

8. You Don’t Let Anyone Give You Feedback

Feedback is critical. After reading and rereading, editing and reediting, you’ll need a fresh perspective and a fresh set of eyes to take a look at your novel. It’s not just about punctuation; it’s about the flow and the characters in the story. You need a list of people you can trust to read your novel and give you constructive feedback. They are getting feedback on your novel then you’re never going to finish it.

9. You Don’t Consider Yourself A Writer

If you are writing, anything at all, no matter what you’re writing, you are a writer. If you don’t consider yourself a writer you’re not going to make your writing a priority in your life. That means the phone ringing, the dog barking, your excuses, other people’s excuses, are going to be constant factors in never writing or publishing your novel. If you don’t consider yourself a writer, you will never write your novel and you’ll never be a writer.

10. You Don’t Think You Will Ever Finish Your Novel

Diligence and dedication is what separates the amateurs from the professionals. None of us ever thought were going to finish our first novel. I mean, we did but some days it seemed impossible. You just have to keep at it. It’s got a something you love, something you can do every day and never regret.

When you find out writing is more than just a potential job, something that’s part of you, you’ll figure out that it’s not ‘if’ you will ever finish your novel but ‘when’ you finish your novel. If you don’t think you will ever finish your novel, you never will unless you start trying.

So make time to write your novel. Make time to write it and then write it. Learn as much as you can about writing, the publishing industry, and everything else you can learn. It can never hurt you to know too much about something you love. Actually, I’m pretty sure that would make you an expert at something you love.

Make time, write, learn, grow and live. Don’t look for outside definitions of what makes you a writer. If you’re a writer then you already know it, so get writing.

Photo Credit: Origami Madness

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I have been away from Twitter for such a LONG time! And it really goes to show that you can make some wonderful friends out of Twitter. To all my friends that have missed me, I’m sorry I’ve been gone! To everyone that didn’t notice I was gone…well, I guess you didn’t miss anything since I wasn’t there.

The past week has been about research for me. I’ve been researching site improvements for KarishaPrescott and looking at the new importance placed on Page Ranking via Google. I am eternally grateful and absolutely surprised that I magically acquired a Page Rank from Google. It’s not the GREATEST page rank, but everyone starts somewhere and I am happy to be ’starting’ with a little ‘foot up’ now that I realize page ranking matters.

It’s a little strange to think that page ranking was never important, but considering all the factors that make a website ‘SEO’ perfect, give it a high Page Ranking, aesthetically appeasing and still have great content…it can be a juggle. I listed my priorities and following my Google Page Rank just wasn’t one of them until now.

Now that I know, without a doubt, how I’m presenting information and what information to present, I am glad to focus on toying with changes to rise in Page Ranking. First and foremost I am working toward quality content, because Page Ranking means nothing if no one cares to read what I right.

I’m always thankful to everyone that comments and tweets my posts. A special thanks to @CharmaineClancy that is a constant voice of motivation, and to @JennyC28 who thought I fell off the face of the earth these past couple of months.

And of course: Thanks to everyone that reads KarishaPrescott!

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Thank you for visiting The Official Karisha Prescott Website! For more top posts, try the Featured Articles page or Writing page for more free tips. Like this article? Subscribe to my RSS feed in an RSS reader to keep up with my most recent posts.

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There are two types of fiction. There is commercial fiction and literary fiction. What sets literary fiction apart from commercial fiction is the tendency to use a certain writing style. The work of literary fiction could be compared with the likes of authors Charles Frazier, Toni Morrison, and Barbara Kingsolver.

We’re going to be focusing on commercial fiction which has several genres and many sub-genres. You’ll see many more sub genres in the online world in comparison to the traditional brick-and-mortar bookstore and this is because of space constraints.

It’s a good idea to pick one main genre for the book you’re writing. You can pick several sub genres but it’s very important to choose the right main genre for your book so that it can be correctly categorized and found by readers. The main genre tells bookstores where to place your book and readers where to find your book.

So even though you have a love story between two lesser important characters, if your book is about solving a mystery you’ll want to label it as a mystery genre and not a romance.

It would be very easy for writers to get bad reviews and become skipped over on bookshelves simply from being mis-categorized in a genre.

If you just can’t figure out what your main genre is there’s nothing wrong with asking your test readers or friends and family. Taking a general poll will point you in the direction of the genre that your book will best fit.

Sub-genres are usually categorized by hyphenation. Such as mystery-thriller, paranormal-Romance, historical Romance, and similar listings.  Sub-genres are almost endless.

A quick overview: Most fiction is commercial fiction, with one main genre and one or more sub genres. The main genre is the overall theme of your novel where the sub genre has to do with strong subplot or underlying themes.

Common Genres:

Historical: Relative to dates in history (Historical-Romance is a popular sub-genre of Historical Novels)

Romance: One of the most popular Genres in the entire publishing industry.  Sub-genres are almost limitless, from Romantic-Comedy to Paranormal Romance.

Science Fiction/ Fantasy: Set in fictional worlds with fictional creatures is a more ‘catch-all’ way to look at science fiction and fantasy. Also, Sub-genres can be Romantic Fantasy to Science Fiction-Thriller.

Western: are commonly fitting into ‘Historical’ genres. This is a specific time period, for western ‘Cowboys and Indians’ themes. Western-Mystery is just one of many possible sub-genre combinations.

Mystery : Mysteries are often blended into other genres and vice versa. Mystery genres are some of the more popular genres next to romance. Romantic Mysteries, Mystery-Thrillers, and so on.

Thriller: Thrillers are action packed and fast paced. This is an easily integrated sub-plot while also subgenres of almost every category are easily added onto any well written thriller.

Horror: Most famous writer of horror is Stephen King. Also a well known category of writing, subgenres are commonly Horror-thrillers. I don’t think I have yet to see a Horror-Romance but I’m sure I will be surprised eventually.

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Fan base is essentially your readership. It doesn’t happen overnight and you really have to go out and look to find people interested in exactly the kind of book you write. You’re guaranteed to have someone that likes your writing; it’s just a matter of finding them. A fan base, or a platform, is important to establish. It means you know who your audience is and you know who you’re writing for.

As long as you already know who you’re writing for, the next step is to find out where they are and how to reach them. This is 80% of the battle. Next, you have to give them something to talk about, something to share, and information to spread about your book. We’re talking about online hype, marketing, social networking, advertising and how to reach your fan base.

Social Networking

Social networking is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot. This lumps just about every online activity into one neat little package. It really depends on your audience and reader demographic as to what social networking platforms you choose to associate with your writing. MySpace was built for a musician, Facebook was built for college kids, LinkedIN was built for the professional and so on and so forth.

Giving Away Free Copies

If you build it, they will Digg it. I know I’ve kind of spun this phrase for immediate purpose, but it still applies. Even if you’re just giving away the first couple chapters for free, you want to give your readers a taste and let them spread the news. So put up a few chapters and see how many people you can get to spread the word. The goal of giving away free copies is to build readership, build your fan base, and hopefully send your novel into a viral extravaganza. A really good piece of advice would be to ask for readers names and e-mail addresses in exchange for the free sneak peak into your novel. This ties in perfectly with our next topic which is building a readers list.

Building a Readers List

Building a list of contact information of people that are interested in your writing is extremely important. Some marketing and advertising executives would argue that it is worth more than a single sale. That’s because you already know that these particular people are interested in your writing already. You know they like the genre, they found it somehow, they wanted to read your writing, and now you have their e-mail address whenever you come out with a new book. This gives you direct access to your audience. I would say that’s worth its weight in gold, if e-mails weighed Anything.

Book Trailer Videos

Whoever thought that novels would get their own video commercials? Well, the time is now. You’ve probably seen it for popular authors such as Stephen King, but this is a great advertising and marketing strategy for every author. You don’t have to have actors, really all you need is music, some photos and a blurb about your book along with the cover picture. You’d be surprised how easy it is to hire someone to make a book trailer video, and how much traffic it will drive.

We live in an instant gratification world. That means more and more people would rather watch a video than to read and advertisement. You could argue that these are the type of people that do not read, but you’d be wrong. Besides, simplicity and ease with which to make a book trailer video and the amount of traffic it drives is not to be ignored. Video is a quick, efficient, and relatively easy process to deliver the large amount of information in a small amount of time and get the point across. Watching one video trailer for your book could convince a reader to read everything you have on the shelf. It never hurts to try.

Excerpt Space in Other Novels of Similar Genre

No matter what kind of book you publish, the reader will read your book from left to right, up to down, first to last page. This means that by the time the reader has finished the book they will be in the last 10 pages of the book.

When the book ends you find the reader flips through the last few pages just to make sure they didn’t miss anything. It’s probably even subconscious that they’re doing.

A new cost-saving, advertising and marketing, plan is to place excerpts of other books and similar genres in the backs of books. Most of the time authors will use this space to advertise their own upcoming book, past books, giveaways, or other information pertinent to their own writing. But a new trend surfacing is the selling of excerpt advertising space in the back of the popular or even obscure or novels. This is something to consider if you’re a new writer that would like to reach a specific genre.

Blogging and Micro-Blogging

Blogging and micro-blogging are very important in the spread of knowledge, both personal and professional, about your work and being a writer. If you don’t have a blog or a website you are very much behind the game in the publishing and writing world.

There’s just no excuse not to have a blog or to be on social network. You need to be constantly thinking about how to reach your audience, how to be more transparent, and how to be a common household and bookstore name.

So get your face out there, get your writing out there, and make sure you’re talking about your writing. Because if you’re not talking about your writing nobody else is.

The Importance of Writing a Series for your Established Fanbase

When you’ve gone to the trouble of building a fan base your novel you have a very important decision to make. You should have thought about this before you even wrote your novel but better late than never. The question is ‘Can I write this novel into a series?’

This is a very important question, one that can make your life as a writer easier or harder depending on your answer. The answer should always be yes, you should always be writing a series. Because as much time as it took to build up your fan base, you can want to get as much out of your fan base is humanly possible. You are you know they love the story, they love the characters, and they want to know more, so give them more and let them buy more.

It’s not just about selling more books either. If you’re writing a series, you’re saving substantial amount of time and money that would otherwise go into marketing, promoting, advertising, and building a new fan base for a new novel. Because the simple fact of the publishing world is that no two books are the same. The first novel you ever write will not be the same as your second novel, if they’re different stories, which means your readers from your first novel may not give a dang about your second novel.

To save time and money you should be trying to write a series.

What did we get out of this fan base information?

• You should be writing a series.
• You should be blogging and on every social network that you’re reader demographic is on.
• You need book trailer videos, ads in the backs of similar genre books, to the building your readership list and she tried to remain approachable as much as possible.
• If you take nothing else from this article, write a series.

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Thank you for visiting The Official Karisha Prescott Website! For more top posts, try the Featured Articles page or Writing page for more free tips. Like this article? Subscribe to my RSS feed in an RSS reader to keep up with my most recent posts.

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When it comes to writing, your work is only as good as your last edits. Sometimes a writer will choose to send their work out to be edited. When you’re on a budget or when writing is simply a hobby, you may want to do your editing in house.

To Edit or Hire an Editor?

If you decide to hire an editor it is very important to choose an editor you know you’ll get along with. It’s important to be very clear of your expectations before beginning the project. Also, if you decided to write a series you may want to keep the same editor for all the books in the series for consistency. It’s also important to build a relationship with your editor so you’ll become a seamless team as you continue to write books and your editor already knows what you expect.

Whether you’re editing your works yourself or sending you’re editing out, there are few basic things you should think about through this process, regardless.

Don’t edit while writing your draft

This is essential. If you edit each paragraph as you write you will end up killing the flow and even the personality of your story. You’ll be spending so much time thinking about writing the perfect paragraph that you’ll forget that you’re writing a full-length novel. So do yourself a favor and separate your writing from your editing. When you’re writing, you should be writing. There will come a time when you can focus on the editing.
Don’t edit as soon as you’re finished.

This is another common mistake that writers make. After spending countless hours writing your masterpiece the last thing you want to do is jump right in and start hacking away at it. Give yourself some time to mull over your novel. Once you’ve given yourself a little bit of time you may want to read through it once without a pen so you can take a look at the big picture.

Don’t keep at it until it’s done.

If you think you can edit your novel in one sitting you’re absolutely insane. And it really sound like common sense, but you’d be surprised how many people think that they can sit down and knocked out half of their book edits in one afternoon. Pace yourself. Otherwise, after a few hours of edits you will find a lot of letters begin to look like punctuation and vice versa.

Over-editing is the death of a story.

Each novel a writer writes is like a new child in the family. You want to make sure it’s just perfect. You want to make sure it’s the best novel you can make it. But in the process of editing it is possible to over edit.

You risk losing the voice, passion, and even the flow of storytelling by over editing. Some writers worry about word count or page count and this is the wrong approach. If it’s meant to be a novella or if it’s meant to be a little bit long, then it’s just meant to be that way. Don’t fluff or hacker away too much of your novel or you risk destroying the story. You should find a healthy balance.

Overall, editing is one of the most essential parts of writing. It’s one of the last processes before it goes to print and the final edit is what your readers will be seeing forever, excluding digital.

Personally, I like the idea of sending my editing out but even I am worried about losing the voice of my novel. But as far as grammar and punctuation goes the last thing I want to do after writing a novel for six months is to start picking away at it. I’d rather leave the little details to somebody else and work on my next story.

It’s all about personal preference. Either you want to edit your novel yourself or save yourself the trouble and hope that everything turns out okay in the hands of a professional editor. More often than not it will work out fine.So remember not to edit as you write, to retain the voice of your writing through your edits and not to be too much of a perfectionist by over editing your story.

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Well, I can’t say life has been easy. I’m finally done moving and I am loving Scottsdale. I’m making my grades at Arizona State University and am looking forward to the summer.

My series is about to end up in my desk drawer, so to speak, as it looks like I butchered it with a lawnmower. (I cut the word count in half, down to 91K over the past 6 months)

That’s not to say I have stopped writing. I have several new ideas for my next project lined up and now all I have to do is pick. I have another round of University tests next week, I have finals a few weeks after that and I am thrilled the weather is holding as long as it has.

I have been away from my blog for some time trying to work on my novel and I regret that. I’m really excited for some fresh new takes, some interesting topics going on in the publishing world and am very excited for ‘precedents on the verge’ in the digital media sector.

I’m very happy to be back blogging and look forward to hearing from everyone. I’m excited to take a more active role after dropping off the radar for so long and miss all my twitter frenzies.

So here is to a Happy Easter for all and a great start into April!

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