Insecure Writer’s Support Group: Book Titles and Book Blurbs

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. 

It had a very busy week last week trying to get out the newsletter for the month before Halloween weekend. I didn’t get it out until that Saturday afternoon! That was way too late for me to release an issue of the newsletter. Not only was it too late because I normally release the newsletter around the beginning of the month, but also because it was a special Halloween issue in which I was offering a free Halloween themed book and I normally like to get those things out at least a week before the actual holiday. But I’m still offering the free book in the October newsletter in which the offer is good until the 12th of this month. So, if you haven’t already done so and want a free book, subscribe now. Like the book, the subscription’s free! 

On top of trying to get the newsletter out, I was also trying to fit time in for working on my short fiction collection, “Bad Apps” while holding down my day job. So I've been pretty exhausted this week. That said, I'm going to just limit the post to the question of the month and my response to it. And the question of the month is "What's harder to do, coming up with your book title or writing the blurb?" For me, writing the blurb is harder. 

The book’s title comes much easier to me than the blurb even though I often have to change it by the third draft or so. When I create the title of my book I often do so according to the theme of the book and therefore based on a common theme that runs through all the stories. (I write short fiction collections, not novels.) 

Writing the blurb is more challenging than creating the title because you’re writing to market to a target audience. To do that, you not only have to write the essential details and synopsis of the work but you have to present them in a way that will appeal to the reader. You’re writing the blurb not so much to express your thoughts and feelings like you do in the book’s content but to get the reader to buy and read the book. When writing the blurb, you have to anticipate your readers’ wants and interests and also keep in mind the latest trends of your book’s genre. The latest trends are what appeal to the masses. So if you can reflect the latest trends in your book’s blurb, you’ll broaden your chances of selling more copies. I did this with my short fiction collection “The Fool’s Illusion”. Although the book didn't specialise in vampire or zombie stories, I emphasised those stories in the blurb because the living dead were really in when I released the book in 2013. In a blurb you're not just writing about the book, but you're writing to get the reader to like and buy it. 

Yet, even though putting together the blurb is harder for me it's not unbearable. I actually enjoy writing it because I’m writing about my book, my passion. It's just making sure that I use the right words to capture the reader's attention is what's the real challenge. 

What do you have a harder time creating, your book's title or its blurb?

Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts:  Kim Lajevardi, Victoria Marie Lees, Joylene Nowell Butler, Erika Beebe, and Lee Lowery! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels!

Until next time . . .