Blurbs, Newsletters, Tropes, and Other Questionable/Questioning Writer Activities: Preparing to Launch the #liftoffnovella

 My book launch for Liftoff: Rayatana Series, Book 1 is less than a month away at this point.

I have checklists. 

I have awesome help and encouragers! 

Although I am happy to have more help and more ARC readers - please let me know if you are interested!

And, because I struggle to decide anything, I always have questions.

Please feel free to chime in on any of these questions or questionable activities in the comment section.

PRIORITY 1: Blurb Writing and Blurb Question

I think writing a book blurb is far harder than writing a book. I think I've written the blurb for Liftoff at least a dozen times. I've had help. I've changed things. I changed things again. I know it's down to the wire, and I have the pre-order option up, my final cover is being finished for my paperback, and I really should have this finalized, but...

Out of these two blurbs, which would you pick up?

Transplanted from sunshine to rain in the aftermath of family loss and her parents’ divorce, Amaya has struggled to find a sense of home and self. The old movie theater in town welcomed her in with popcorn, licorice, and a chance to escape from grief. 

But during a matinee, the movie theater rumbles, lurches, and throws Amaya off her feet. When Sol, the cute guy who can make even the dorky movie uniform look good, shows up to help, she questions the rips on his uniform. Because of her hesitation, she becomes involved in an ancient alien war.

On the run from alien enemies in a battle she doesn’t understand, Amaya must make choices for her own safety and the safety of Earth. What happens if she makes a mistake based on a cultural misunderstanding? How can she survive a war between enemies who have fought for a thousand years, who have a deep distrust of one another, especially when she finds out she might be an enemy to both sides? Or, even worse, they may expect her to save the galaxy?

OR

An old movie theater welcomes Amaya in and wraps her up in the smell of popcorn and licorice. But one sunny afternoon during a matinee, the movie screen goes dark. The theater rumbles.

 A spaceship in disguise,

An Earth girl searching for a sense of home,

And a Thousand Years’ War between alien races of The Great Galaxy

All collide on a summer afternoon.

When the spaceship rumbles to life, it traps Amaya in the middle of an ancient alien conflict. Angry and frightened, Amaya entangles herself in a life-changing cultural misunderstanding with Sol, a young alien who keeps omitting key information, even while they’re on the run from his enemies.

What will it take to survive a battle between alien races involved in an ancient war?

I feel like the first is too wordy, and the second is too glib. Argh. I leaned toward the second for my cover reveal, and then within a day, I leaned back. Oy. Must make a final decision.

Question 2: Newsletter Content

If you could choose, would you like or not like:

1. News about the research the author has done for writing, updates on projects, and news about new releases, and possibly book excerpts.

OR

2. Quizzes, updates on projects, news about new releases, and possibly book excerpts.

Question 3: Tropes and Blog Tour Content

I have some wonderful bloggers helping with my blog book tour, and will be focusing on sci-fi tropes for many of my blog stops. If you had a choice, which of the following tropes would interest you most:

1. Aliens Among Us 

2. Interstellar Travel: lightspeed, warp, gates, and cryosleep

3. Simple Solutions to Language Barriers: Babel Fish, Translators, Downloaded Language Lessons, and Trade Languages

4. We all breathe oxygen: Aliens Just Like Us

5. Ancient Alien Artifacts Are the Key to Life, Peace, and Understanding the Universe

6. War of the Worlds and Alien Take-overs

7. The Chosen One, Again

8. Four Alien Typecasts: Just Like Us, Q, Tribbles, Monsters

9. Spaceship Captain Bad-boys: Kirk, Mal, Han, and More?

Other Questionable/Questioning Writer Activities

So, originally, I thought about just shooting from the hip for all of my trope posts, but then I went down a rabbit-hole of searching through lists of tropes, lists of movies who used various types of interstellar travel, deciding if I wanted to include in-solar-system travel (The Martian), and other stuff. I even thought maybe I should re-watch a bunch of trope-filled movies (it's for "research", really). I think I read about fifteen different articles on various subjects, then decided I might be over-thinking it. 

What do you think? Is it easy or tempting to go down a rabbit hole of research in the last month before a book launch? How factual do you expect blog tour posts to be?