On Grabbing Great Blurbs and Editing Them

The Best Marketers of All

 

       On Grabbing Up Great Blurbs and Editing Them          

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

I am in the throes of editing the second edition of my popular and very complete How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically and couldn’t help excerpting some of this for WritersontheMove visitors to have now before they start their holiday marketing campaigns. That book will be released late fall by Modern History Press.

 

     The process for excerpting isn’t something most of us were taught in school. It seems such a nonissue that many have no idea how to do it and don’t realize they need to figure it out. Without a few guidelines, it can go miserably astray. Some won’t try excerpting at all because they are unsure of themselves. I’m not sure which is worse for the success of an author’s book.

Blurbs may be so neglected and misunderstood because there is confusion about what they are. I have heard them called endorsements, testimonials, praise, quotes, blurbs, and sometimes bullets because they are frequently printed on the back cover of books set off by little BB-sized dots and most of us relate them to reviews because that is where we authors usually find them.

When my husband solicited blurbs from VIPs in the Asian community for his first book What Foreigners Need to Know about America from A to Z, he was going to skip the process. He had me to…mmm, nag him. He ended up with endorsements from the ambassador to China from the United States and his counterpart, the ambassador from China to the U.S. This, by the way, illustrates why authors (anyone?) shouldn’t listen to naysayers who think approaching influencers with requests for blurbs is futile. I just happen to think excerpting them from reviews and capturing them from fan mail is easier. Just know you can do it and you can do it effectively.

Authors who misuse or underuse excerpts from their reviews are at a disadvantage. Not only are blurbs or one of the best tools in your marketing kit, but review excerpts are often your only chance to use the credibility of a prestigious review journal as part of your panoply of credit boosters.

The excerpting process is easy and a lot of fun once you know how to do it. Let’s say you have a review that includes some praise or even a word that made you happy or you could use to illustrate point you’d like to have your audience know about your book Perhaps (yikes!) it doesn’t include your name or title! Or maybe it just plain makes memorable reading. Perhaps the rest of it wasn’t all you’d like it to be. Here’s how to proceed: 

§ Put on your marketing bonnet and reread your review thinking “soundbites” as you read. Or select the phrases that remind you of the praise you see on movie posters or ads. Many of them are excerpts or clips from advance reviews of that film.

§ Choose gems that make you glad you wrote the book. Some will be short. Even one word. Shorties are used as blurbs for everything from restaurants to sports cars because they emphasize the raves that are…mmmm, over the top when publishers and authors use them about their own work. These no-nos are usually strong adjectives like awesome and first-rate. But you can use them as blurbs because someone else thought so!

§ Don’t neglect some of the praise that points out the benefits readers get when they read your book.

§ When you must leave something out of the sentence you choose to keep short or because it is inappropriate, let ellipses (three little dots…) take the place of those missing words.

§ Sometimes you need to substitute for purposes of clarity or brevity. If the blurb says, “If there is any justice in the world, this book is destined to be a classic,” delete the words  this book and replace them with the name of the book: Put the squarish brackets around the part you insert yourself so it reads “…if there is any justice in the world, [Jendi’s poetry book Two Natures] is destined to be a classic.”

§ Use them liberally. Use them everywhere. Put them between quotation marks. Indent them if you wish. Always credit them to the reviewer or publication where they were originally used.

Note: You want to avoid sacrificing the original intent of the excerpt you choose while using minor and approved editing techniques to meet your purposes.

§ So you have the reprint rights or a review journal like Midwest Book Review notifies you when your review has been posted that you have permission to reuse it—a very nice service that benefits both Midwest and you. Don’t lose it. Put it in a special file and stow it in a folder dedicated to your book’s title. To avoid confusion later and make using any one of them a quick copy-and-paste process, include the accreditation at the end of each blurb you extract.

§ It is handy to know that copyright law allows us to quote without permission for certain purposes and in certain amounts if you write commentary, satire, criticism, academic material, or news reports. The number of words you can use without permission depends upon the size of the copyrighted work as a whole. Guidelines differ from genre to genre. Find specific guidelines at the Library of Congress’ website or let a research librarian help you. For novels and full books of nonfiction, Amazon uses twenty-five words as a guideline for novels, and I trust they have great copyright attorneys advising them.

Note: Those who want to learn more about copyright law as it applies to authors will find help in Literary Law Guide for Authors: Copyrights, Trademarks and Contracts in Plain Language by Tonya Marie Evans and Susan Borden Evans with a foreword by my deceased friend and book marketing guru Dan Poynter.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of the multi award-winning series of HowToDoItFrugally books for writers including USA Book News’ winner for The Frugal Book Promoter. An instructor for UCLA Extension's renowned Writers Program for nearly a decade, she believes in entering (and winning!) contests and anthologies as an excellent way to separate our writing from the hundreds of thousands of books that get published each year. Two of her favorite awards are Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment given by members of the California Legislature and “Women Who Make Life Happen,” given by the Pasadena Weekly newspaper. She is also an award-winning poet and novelist and she loves passing along the tricks of the trade she learned from marketing those so-called hard-to-promote genres. Learn more on her website at https://HowToDoItFrugally.com. Let Amazon notify you when she publishes new books (or new editions!) by following her Amazon profile page: https://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile. Her The Frugal Editor is now in its third edition from Modern History Press. Let it help you edit your work-in-process.

Is It Time To Let It Fly?

 

 Contributed by Karen Cioffi, Children's Writer

A manuscript is a funny thing. It seems it can be revised, edited, and proofed indefinitely.

Then you get to a point where you think it might finally be there.

But, as every good writer should do, you go over it yet again.

At this point, it’s strongly advised that you take at least a week to two weeks, possibly more, before giving your manuscript a final read-through.

This strategy will help you find errors, content that can be tightened, gaps, and so much more that you couldn’t possibly catch if you read it every day.

After you've let it rest for a couple of weeks and have made any necessary revisions and edits, you're on your way.

When Should You Move Past Your Own Editing Skills?

When your manuscript is as good as you can get it, it's time to think about a professional editor. Of course, this depends on your budget, but if at all possible, it's worth the investment.

If this is not an option, you might give the final manuscript to your critique group or maybe a writing friend or a writer in one of your groups just to have another set of eyes on it.

While all this reviewing and tweaking is a good thing, there is a point when you need to let it go if you ever want to see your manuscript take off and fly.

It’s important to note that this revision and editing process should take place whether you’re traditionally publishing or self-publishing. Whichever road you take, you want your book to be the best it can be. You want it to be professional.

Just as there are steps to take to get your manuscript ready for flight, there are a couple of things you should avoid.

What to Avoid

1. Don't rely on children.

I've had clients who have read their manuscripts in front of age-appropriate classrooms or friends of their children.

While this can give some insight as to whether the story is engaging to the targeted reader and which parts are the most engaging, you shouldn't base revisions and edits solely on their opinion.

Children don't understand the rules of writing.

2. Don't rely on non-writer, amateur opinions.

I've had clients who had friends and other parents read their stories, asking for their input.

Again, while this can be helpful in some aspects, they don't know the rules of writing.

When looking for those extra eyes on your manuscript, make sure it's a writer who understands what she's looking for.

When Should You Let Your Manuscript Fly?

You've taken all the steps necessary to get your manuscript in its best shape. Now it's time to research publishers and/or agents and let your manuscript fly.  

If you're a children's writer, I recommend Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market (Current Year). This is a trusted guide for authors seeking appropriate publishers and agents.

If you're NOT a children's writer, you can check out Writer's Market (Current Year). It's also a trusted guide that lists publishers and agents to submit to along with lots of other information.

Always check all information you can find on a publisher or agent you're interested in. Read their guidelines carefully and follow those guidelines even more carefully.

If you’re self-publishing, it’s time to research professional illustrators (if you’re writing a children’s picture book or chapter book, or even middle-grade book).

After illustrations, you’ll need to find a service that will take your files and turn them into ebooks and/or paper books.

Now, watch your manuscript fly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children’s author, ghostwriter, rewriter, and coach. If you need help with your story, visit Writing for Children with Karen Cioffi.

 

Karen also offers authors:

 

FICTION WRITING FOR CHILDREN ECOURSE

A guided self-study course and mentoring program.

 HOW TO WRITE A CHILDREN'S FICTION BOOK

A DIY book to help you write your own children’s book.

WRITERS ON THE MOVE PRESS

Self-publishing help for children’s authors.

Make your Fictional Setting Memorable

The spooky old farmhouse in Secret in the Mist,
illustrated by Danika Corrall

By Linda Wilson       @LinWilson

In an article by Jessica Redland, bestselling author of stories of love, friendship, family, and community, such as Healing Hearts at Bumblebee Barn and The Start of Something Wonderful, Redland wrote, “If a setting is developed really well in a novel, it has the power to become a character in itself, as memorable as the hero whose journey you’ve followed.”

Setting can offer readers:

An escape – Our books invite readers and listeners to leave their world and venture into a world of our making (The Lord of the Rings series)

A sense of familiarity – We create a setting that they can identify with; in a series, they can become so fond of the story’s setting, they will want to return to it again and again (Harry Potter books)

An education – A rich setting can open up new worlds (Chronicles of Narnia)

Develop your Setting

The first two books in my Abi Wunder series, Secret in the Stars and Secret in the Mist, take place in Pine Hill, a fictional town loosely based on my home of four years in Purcellville, Virginia. Because both stories take place in and near my neighborhood, I already had a picture in my head of the setting I wanted to create when I began Book 1. Here are some ways a fictional setting can be created from real life.

Draw a map – My map began with my true-life neighborhood. Across the road from my house was a tiny patch of water where marshy plants and a bull frog lived. There were horse stables down a dirt road, farms with horses in pastures, and about 1-2 miles down the road was the tiny town of Round Hill, made up of two stores—a small grocery store and a hair salon. A two-room farmhouse and barn from the 1800s sat abandoned across the road from my house, and the real-life ruins of a flour mill well-known to Purcellville residents, was a stone’s throw away. As the stories evolved, the fictional parts of the setting were woven in.  

Use interesting facts connected to your setting – Quaker families settled in the Purcellville area in the 18th and 19th centuries. Research about the Quakers helped create a big part of the plot as well as added texture to the setting. For example, the ghost was a Quaker. Research provided the information I needed for the clothes she wore and the furniture and goods that were in her home in the old farmhouse, which included dishes, a doll, and a pouch that contained U.S. postal stamps from her day.

Operation of the flour mill in the story - Abi and Jess, the two main characters, ride their horses to an old abandoned flour mill. Today the mill is in ruins, but the two friends take a brief trip back in time and see how the mill operated back in the ghost’s day during the 1800s.

Use the senses to bring your setting to life - I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here. We know that using the senses is important with all kinds of writing. We need to remember to include them.

A True-Life Setting Imagined

The marsh:

Up close, the marsh teemed with life. Cattails and tall grasses shot out of the water. Leafy green plants grew scattered around the edge among different size rocks. Dragonflies skimmed the surface. And the sounds. Abi’s ears were filled with the buzzing and clicking of cicadas and crickets, and even the occasional croak of a bull frog. 

The old farmhouse:

Partially lit by moonlight, the building was small, about the size of a large shed. A leafless tree bent over the roof, its crooked branches seeming to strangle the small structure.

To the right of the front door moonlight reflected off of one small, thick-paned window. A rickety porch step led up to the postage-stamp-sized porch. 

The flour mill:

The walls of the old mill were only as tall as Abi’s knees. The bricks had taken on a faded ashen tone, their edges worn and crumbling. Over time, silent vines had woven their way through the structure’s uneven nooks and crevices. Bright green moss tinged the crumbling bricks and nearby rocks. 

A large half-crescent piece of metal stuck out from the thick undergrowth. Jess pointed it out. “That’s part of the old waterwheel. Farmers used to haul their wheat and corn here. Dad told me that the water in the river turned the wheel, which powered heavy stones that ground the farmers’ crops into flour. But the mill burned down a long time ago and this is all that’s left.”

While at the mill, Abi and Jess take a trip back in time:

In seconds, the creek went from a modest gurgling stream to a great surge of water.

A wooden structure about the size of a small house had taken the place of the ruins. Buckets of water spilled from the spokes of a large wooden and metal wheel, operating in complete silence. 

Shocked at this sudden transformation, Abi remembered what Jess had told her about the mill and how it operated. But that was back in the 1800s!

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Abi whispered to Jess. 

Creating an Imaginary Setting

If your setting isn't based on a particular place, Redland suggests cutting out pages from magazines, creating a storyboard in person or on Canva, or setting up a Pinterest board, which can help with inspiration. Creating storyboards and Pinterest boards are great, but I enjoy thinking about my story while doing hands-on projects such as drawing maps, sketching pictures, allowing me to envision what my ghost looks like, creating storyboards on a bulletin board and on poster board, and cutting out pictures and hanging them on my board for anything else I need to envision.

You will discover what creative process works best for you. The goal: put your effort into creating vivid settings which your readers and listeners will remember long after your story is finished.

Sources: Jessica Redland

               Illustration by www.danikacorrall.com  

The Spanish version of 
Tall Boots is now available
on Amazon!

Linda Wilson is the author of the Abi Wunder Mystery series and other books for children. Her two new releases are Waddles the Duck: Hey, Wait for Me! (2022) and Cradle in the Wild: A Book for Nature Lovers Everywhere (2023). You’ll find Linda on her Amazon author page, on her website at LindaWilsonAuthor.com, and on Facebook.

Active vs. Passive Writing: Energize Your Prose!

 by Suzanne Lieurance

Ever feel like your stories and articles are a bit slow-paced and wordy? 

If so, that’s probably because you’re using passive voice. 

Don’t worry—everyone does it. 

But if you want to captivate your readers and keep them turning pages, you need to switch to active voice.

What’s the difference?

Active voice: The subject performs the action. It’s direct, dynamic, and engaging. 

Passive voice: The action is performed on the subject. It’s indirect, sluggish, and often confusing.

Consider these simple examples:

Active: The cat chased the mouse.

Passive: The mouse was chased by the cat.

Which one grabs you more? 

The active voice, of course! 

It’s straightforward and less wordy.

Why is active voice better?

Well, for a number of reasons.

Reason #1. Clarity and Precision

Active sentences are clear and to the point. 

They tell you exactly who is doing what. 

No guesswork needed.

Reason #2. Engagement

Active voice pulls readers in. 

It makes your writing more lively and compelling.

Reason #3. Brevity

Active sentences are often shorter and more concise. 

Who doesn’t love a lean, mean sentence?

Here’s a quick trick to identify passive voice: look for a form of “to be” (is, are, was, were) followed by a past participle (usually a verb ending in -ed). 

If you find this structure, you’re likely dealing with passive voice.

Let’s look at some transformations:

Passive: The book was read by millions. 

Active: Millions read the book.

Passive: The cake was eaten by the children. 

Active: The children ate the cake.

See the difference? 

The active voice puts the subject front and center, making your sentences more powerful.

Of course, passive voice has its place. 

Sometimes you might want to emphasize the action over the doer, or you might not know who performed the action. 

But use passive voice sparingly. 

Here are some times when you might need it:

#1. An Unknown Doer: The vase was broken. (We don’t know who did it.)

#2. Emphasis is on Action: The experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis. (The focus is on the experiment, not who conducted it.)

#3. A Formal Tone: Passive voice can add a level of formality to your writing, which might be useful in academic or scientific papers.

But for most of your writing, stick with active voice. 

It’s the best way to make your writing vibrant and engaging.

So, next time you’re drafting a story or an article, check your sentences. 

Are they active and dynamic? 

Or passive and dull? 

Make the switch to active voice and watch your writing come alive.

Try it!

And for more writing tips and resources, get your free subscription to The Morning Nudge, and visit WritebytheSea.com for daily posts about writing.

Suzanne Lieurance is the author of more than 40 published books, a freelance writer, and Law of Attraction Coach for Writers.

 

 

What Is More Valuable Than Fame

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

Many writers believe writing a book will make them famous. They believe getting their book into the market will make them well-known. This idea is a publishing myth. The reality is without the author’s promotion, something terrible happens—nothing. What are you doing to increase your connection to your audience? 

Within the publishing community, the buzz word is “platform” Agents and editors will ask writers, “Tell me about your platform.” In a speaking arena, a platform is a raised section and where the speaker talks to be visible and reach his audience. The word platform is a way of asking about your audience and your connections. There are many ways to build or have a platform. It could be through a social media site like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. An author can have similar or different connections on each of these networks. While there is no perfect number for these networks, the larger the better. 

My encouragement to you in the platform area is to have real numbers and not fake ones. Several years ago, one of my journalist friends had a major publisher releasing her new book. I knew she had a small twitter following yet one day I looked, and she had gone from a small following of hundreds to over 100,000. The sudden increase was suspicious because anyone can go to a website and purchase 100,000 followers. When you “buy” followers, your numbers certainly increase but they are not real followers who engage with you and actually buy your books. 

As an example, I have over 180,000 followers on Twitter which is an aspect of my platform in the market. This platform did not happen overnight. I’ve been on X / Twitter since 2009 and steadily building and increasing my audience. People follow me for several reasons. First, I give varied and targeted content for my audience. I also tweet 12-15 times throughout a day. The majority of my tweets point to additional information and each one includes an image for greater visibility. Through the years, I’ve worked hard and consistently at creating this content. The growth of my audience on Twitter did not happen naturally or organically without any effort. It’s another reality of publishing: you have to consistently work at building your audience or platform. Why?

You may not like or understand X / Twitter so it would not be a good place for you to build your platform. Pick one or two online places that draw your attention and are fun to use. You want them to be fun because you will be spending a lot of time on these places. Whatever sites you choose, begin right away. Internet marketing guru Seth Godin says “It is never too early to begin marketing.” 

Throughout my over 35+ years in publishing, I’ve learned one simple truth. Traditional publishers make powerful books. They have great distribution and attractive covers. Ready for the simple truth? Most of them are lacking in the ability to help their authors sell books. Authors can’t delegate that responsibility to their publishers. Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, you still need to be building your platform. Fiction is based on a great story and nonfiction is based on a great idea, careful research and storytelling. Both types of writing need to have excellent storytelling—but my contention is that every author will be better positioned to actually reach customers and sell books if they have built an audience or platform which is hungry for their work.

There are dozens of ways to build your platform and I’ve only given you a few possibilities. Your platform is important to every author. Why? Because even if you publish with a traditional publisher, it will be 80% up to every author to sell the books. Publishers will work with authors who have small or growing platforms, yet every publisher is actively looking for people connected to their readers.

This repeated exposure on your book using different methods is a key part of the platform building process and a necessity for every author. If you are not doing it, then take action, make a plan then execute your plan. Your connection to the audience is much more important than becoming well-known.

Tweetable: 

Connecting to readers with your book is important—even more valuable than becoming well-known or famous. This prolific writer and editor gives the details here. (ClickToTweet)

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. Get Terry’s recent book, 10 Publishing Myths for only $10, free shipping and bonuses worth over $200. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.