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? 

IWSG: Newsletter?

Hosted by Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh

with co-hosts:

Newsletter

Facebook

Website

My insecurity this month: I'm trying a newsletter . . . again. I started one over a year ago through mailchimp and I never got it off the ground. In fact, I became so nervous about it that I never actually wrote a newsletter. I started one or two, but I never sent them.

This time, I'm three months into a new newsletter with Mad Mimi, and I'm enjoying myself, even if my audience is literally: my parents, my husband, and one friend. 

I'm only putting out one newsletter a month, but I finally put the "Newsletter Sign Up" button on the right. Yes, it took me three months to get that integral part done. 

And, for the March/April newsletter (Mapril), I'm running a promo: whoever signs up for my newsletter will receive a 100% off coupon for Flicker: A Collection of Short Stories and Poetry at Smashwords. 

So, I admit I don't know what I'm doing. I'm taking advice from my teen daughters who told me to "keep it simple, mom." (Hmm, was that last change of word intentional?) Each month has only three to five sections. The Mapril newsletter has the Special Offer (Flicker), News, New in 2016, and For Writers sections. It's pretty short. 

Why am I so nervous about newsletters when I write blog posts all the time? 

Because they are supposed to be the biggest marketing tool of authors today. 

Yikes! That means it has to have it all, right? Meaning, beauty, perfection? 

That last word strikes a painful G7 minor chord played on a dusty organ in my soul. 

I don't do perfection. Ever.

(To prove my point, I just used a sentence fragment and I hate those in essays and most fiction, so why do I use them on my blog? Agh. The truth is out. I sabotage the word perfection with every fiber of my "I refuse to be type A even though I lost hair in high school over an Honors Society event I had to organize as HS V-P" purposefully type B self.)

On the plus side, I had an article accepted for and published in the March IWSG Newsletter, so I'm learning how to do newsletter writing with some help from all of you!

So . . . do you think newsletters are the biggest marketing tool of authors today? And, do you have one? If so, how do you tame the newsletter beast? And, how often? And, do readers actually sign up for these dastardly things?

My newsletter sign-up

Email*

The IWSG Newsletter sign up is here!



News:
Chrys Fey has a new book out!

An Internal Affairs Investigator was murdered and his brother, Donovan Goldwyn, was framed. Now Donovan is desperate to prove his innocence. And the one person who can do that is the woman who saved him from a deadly hurricane—Beth Kennedy. From the moment their fates intertwined, passion consumed him. He wants her in his arms. More, he wants her by his side in his darkest moments. 

Beth Kennedy may not know everything about Donovan, but she can’t deny what she feels for him. It’s her love for him that pushes her to do whatever she has to do to help him get justice, including putting herself in a criminal’s crosshairs. 

When a tip reveals the killer's location, they travel to California, but then an earthquake of catastrophic proportions separates them. As aftershocks roll the land, Beth and Donovan have to endure dangerous conditions while trying to find their way back to one another. Will they reunite and find the killer, or will they lose everything? 
Seismic Crimes at Amazon

Milo James Fowler has a new book coming soon!

Private eye Charlie Madison saw his share of murder and mayhem during the war. But he's never seen anything like this on home soil. The culprit can't be human. A mandroid, then? Cyborg?

Madison's investigation takes him deep into the underground world of extreme fighting -- duels to the death, showcased beneath the city's biggest casino. Along the way, he discovers a new steroid quietly coming out of Little Tokyo. If rumors are true, it can turn a man into a killing machine.

Before vengeful police can find and execute the murderer, another officer is found slain. With rogue yakuza, the Russian mob, and Federal agents in the mix, Madison must put the pieces of this violent mystery together before the city loses another good cop.

Problem is, the killer may be one of his own clients.

Death Duel pre-order at Amazon

Angela Brown has a new MG book out!

Twelve-year-old Casey doesn’t think life could get any more unfair. Plans for her special basketball tournament are tossed aside by her sister’s wedding plans. She even has to be a bridesmaid now, with all the lace and silk and—oh, the horror! All she wants is an escape, but she never imagined she’d be swept away to a world of Mother Goose rhymes, fairy tales, stories of Arabian Nights, and oh, by the way, all but one fairy godmother has been kidnapped. 

Casey learns she’s been summoned as the Fable Ranger to lead the search and rescue of the missing wish-makers. But she’s not the hero they want. In the world of fairy tales, damsels aren’t meant to swoop in and save the day. 

Now all Casey wants is to go home, but the veil between worlds is on lockdown. Taking fate into her own hands, she embarks on an airship flight to find the phoenix tears that can open her way home. Her journey would’ve gone as smooth as the perfect layup if it weren’t for that pesky bounty the evil Dovetail has placed on her head. But if Casey fails, the Arabian Nights will disappear forever—and leave her trapped in a world unraveling one fairy tale at a time.

Fable Ranger at Amazon

And, Randi Lee with Stay Classy Publishing and a huge crew of wonderful authors has a new Anthology coming out soon!
The Thing That Turned Me: Anthology

I'm honored to have a story included. :)

Lastly . . . I'm not joining A to Z this year due to family requests and general craziness. 

Best wishes to all who are A to Zing and writing posts every day!

I'll be lurking but not posting most of the month, and prepping posts for the 5 Reasons to Write Series (with guests) kicking off in May. 

Have a newsletter? Have you read the latest books? Know of more releases?