The Dreaded Novel Description

Jennifer Hudock, author of Goblin Market, is going to guest post about one of the most dreaded necessities of being an indie author. Writing the Novel Description. Jenny did a great description for her own novel so I think she has a lot to say about that. Thanks for being my guest, Jenny.

Jenny sez:

The dreaded novel description. It can make or break your novel. Not only does it give potential readers enough information about your book to entice them to click sample or buy, if you wrote it yourself it gives them some insight into your writing style. For those of us self-publishing, chances are you had no choice but to write your own description.

When I originally started on the path toward publication with The Goblin Market, I submitted through a small press publisher first. The submission process required a short elevator pitch in which the editors could learn everything they needed to know about my novel before reading the first 15 pages. If that pitch fell flat, they probably wouldn't even want to read that first 15 pages at all, so I struggled while putting it together.

I wound up self-publishing before I even heard back from the small press publisher, and when putting together the information about The Goblin Market on Amazon, Smashwords and B&N, I grabbed that elevator pitch and0 started to dissect it.

Could it be used in my product description? Was it too formulaic and dense? Would it be enough to draw interested readers to check out the sample?

There was only one way to find out: get some feedback. I passed my elevator pitch around to a few trusted friends and readers, and the overall response was positive. After a few tweaks and alterations, I added it, and there it was.

Since I published the novel, I've gotten some feedback and have since considered doing a few more minor tweaks, but I know that just like a novel sometimes we have to let go and let our readers decide. I think a good way to judge is to see how your sales go.

If after publishing and promoting for a few weeks, you aren't seeing a few sales trickle in, give it time, but don't be afraid to ask around. Cross-compare your own description to other popular novels in your genre and see how it stands up. Are the details juicy enough to pique curiosity without revealing too much story? Do you have misspellings? Are you missing a comma or a word somewhere? I know that might sound like I'm being a little mean, but we do it all the time and because we read and reread and reread, we miss them until someone else spots it.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Your novel description, along with your cover art, are the first impression a reader will get of your book. If those two key items are enticing enough for them to click and sample, or even buy, it's going to make promotional efforts so much easier on your end.

J. R. sez: Thanks, Jenny. Excellent advice.

Addendum To make it easier to find Jenny and her excellent novel:

Jennifer Hudock is an author, podcaster and freelance editor from Pennsylvania. Her first full-length novel, The Goblin Market, is currently available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. For more information about Jennifer Hudock, including updates on upcoming fiction, visit her official website: The Inner Bean.

Guest Post by Jennifer Hudock

Today I have my first Guest Post, and it's from my friend from the Kindleboards, Jennifer Hudock, author of The Goblin Market. I'll let Jennifer tell her own story and pop in for comments at the end. Here's Jennifer:

The Control Freak
By Jennifer Hudock

I'm a control freak. There, I said it. I'm sure they have twelve-step programs for freaks like me, but when it comes to my writing, I don't want to compromise. Okay, I guess that's not entirely true. I'll gladly compromise with my editor on elements of my stories that might not gel well with my reading audience, but there are things I will not sacrifice.

I watched a lot of my author friends go through traditional publishing houses, both small scale press and big six, and the process of getting published was more often than not, excruciating. Some houses had very specific rules about character names—including a long list of "DO NOT NAME" they handed out to their authors in the first stages of communication. If one of your characters had a name on that list, there was no compromise…your character got renamed.

Maybe it's all part of being a control freak, but the naming process for my characters if often very personal, and imagining having to rename them because a publisher doesn't like the name I chose kind of makes my skin crawl.

From the outside looking in, it often feels as if publishers don't look at our creative work in terms of story, unless they're looking for ways to make it sell. They often recommend hacking out important plot points and requesting entire manuscript rewrites that turn your novel into something you would never write. Again, I've got the creepy crawlies under my skin just thinking about it.

As an indie author I need to think about how to sell my story, but first and foremost I need to think about my story and my audience. I tell stories because I love them—the characters, their experiences, adventures and defeats…I feel a connection with the elements of those stories that often runs deeper than the connections I feel to the people in my life.

Maybe I'm just unwilling to compromise my characters and their stories, and that can certainly be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. My stubbornness pushed me to find and work with my own editors before I published my first full-length fantasy novel, The Goblin Market. Feedback between my editors was often conflicting, which helped me examine the scenes they referred and their suggestions with an even more objective eye. Why? Because the editor only had one person to impress with their feedback: me. There was no publisher breathing down their neck, just little old me.

While I can't stress enough how important it is to publish clean, well-edit work because an editorial eye can help us find plot holes and unnecessary scenes that help us clean up our novel, I operate under the wisdom that one editor's trash is another editor's treasure.

J. R. sez: You really can't argue with success since The Goblin Market is doing very well over on Amazon. Jennifer is right, of course, that a clean work is essential. If there is one thing that hurts indie authors, it is a reputation for not giving that, but the cream rises to the top. Authors like Jennifer who do give a clean work and a good story, as she does, are rising--fast.

Jennifer Hudock is an author, podcaster and freelance editor from Pennsylvania. Her first full-length novel, The Goblin Market, is currently available on Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. For more information about Jennifer Hudock, including updates on upcoming fiction, visit her official website: The Inner Bean.