potboy

I had a great Christmas. Now that my family of birth is no longer in the picture, the stress and angst of the season is hugely reduced. I went off my diet and ate all the lovely things for about five full days. (You can't be on a diet while visiting the in-laws, where you should eat what you're given.) But I went back on it on the 30th, and although I'm unusually hungry today I can't say I'm really missing all the incredibly rich stuff.

Got a fantastic pair of handmade steampunk goggles and a pith helmet for my steampunk outfit. Which I only ever wear to go to steampunk markets, but which is intended to read as 'airship navigator lost in the jungle while searching for a forgotten city.'

I did no writing after the 15th, but I did update the keywords on all of my novels. It remains to be seen if that helped them sell any better.

I also finally learned how to knit! Woohoo. Not only have I made two scarves - one in knit stitch and one in stockingette - but I have also followed a simple pattern and made a hat. The hat is too small for an adult human, but you can't have everything.

In the vein of things going back to normal today, I printed out the first draft of my new space opera novel, which I'll start editing as soon as DH goes back to work.

I've joined

getyourwordsout with a pledge to produce 300,000 words in 2019, so I need to learn to edit fast if I'm going to produce new content.

New Year's Suggestions:
Read some steampunk and see if it's the sort of thing I might want to write in future.
Learn Photoshop.
Update my websites to a more professional appearance.
Get more of a handle on AMS and Facebook Ads.
Write four new books.

Only the last two out of those are absolute goals.

I bought "How to Write A Sizzling Synopsis" by Bryan Cohen recently and read it yesterday at a coffee shop, where I had gone because I felt too ill to actually go into the gym even though I'd come into town to do just that.

It's quite a short book, with large text, and normally I come out of these 'how to' writing books with the feeling that I've had maybe one sentence-worth of good advice after having read 100 pages of blather. But this one is really good, and I think quite worthwhile. I've taken on board most of its suggestions and re-written some of my book blurbs, in the hope that more people will be moved to buy my books. For example:

Under the Hill

Old Blurb

Voted Best multicultural fantasy of 2013 by the Swirl Awards, and now presented in one volume, Under the Hill is a contemporary fantasy adventure story featuring dragons, elves and world war two fighter planes.

Targeted for abduction by the Faerie Queen, Ben Chaudhry reluctantly turns to Chris Gatrell and his eccentric Paranormal Defence Agency for help.

But it's hard to keep anything out of the snatching hands of determined elves. Chris himself was abducted from his own time - shot down in WWII, and shot forward seventy years in time, stranded far from his wartime sweetheart Geoff and his Lancaster bomber crew.

When the inevitable happens and Ben is abducted, he finds himself a major player in a game of elven politics that may lead to the invasion of Britain.

Chris has to convince the police he didn't just murder Ben and hide the body. Determined not to lose another sweetheart to the elves’ treachery, he presses the ghosts of his old crew back into action for a rescue attempt.

But Geoff isn't dead at all - he's been on ice in Elfland all this time. Now he has a dragon and he’s not afraid to use it. If only he could be entirely sure which of the elf queens is the real enemy—the one whose army is poised to take back planet Earth for elf-kind.

In the cataclysmic battle to come, more than one lover—human and elf alike—may forced to make the ultimate sacrifice.

New Blurb

The fairies at the bottom of the garden are coming back with an army.

Ben is a modern, sceptical man but the fairies are trying to abduct him. When he hires Chris's paranormal defence agency to protect him, he doesn't expect to fall in love.

Chris is a refugee from his own time. He's lost one lover to the elves already. Terrified, but determined that this time he'll do better, he promises Ben that the elves will get him over his dead body.

If only that wasn't looking so likely.

Under The Hill was voted Best Multicultural Fantasy 2013 in the mm romance Swirl Awards. Previously presented in two books, this new edition has the whole story in one volume. If you love KJ Charles' Green Men and Magpie Lord books, you'll love this.

Buy Under The Hill now and prepare to be enchanted.

~*~*~

Basically the advice was to simplify everything, focus on the characters, cut as much as you possibly could cut and include a clear call to action at the end. And considering that Amazon now only gives you about 200 words above the cut, you've really got no space to work with. Making it short is the way to go. What do you think?

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