Self-Publishing's Most Dreaded Tasks

 

Now comes the time when I need to write a blurb for my latest novella. Why is that so much harder than writing the actual story? 

Here's the deal: You need to convince someone to buy it. You can't just say, "It's a really good story. You should read it!" I think perhaps boiling the tale down to its most basic essence strips it of all its flavor. "She did ___ and then ___ did ___ and then she did ___" 

Thus, composing a blurb, or book description, is torture. One can't make it too long or shoppers will get bored; and certainly the author can't give away the whole story. That's why almost every book description ends in a question. Or some philosophical statement about life in the big, wide universe. 

Then again, I think back to when I used to query agents and had to compose an entire synopsis. That was even worse. That seemed to end up as, "She did ___ and then ___ did ___ and then she did ___" 

When I first had to write a book description I browsed through books that were trade published, and every blurb seemed to go on forever. I thought, am I supposed to do that? I subsequently did, but I didn't like the result. There's such a thing as too much information. Now I try to keep it simple, yet compelling. (I need to go back and rework some of my long blurbs.) Face it, if I'm browsing books on Amazon I'm not going to take the time to read a whole treatise. I'm just going to move on.

 

The second dreaded task is keywords. KDP lets an author add seven, but which #$@@!! seven?  If I knew those seven magic words and phrases I'd actually be making money! And good luck finding a free keyword analyzer. The closest I came was one that let me try two keywords, and then it wanted money. So I went back to typing my ideas into the Amazon search bar to see what phrases are searched most commonly. But c'mon, that's really hit and miss. All one can do is their best. It seems I haven't been too successful with keywords up to now, if my sales are any indication.

So, while it's a bit of a thrill to finally get a book published and online, the steps required to do so are pure torture.