The difficulties of working with a goddess - by Lu Hersey

 Next month I have a new book coming out. 

So what, you might be thinking - big yawn, show us your cover and shut up about it. Writers have new books out all the time.

But of course I want to tell you about the book as well as showing you the cover. I mean, it's taken over seven years and more edits than you've had hot dinners to get here, and that takes a bit of explaining. 

One of my biggest difficulties was having a land goddess appear in the story, especially as she kept taking over. After all, Andraste is the goddess Boudicca invoked before battling the Romans, so she's really not to be messed with...and she was determined I got the story right before it was published.

Andraste, goddess and guardian of the land (image by Rhi Wynter, detail taken from the back cover)

But my (possibly more realistic) problems started when my publisher back in 2015 turned the idea for the book down, AND I KEPT WRITING IT ANYWAY. Yes, big mistake, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. My advice to my past self (and any other writer caught in this scenario) would be, even if you don't agree with your publisher and you think they're totally wrong about the commercial value of your work of genius, it's best to simply write something new they might want instead.

To be fair, they didn't realise that by the time the first section was presented to them, I'd written a whole draft already. The goddess was awake and ready for battle. 

Anyway, their feedback on the part they read was:

1. My main protagonist was a boy (he still is. He's called Arlo). They preferred female protagonists because they sell more books - and apparently boys don't read.

2. No one knows what a crop circle is and girls don't read about aliens (if they'd read past the first section, they'd have discovered there weren't - and still aren't - any aliens. But doubt they'd have liked the land goddess any better, tbh)

3. Teens aren't interested in ecological issues. (This predated Greta Thunberg, obvs)

I now fully acknowledge that sales and marketing have a valuable job to do, which is making sure what's published actually sells and makes the publisher a profit. OF COURSE I should have let go of the book and written something else immediately. But did I listen? Did I buffalo. 

I did try. After a while, I wrote new books and put Broken Ground on the back burner. In fact there are currently two of my books still going through the glacial submission process somewhere. But throughout all this, I still couldn't let the idea behind Broken Ground go. I kept coming back to it, again and again.

And now, zillions of edits and much generous feedback from writer friends later, Broken Ground finally gets to see the light of day next month - thanks to wonderful Debbie McGowan at Beaten Track publishers.  

Also, thanks to amazing designer Rhi Wynter, it has a stunning cover....

(AT LAST, you're thinking - FINALLY she's got to the cover reveal!)

That's it really. I'll be promoting Broken Ground a lot over the next couple of months, so you'll be tired of hearing about it soon enough. But if you like the idea of a book filled with scary magic, crop circles, blood sacrifice and a land goddess, it'll make me a very happy writer. 

(And even happier if you want to read it, obviously 💚).

Lu Hersey

The nightmare of writing a blurb - by Lu Hersey

This June, I have a new book, Broken Ground, coming out with Beaten Track - a lovely, enabling, indie publisher, but one with virtually no marketing budget. Which means marketing this book is mostly down to me. 

Eep.

Where do I begin? A quick check online and I find every site on book marketing emphasises the importance of the book blurb. Apparently this is the absolute essential thing to get right. According to a MasterClass article:

So this is the first big hurdle. For many writers, there's only one thing worse than writing a synopsis - writing your own blurb. You've written a whole book, with a complicated plot, lots of twists and turns, a load of subplots and a galaxy of characters - and now you have to sum that up in a few lines AND make it punchy??

I decide to make a start with the elevator pitch idea. Years ago, I won the Mslexia children's book award and attended a day workshop for all the shortlisted writers where we had to prepare a pitch for an upcoming 'meet the agents' event. In case you don't know, the elevator pitch is one sentence (maybe two or three) to sum up your book and make it grab people's attention - useful if you're ever stuck in a lift with an agent or publisher. Want an example of brilliance? Eion Colfer's pitch for Artemis Fowl. 'Like Die Hard, but with fairies.'  If you want more recent examples, take a look at #PitchWars on twitter... 

Anyway, I've no idea what I came up with that day for Deep Water - I only remember the pitying looks. Fortunately Usborne later wrote the blurb and said it for me... 'What if find out you're not who - or even what - you thought you were'. First rule of blurbs - grab the reader's attention immediately.

I think of Broken Ground as contemporary, myth based fiction, written in a kitchen sink paranormal style. But what genre would Amazon put it under? Probably 'folk horror' (think Wicker Man). So what do I say?

Back to the elevator pitch. 

When deep mining disturbs a terrifying ancient land goddess, Arlo learns the only way to send her back is with a blood sacrifice. But he wasn't responsible for the damage, so why should he have to pay the price?

Hmm. Not exactly punchy - and very dark. Too dark. Needs a rethink, so I go back online. Immediately an American site comes up with the four basic steps to writing a good blurb. It's full of pop-up adverts, which makes me dubious, but there seems to be some good advice. It goes something like this:

1. Introduce your main character (s)

2. Set the stage for your primary conflict

3. Establish the stakes

4. Show the reader WHY this book is for them

The site gives lots of examples, all for best selling books. They emphasise the importance of finding the right words to push your book up in the Amazon algorithms.  Apparently Amazon only displays the first few lines of your description so you have to get it right. Naturally an ad pops up at this point..

Ha. I used to be a copy writer. Surely I can manage this blurb without professional help? Basically I should have got all the four key points in the first couple of sentences. Damn. I've left no room for all the other characters, the crop circles, the magic...does that matter?

There's a lot of stuff under point 4 about showing your reader, who's already looking for your kind of book, that this is the one for them. Thinking about it, I realise that the crop circles and the element of myth and magic are probably more important to my readers. 

Sigh.

Take two:

Things are going badly wrong in Arlo's life. Accused of making crop circles he didn't make, now he and his mother are about to get evicted. Worse, this really weird goth girl, covered in tattoos, keeps turning up wherever he goes and it's spooking him out. When the girl he's in love with starts dating someone else, he thinks things can't get much worse. Until people in his village start dying... 

Hmm. Maybe not enough threat covered in the first few sentences. And will my Amazon algorithms be non existent without the right keywords? What are key words anyway, and do I care? Pah. This is hard. 

A quick check back to the bestseller blurbs and I realise it's now too long winded. And I still haven't got the other thing considered essential by my online guide to blurbs - comparisons with bestsellers written in a similar style. 

Are they serious??? How am I supposed to do that? I settle on a quote a very kind reader provided. 'Broken Ground put me in mind of Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence or Alan Garner's early novels'. 

Aaargh! Adding those names to my blurb and I'm already suffering from a very British problem with self promotion - am I over-egging it by suggesting a comparison with these giants of children's fiction? Setting myself up to be slated by readers? Who cares. This is marketing and I need to get over myself. Oof. 

Hang on a minute. How many people under 40 have heard of either Susan Cooper or Alan Garner? And does anyone write folk horror these days? They might not even know what it means...

How about, 'put me in mind of The Wicker Man'? Hmm. Today's teens watch horror films where I can't even get through the trailer without hiding behind the sofa. And The Wicker Man came out when, exactly? Also, it's actually nothing like The Wicker Man. 

Day one of my marketing campaign really isn't going well. But I've made a start. By the time you read this, I should have settled on some mishmash of my blurb attempts to give the publisher. Hopefully a brilliant cover design will make up for any shortfall - because illustrators are amazing.

Meanwhile, my respect for marketers has already increased a zillionfold. They not only understand algorithms, it's their job to shout about you when you find it hard to shout about yourself. 

I'll give this my best shot - of course.

But frankly, I'd much rather just write the books.

Lu Hersey