When it comes to writing a book blurb, there are definitely things that you should not do. Unfortunately, there are lots of writers who do these exact things in their book blurb. That’s why we thought it would be a great idea to go over the five things that you should not do. These are five rules that should definitely be followed when it comes to creating the best book blurb possible. You may not be able to create an amazing book blurb, but at least you will be avoiding the major mistakes if you follow these five simple rules.

ONE – Don’t Make Your Book Blurb Generic

One of the things that new authors do is make their book blurb too generic. They fail to emphasize the genre enough, or avoid specifying the gender of their main character in their blurb because they believe that to attract as wide of an audience as possible, they need to appeal to everyone. But this always results in a terrible book blurb.

TWO – Don’t Make Your Book Blurb Too Short

Don’t make your book blurb too short or too long. The best way to measure the length of a good book blurb is to see if it will fit on the back of a book cover and still be able to be read easily. If you make it too short, then you not are going to be giving the reader enough information for them to decide if they want to read the book or not. If you make the book blurb too long, then there is a chance that they will avoid reading it altogether because of the length.

THREE – Introduce Your Character

Next, you want to make sure that you introduce your character and not just talk about the plot in your book blurb. Remember, people read books to get into stories about people. Storytelling is always about the character. Without characters, the story wouldn’t exist.

FOUR – Establish the Stakes

Make sure that your reader knows what the stakes are (and they should be life-changing or world-ending) by the time they finish reading your book blurb. Give them a reason to get invested in the story. Make them continue thinking about what might happen even after they have finished reading the blurb.

FIVE – Make the Book Blurb Personal

Make sure that the reader knows why the book is for them. Reading books is a very personal thing. Every book has an audience that will fall in love with it. Make sure that you identify that audience and let them know that your book is their kind of book.

The Bottom Line

When it comes to writing a book blurb, there are definitely some things that you can learn, but for the most part, writing a blurb is like writing a book itself. The more book blurbs you read and practice writing, the better you will be at it. Visit Reedsy.com for more great writing advice.

EBook Formatting Choices: PDF

When it comes to eBook formatting, there are a lot of choices out there. One of those choices is the PDF. But why should you choose this format over some of the more popular eBook formats like MOBI or EPUB? Well, the PDF actually has some advantages over some of the other formats, particularly for certain types of books. Let’s take an in-depth look at the PDF format, determine how it is best used, and cover some of the best reasons to use it instead of, or in addition to, the other eBook formats you select.

What is a PDF?

PDF is a format that basically converts your book into a picture and puts all of those pictures in order inside of a document. However, you can still sometimes select text within that document and you can click on links. You can also remove the ability to copy text within a PDF if you know what you are doing. PDF stands for “portable document format” and it is a widely used format that is accessible through a variety of applications. For example, you can export to a PDF from Microsoft Word, Open Office, Adobe Photoshop and much more. In addition, you can post a PDF on the web very easily and have it load quickly.

Picture Books

One of the reasons that people choose to use the PDF format is due to the type of book that they are writing not actually fitting within the other eBook formats. For example, if you are writing a picture book, then you’re going to have trouble publishing it on Kindle or through the .epub format because both of them are made to change the text position and size based upon reader preference. This doesn’t work when you have images with your book. That’s why many people who have charts, diagrams or stock photography as part of their book choose to publish it as a PDF. The same goes for electronic picture books. If you are writing a children’s book and you are illustrating it, you’re going to have a very difficult time with those illustrations if you try to publish it on Amazon Kindle or one of the other eBook formats where the text position is not fixed.

Print Books

Another advantage to the PDF format is that you are able to create print books immediately. This includes both picture books and correctly formatted books with headers and footers – page numbers in other words – like novels. If you export to PDF from a carefully formatted word document that you have completely perfected as a print book, you will not only get the digital version of this book, but you also be able to print the book using any of the self-publishing platforms out there like CreateSpace print-on-demand with the same exact specifications and design the you have originally created. That’s why creating a PDF can be one of the most useful things that you do as an author, especially if you are planning on publishing in print. To learn more about the publishing process, visit Reedsy.com for plenty of author tutorials and other great advice.

What Your Copyright Page Needs to Have

One of the things that you will have to create for your front matter is the copyright page. Most people skip right over the copyright page when they read a book, but that doesn’t mean that you do not need to include it. In fact, if you fail to include it, people will notice – even subconsciously. Every legitimate published book has a copyright page. But even if that weren’t the case, there is still important information that you need to impart and the copyright page is the best place to do it. So let’s make ourselves some delicious bread with a bread maker and take a look at some of the things that your copyright page needs to have.

Publication Date

You should list the publication date of your novel or book including the date that it was published in print and the date that was published as a digital edition. If you have multiple printings or additions, you should list the dates of them as well.

Copyright Holder Information

Make sure that you are listing the copyright holder information. This is important because you want to make sure the people know that the book has a copyright holder that needs to be contacted before it can be duplicated in any form. That is usually the author, but in some cases it may be the publisher.

Rights Information

In addition, make sure that you list the rights information. In most cases it will be all rights reserved. That means that whoever the copyright holder happens to be is withholding all of the rights, which may include movie rights, paperback rights and more.

Contact Information

If you want people to be able to contact you in the event that they want to make a movie of your novel or for some other business purpose, then you should definitely include contact information on your copyright page. Often, if the book has a publisher, then the physical address may be listed, but it could just be an email address.

Fictional Disclaimer

If your book is fictional, then you definitely want to include a fiction disclaimer. It goes something like this: this book is a work of fiction. None of the characters are based upon real people. The places are fictional or are used fictionally. Any similarities are coincidental.

Credit to Contributors

Giving credit to other contributors is always a good idea. For example, if someone designed your cover, then you may want to give them credit on your copyright page. If you designed the cover yourself, but you used a stock photo that someone else took, you may want to give them credit on your page as well.

Additional Information

Print books often have other information like a series of numbers that are changed as the book goes through various printings. However, this is not really necessary in a self-published book even if it has a print edition. To get more great advice on publishing and book creation, visit Reedsy.com where there are lots of articles on every aspects of publishing.

How to Craft the Perfect Fiction Hook

If you want to get readers interested in your story from the very first sentence then you have to create what is called a hook. The hook is generally the first line or sentence of your story, but the hook can also be the entire first paragraph or contained within the first paragraph. You don’t have a lot of time to attract the reader’s attention, so you have to make sure that your hook is used right away in order to get them interested. The hook can be a description, a line of dialogue or an action. An action is usually the best way to get the reader’s attention. Let’s take a look at a few different hooks from classic works of fiction. Light up some legalized bud, and let’s get our story started.

The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.

—Stephen King, The Gunslinger

This is a great hook. Immediately, you want to know who the man in black is and why he is fleeing from the gunslinger. You want to know more about this world. King immediately drops you into the action with the chase scene and you have to know more.

Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living.

—Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

Clarke uses a really unusual hook here that doesn’t tell you much about the story, but it intrigues you enough that you want to keep reading. Questions come to mind such as: is it really true that the dead outnumber the living by 30 to 1? What does that have to do with the story? This is really a terrific way to start and he follows it up with a smooth transition into the story.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

—J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

As you can see, Salinger uses the entire first paragraph to get the reader’s attention. The voice of the character really comes through here and makes you want to know more about him. It is the perfect introduction to Holden Caulfield, and as he tells more of his story you become more and more interested in him.

There are no hard and fast rules for constructing a fiction Hook. The only thing that you have to make sure of is that your hook intrigues readers enough to make them want to continue reading past the first paragraph. A good hook is going to give you a lot more room to snare the reader permanently. If there is no hook, reader start losing interest almost right away and you have to work twice as hard with the rest of your first page to get them into the story.

For more tips on How to Start a Story, check out Reedsy’s article on the subject

Using Photoshop Layer Styles for Book Cover Designs

One of the most loved tricks employed by designers is the Photoshop layer style. A layer style is simply a pre-made style that can be applied to text or images using some of the dozens of Photoshop adjustments that can be implemented. Although it can be used on images, layer styles are much more suited for text. Finding the right font and combining it with the right layer style can give you exactly the effect you need for a professional book cover look. Let’s look at Photoshop layer styles in more detail.

What Are Layer Styles?

The first thing you probably want to know is what exactly are layer styles? A layer style is simply a specific configuration of some of the Photoshop design elements that create a really great effect on whatever you are applying the layer style to. Most of the time, you will be applying a layer style to text. That means that the layer style you select will change the text to have things like an outline, a shadow or other features that make it look more professional.

How Do You Use Layer Styles?

To use a layer style, all you have to do is import some of them into your Photoshop library, then select the layer that you want to apply the style to (in this case you are going to select the text that you want to change) and then click on that particular layer style. Most designers have hundreds of layer styles to choose from and then they can go through and click each one individually to find out if the layer style fits their cover design perfectly or if they should move on to a different layer style. Each time you click on a layer style, you will be able to see it against whatever background or images you have selected, and that will give you an indication of how will look in the final product.

Where Can You Find Layer Styles?

The real question for designers that have never had any experience with Photoshop is where they can find layer styles. Luckily, you can find lots and lots of free layer styles on the web. You do want to check to make sure that you are allowed to use that particular layer style for your commercial project, but the truth is, since you can create each layer style using Photoshop, you do not really have to pay attention to this. Layer styles cannot be copyrighted since they are not actually original designs. They are made using the Photoshop tools that you can use yourself if you knew which tools were being used in which amount.

For more information on finding a Book Designer and designing a book cover, hop on over to Reedsy

Can You Make Your Own Layer Styles?

Of course, that brings us to the next question designers asked, which is: can you create your own layer style? Of course you can, but you have to play with layer styles for a long time and all of the different options to create something really unique and original. You will probably find on the Internet anyway, but if you create yourself, then you can definitely call it your own.

Should Your Crowdsource Your Self-Published Book?

One of the options you have when it comes to self-publishing your book is crowdsourcing. Sites like KickStarter and GoFundMe have become very popular when it comes to book publication. But almost all of the books that are listed there do not meet their goals. Why is this? Why do some books make the money to publish them and others languish in obscurity? More importantly, should you crowdsource your book at all? That’s exactly what we’ll be discussing in this article.

What you have to understand about crowdsourcing is the most people do not consider books to be something that needs to be crowdsourcing for a couple of reasons. First of all, many people realize that you do not have to spend any money to publish your book these days. For example, you can self-publish on Amazon without spending any money at all. Another thing that people consider when they are thinking about contributing to your crowdsourcing campaign is that if a book is not good enough to have been published traditionally, then it is probably not worth being published. That is the thought process they will have whether you’ve submitted your book for traditional publishing are not.

The next thing you need to consider is that it is really hard to offer rewards on a crowdsourcing campaign. For example, books are different than other types of media and you are not able to name characters, places or other things after the people to contribute like you would be able to in the movies. In books, often the character name is decided because it fits the character perfectly, and that means that you are not able to name it after someone that has contributed a lot of money to your campaign like you would be able to in another type of media.

Crowdsourcing is really difficult when it comes to writing fiction. People need to understand that you are a good writer first of all, and that means showing them something that you have published in the past. Many self-published authors do not have anything they have published in the past, and so do not have anything to show people that might contribute to the campaign. Even if you can prove to someone that you are good writer, they still don’t know that the story that you’re working on is going to be any good.

The best way to self-publish a book is not do a crowdfunding campaign at all, but to actually write the book and then publish it and get some good reviews. After that, you might be able to crowdsourcing your next book, if you can prove that the first book that you have published has gotten some great reviews and had some good sales. Of course, with this, you run into the problem where people think that you should be able to use the money made from the sales of your first book in order to finance the publication of your second.

Reasons to Hire a Professional Web Designer to Create Your Author Site

When it comes to creating an author website, lots of self-published authors either create their own website or have a friend or family member create it for them. But there are some pretty compelling reasons to hire a professional web designer to create your author website. There is no doubt that creating your site yourself will save you money, but having a professional design your site could actually end up making you more money. Let’s look at five reasons to hire a professional web designer to create your author site.

Your Site Will be Unique

First of all, your website will be unique. If you build your site yourself based upon a template that you get from your web hosting company, or use a common WordPress theme, then your website is going to look like everyone else’s. Even if you strive to avoid those templates, you may end up modeling it after another author website use for inspiration and it will not be very unique either. But web designer will created from scratch based upon their own ideas.

Your Site Will be optimized for Search

Another benefit that you get with the professional designer is that your site will be automatically optimized for search. That’s because professional web designers know what search engines require and how to make your site better when it comes to SEO. This helps you in many ways including boosting rankings for any pages you create or blog posts you make.

Your Website Will Look Professional

Of course, your site will also look more professional if you have a web designer created. Even if you use a template that has clean lines, your site is still not going to look as professional as a designer could make it. That’s because web designers know what makes a site look good and what makes it look like it was created by an amateur, and you definitely want the former.

Your Website Will Include Vital Functions

You also have several vital functions installed that will be required if you are self-published author. One of the biggest ones is an automated mailing list set up. As a self-published author, you need to start building a mailing list of your readers so that you can send out notifications whenever you have a new book out. This will allow you to guarantee a certain number of sales with each book that you publish, and as you grow your list over time, those sales will grow as well.

Your Won’t Have to Do the Work

Finally, you will not have to do the work when it comes to your website. This is a big benefit for a busy author, even someone who is self-publishing. Creating a website yourself without any experience or skill at it can take quite a long time because of the learning curve involved. But hiring a professional web designer means you can work on editing, writing and other vital author functions instead. If you need a website designed, head on over to IT Services NYC.

Whispered How to Hire a Ghostwriter Secrets

Without actual ghostwriting experience, you can show you might be proper for a ghostwriting job due to your writing skill plus your in-depth understanding of a marketplace, your extensive social networking expertise, etc.. By knowing your organization and by working with you over a lengthy time period, you will secure the very best work out of your writer. It’s crucial that you recognize in advance what your aims are so it is possible to convey them to the ghost writer. Possessing an open field of communication can help cut the possibility of misunderstandings on the way. Employing a ghostwriter is an excellent method to take advantage of somebody else’s professional writing abilities and talent in order to create a brilliant project.

The Ugly Secret of How to Hire a Ghostwriter

Just click one and you will observe a ghostwriter advertising their services. Ultimately, see whether it’s possible to find a person who also handles book advertising. A Clickbank business is something which a lot of people wish to have because it is possible to make as much money. Sometimes when you’re starting your organization, you may have to compose your own articles. Employ a ghost writer if you’re serious about growing your internet business and boosting your online income. Essentially you’re going to be starting your own company by being an affiliate for those thousands of products which are listed at Clickbank. When you are operating a huge company and managing dozens of sites which need fresh content on a normal basis, outsourcing makes perfect sense.

Facts, Fiction and How to Hire a Ghostwriter

When you know the kind of writer you want, it’s time to begin looking. If you get a superior writer, then you’ll not have the unpleasant surprises of substandard writing you may receive from a new writer. Our writers are highly competent and will also supply you samples of their work. If you can’t afford to employ a writer or in the event you simply prefer writing your own articles, you might look at choosing an editor. A staff writer on the opposite hand usually goes by their very own name, but may be quite much like a ghostwriter. So if you’re doing all of your writing by yourself, it might be a great idea for you to think about employing an editor to proofread your articles or e-books.

There are all sorts of writers out there, so provided that you’ve got just a little patience and understanding of the procedure, you shouldn’t have any trouble hiring ghostwriters working for you. Whether you’re selecting a writer to assist you with a book, a white paper or a very simple blog post, it doesn’t need to be a painful approach. Again, you don’t need a writer that’s not thorough. Every expert writer has made interesting stories based on a couple of telephone interviews. When you employ a professional writer or editor, you get much superior work, in different words.

When you reach out to possible ghostwriters, they will let you know about themselves and their work and supply you with a proposal. If you rent a ghostwriter that’s nice and reliable, they won’t offer you any plagiarism issues. Finding the correct ghostwriter is time-consuming to a level, but once you locate the right individual, the effort you must put in to getting quality custom articles is seamless. A specialist ghostwriter will keep the originality of your story. A skilled ghostwriter will listen carefully to your ideas and ideas and play the function of catalyst to translate them in a manuscript.

The inspiration for writing your first (or your hundredth) fic can come from anywhere. You might hear a song on the radio as you drive into work one morning that sticks with you all day.

You’ll find yourself making up scenes in your head that fit or expand on the story the song lyrics tell. Or you might see or hear something on the news involving your favorite band. You could start making up a backstory for it in your head involving the band members. Or you might write a fic about why the band wrote that particular song. You may use an online list of ideas even.

Fanfiction can be character-based, plot-based, or in between, just like any good book or television show. Soap operas and space operas tend more toward the characters and how they react to or interact with each other. Those reactions lead the characters to the next logical step in the story. Police procedurals and mysteries generally seem to revolve more around the plot than individual characters.

This will vary, of course, from fandom to fandom. It will depend on your chosen fandom which vein you will want to write in or how far in which direction you want to take your fic. But what do you do if you want to write a fic and don’t already have any ideas? That is where brainstorming comes in. You keep throwing out ideas until something sticks. Brainstorming is a process, and when you brainstorm, no idea is a bad idea.

When you brainstorm, too, you should consider writing down the ideas you come up with. It doesn’t matter how silly or unworkable they may seem. I like to keep a list of ideas and even sometimes outlines of good ideas in my notebook. In my experience, an idea you reject today might turn out to be an awesome idea for a story later. You can adapt any previously rejected idea to different characters or a completely different fandom.

Character-based fic

Character-based fics are all about how a character would react in a particular situation. They can be tiny pieces just a couple of paragraphs long. They can be multi-chapter epics. It just depends on how much of a story you want to tell.

No matter how long your story may be, if it is character-based then that character’s reactions, observations, history, and beliefs are what drive the story forward. One of the more prevalent types of character-based fics is the “AU,” or “alternate universe.” I’ll talk about that in more depth in a later section. For example, if you’re writing a character based fic, you might dig into the canon to learn more about the character or even look at fanfiction for that. If I wanted to write about Percy Jackson, I might go to Commaful and look through their Percy Jackson Fanfiction section.

Plot-based fic In a plot-based story, it is all about the plot. You will choose your characters for the story based on what is going to happen and who you want those things to happen to. As with a character-based fic, a plot-based fic can be very short or very long.

The nature of a story that is heavy on plot can lend itself to a longer fic. If you write a plot-based story, you still must be careful to not to let your characters to react to things in a way your readers will find “out of character.” For inspiration, you can look here.

Prompts

Writing from a prompt can be challenging. It’s a wonderful feeling to write something that you have never thought about before and make someone else happy in the process. Prompts can push you to think about your characters and your fandom in new and exciting ways.

Prompts are a fun way to write a fic when you want to write something, but you just do not know what. If that’s the case, ask your friends to provide you with ideas of the things they might want to read. One popular way of requesting prompts is to put up a post on your social media of choice. Ask for a character or two from your favorite fandom and one word for the theme of the story, such as “revenge” or “flirtation.”

Or you can post a list of story ideas such as a pre-written first sentence of a fic. Ask your friends to choose from the sentences and give you the fandom or fandoms to write in and the characters to use.

There are also several websites that offer random plot generators. These can be fun because they truly are random. You might find yourself writing situations that would never happen to your chosen characters in canon. Fics in this vein can be anywhere from angst-filled tear-jerkers to hilarious impossibilities.

Many stories on Wattpad are actually written through story prompts and generators and other writing sites.