This weekend was basically a crash course in indie publishing:

Off to the races!

  • Ken and I finished the book
  • learned how to format it in Draft2Digital (love them)
  • write a blurb
  • load the book on Instafreebie
  • sign up for a Sci-Fi cross-promo
  • link it to our Mailchimp list, and
  • set up the automation sequence on Mailchimp for the reader.  Phew!

We have been hard at work to complete the prequel novella to our Cold War series, The Needle.  If you love tales of alien invasions, first contact, space marines, then get your free book now!

Writing the blurb to The Needle was nearly as challenging as writing the Needle itself.  It’s not Game of Thrones, but done is better than perfect.

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“The Ringhead aliens have arrived, and they are xenoforming the Earth, sending mankind towards a new Ice Age.

Year 2107. It’s the longest night of the year when they appear. Scientists are baffled by two alien constructs that have pierced the planet at each hemisphere. Keenan and his pack of Union Wolves are first in line to test their mettle against the alien invaders in a war that will determine the fate of the planet…”

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Reading Libbie Hawker’s Gotta Read It! – Five Simple Steps to a Fiction Pitch That Sells was pretty helpful.  She spent a long time covering the basics of the content and structure of the blurb.

1) Tell them who the main characters is.

2) Tell them what the main character wants the most.

3) What stands in the way of them achieving that goal?

4) What are they willing to do, or must do, to achieve that goal?

5) What is at stake?

In the end, I just stopped torturing myself about how to get the description for the Needle to match this formula because I wanted to have a brief blurb for Instafreebie.

The skill of blurb writing is one that is going to take me a little longer to acquire.

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