Now… Which Book?

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Kate Policani

Categories: My Books | Tags: Amazon, Author, book, Breakthrough Award, ebook, poll, reading, self-publishing, Writing | 2 Comments

2 thoughts on “Now… Which Book?”

January 11, 2012

quillwielder

Yep, First voter. I think the Lustre is perfect for the competition. You’ve already published The Disenchanted Pet and have put a lot of work into advertising it to people. i think to send it off to the competition is like saying you don;t think it can make it on its own.

The Lustre is new, longer as you said, and I’ve read it. It’s a great story. Something new that will appeal to the judges with the right pitch. I am so not looking forward to writing the pitch for my novel. I’m awful at pitches, can never get the right words to describe it best. But enough about me.

Choose the Lustre for the competition. If it does do well then you still can self-publish it.

Hope this helps.

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January 12, 2012

Kate Policani

Thanks for the input! I think you’re probably right, and everybody else seems to think so too 😉
There are some links on the page about suggestions for writing your pitch, and they have lots of bullet points. I love bullet points! Here are the ones I copy and pasted into OneNote for reference:

Write an author synopsis. What compels you to write? Who influences you? What is your primary genre? What is your writing style? What is your strength as a writer? What is your weakness? Write the synopsis in the third person. Describe your personality, your passions, etc. Write until you have around five pages (AAAAH not going to do that!), and then cut the copy to three paragraphs. Get rid of the fluff, even if you think it’s cool fluff. Once you have three paragraphs, pare it down to one paragraph. From that paragraph, write your brand’s one-sentence pitch.

• genre
• main hook or distinctive angle
• qualifications of the author
• comparable books
• and why it’s different, exciting, or ground-breaking in some way.

a) Writing in active, present-tense voice
b) Identifying your main character and the stakes facing him/her (both external and internal)
c) Identifying some (but not all) of the complications
d) Presenting the major complication for the main character (the ultimate stakes)
e) Writing the pitch in the same author “voice” as the novel (especially true for comic novels)

Where people tend to get off the track is when they:
1) think that the pitch has to synopsize an entire novel into 3 or 4 paragraphs
2) fail to focus on the main character
3) write a plot-centric pitch (first he does that, then she does that, then he gets transported to a magical world, then another character does something to the main character, etc.). Note: if you can add the words “AND THEN” in front of your sentences, you’re probably plot-centric
4) don’t care enough about grammar and punctuation (okay, maybe that’s just me, but if I were judging, I’d kick out any pitch with technical problems)
5) introduce hype (“readers of all ages will enjoy this rollicking adventure and well-written mystery that rivals Harry Potter!”)
6) forget that the reader knows NOTHING about the story (which too often leads to reader confusion)

The links for where I found these bullet points are here: https://www.createspace.com/en/community/community/resources/blog/2010/03/29/pitching-the-book-and-the-brand?utm_id=5950&ref=925487
https://www.createspace.com/en/community/docs/DOC-1681?utm_id=5951&ref=925487
http://www.amazon.com/forum/amazon%20breakthrough%20novel%20awards/ref=cm_cd_ttp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx6TTNZ0V5TDQ5&cdThread=Tx35MYW7138PZ7R>

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