Avoiding Spoilers in a Synopsis

A synopsis is important for every writer to be able to write. Agents ask for them. You have to be able to put one together for your book for a bookseller, a blog, or a library. The worst part, at least for a synopsis that isn't going to an agent, is avoiding spoilers.

It's so hard not to give things away! I find that I have to write a synopsis over and over to make sure that I don't have spoilers in it. And the simplest things could be spoilers. Who would have thought that a single sentence could give away the twist ending when it didn't come across that way when I was writing it? 

Sometimes I wonder about the best way to go about writing a synopsis. I've read a dozen different articles on the best way to do it, but I always seem to either be giving away too much information or keeping back too much. So I've wondered what kinds of questions I should ask myself when I'm writing my next synopsis.

• How would I describe this novel to a friend without giving too much away?
• What would I want to know about this novel before I bought it?
• How much information would I want to know?
• What are some books that I love that have examples of a great jacket synopsis?

It's about time to rewrite the synopsis to The Forest's Heir because of the blog tour. And I'll have to start writing the synopsis for The Fire's Princess for it's release in June. It's about time to get some more practice with writing a synopsis.

The rituals of a writer

I'll admit that I'm just a little bit obsessive compulsive. I have rituals when I do just about anything, mostly because I have a lot of anxiety about a lot of things. Welcome to my world, ladies and gentlemen. But I've found that my writing suffers if I don't do a certain series of rituals that puts me in the writing mood.

Every writer has their own set of rituals, I suppose. Some will sit down to write and can only begin writing new material once they've gone through the material they wrote the day before. Others write with word counts or page counts--they write until they hit that magic number and then they're done for the day. And still others will only write when the mood hits them. And only if they're in the right place for it.

I'm something very different, I suppose. A mixture of those if you will.

My rituals begin with the order in which I do things. When I think about writing, it doesn't just mean working on the new novel or revising an old project for publishing. For me, writing also means dealing with my website, my blog, and my book review blog. And it deals with promoting my books, talking to reviewers, and planning tours. So my writing takes up a lot more time than just sitting down to write a novel.

I always begin with working on new blog posts. I like to have one or two blog posts ready to go ahead of time, that way they automatically post. Because I'm so obsessive compulsive, I like to have my blog posts planned out ahead of time--and by that I mean a month ahead of time. If you looked at my schedule right now, you'd see that my schedule so far runs all the way to the end of January. Soon I'll begin planning for February. So I start my writing day with working on at least one new blog post. Sometimes I'll even do two.

Then I work on contacting reviewers and blogs. Depending on how many I have to contact that day, it may take me anywhere from half an hour to an hour. I send out emails about book reviews or blog tours. I make contacts in the reviewer community so that when I have a new book coming out, I have someone I can get in touch with to help promote it. Because I don't have a big publishing house with a PR department behind me. I'm all on my own here.

After I've got that done, it's all about the writing. I start with a short warm up. Usually it's just 500 words on some short story or prompt that I'm working on. It just gets me in the writing mood. I usually have a playlist for my warm up. I'll admit, right now my warm up is a fanfiction. But it does the job.

Once the warm up is done, then I tackle the new project. And I try to do a minimum of 2,000 words. It goes faster if I'm in a good writing mood and I'm listening to my playlist. Right now, my new project is the final book in the Elemental Royals Trilogy. Sometimes I can get through the word count quickly--an hour to an hour and a half. Other times, it takes me hours, or even all day, to get it done. But I'll work it until it's done.

Then, if I have it, I'll work on revisions. And that's usually if I still have any energy left. Sometimes I just don't have the energy to deal with the story anymore that day. It all depends on all long it took me to get that word count out. Or what kind of mood I'm in.

Every writer has their own rituals. But this is what works for me. A writer's rituals are sacred, a liturgy that put us in that place that connects us to the characters and the worlds we try to put on paper.

The importance of being professional

First impressions are important. There's that saying that people judge you within the first few seconds of meeting you. I suppose you could say that goes for online presence as well. And especially with readers and your books.

Being a self-published author is about being a professional as much as being a writer. You have to do a lot of the leg work yourself. And when you do, you have to do it professionally. You have to be courteous. You have to keep track of everything that you've got to do and keep on top of dates, jobs, and emails. And you have to be humble and accepting of "no" when it comes.

You are your selling point. Your face and your reputation will be known to the readers and to people in the business. If it gets around that you're unprofessional, people aren't going to want to work with you. And that can be the kiss of death for a writer's career, especially if you're a self-publishing or an indie author trying to get their foot in the door of a big publishing house.

So here are some tips on how to be professional in your online presence:

1. Use people's names. If you know last names, use proper titles. 
2. Don't send mass emails. Tailor emails to individuals.
3. Double check your emails. You don't want to have to explain why you sent an email to someone with the wrong name on it.
4. Answer promptly and courteously, even if the answer is "no."
5. Be on time with things. If you get a "yes," make sure you get things to people by the deadline they give you or, preferably, earlier.
6. Follow up with people. 
7. Say thank you. This is the best thing you can do to show you're a professional.

Prepping for a blog tour... and why it sucks

One thing about being a self-publishing author doing everything on your own is that sometimes things start to get overwhelming. Especially when you're planning promotion and things like that. You have to worry about budgets, time-management, and a dozen other things that usually a publicist would deal with. Right now, for example, I'm prepping for my blog tour in March. And that means doing a lot of things that take a lot of time.

And that sucks.

I usually spend an hour or so a day writing emails to book bloggers requesting reviews or putting out feelers for blogs who would like to host a stop on the blog tour. Maybe I'm being a bit to ambitious for my first tour since I'd like to do 30 stops in 30 days, but I'd like to really get my name out there. It might be time to think more realistically and shave down those stops to 10 or 15.

On top of figuring out how many stops I want to make and finding the right blogs to host those stops, I have to make sure I have the materials to take to those blogs. You know, eBooks in the right format, bookmarks and other swag materials to give away. And I have to plan guest posts to send in and answers to author interview questions. It's hard enough planning posts for my own blog a month in advance, now I have to figure out post topics for a different blog?

And then there's the big swag giveaway at the end of the tour. The last stop is my blog (smooth, huh, to drive traffic to my website) and it's a huge prize pack. And that means I have to have physical copies of the book as well as other swag products to fill up a tote to give away. That also means shipping costs and stuff like that. Setting a budget for this thing is crazy, because I don't have any idea what it's going to cost. I don't know what a realistic budget for something like this would be!

So that's why prepping for a blog tour sucks. Because not only am I writing on a brand new project and getting ready to go back to do revisions on the second Elemental Royals novel (ugh, which reminds me there's a blog tour for that one in June), now I have to worry about all the blog tour stuff too.

Welcome to the world of the self-publishing author.

Why some books should never be published

I know, coming from another writer, that sounds very, very bad, doesn't it? Let me explain myself.

First off, every author has a voice and a story to tell. And I strongly believe that everyone's voice is worth hearing. That goes without question.

But sometimes... you just put down a book and go, "How did they ever get a book deal?"

I won't mention specific books or specific writers, but I've read more than a few novels that I couldn't figure out how they got published. The characters were flat and one-dimensional. The story line was crap or horribly researched. Or it was so blatantly ripped off from somewhere else that I couldn't believe it made it off an editor's desk.

I'm not saying that the book or the author should never ever be published. What I am saying is that as it hit my hands, it just wasn't ready. Or that book just really shouldn't have seen the light of day. Sometimes authors see their novels or their work in a way that other people don't. And I say this from experience, because I looked at my first novel and thought it was brilliant. And the first couple people who read it told me it was the most boring thing they'd ever read. As an author, you can't get blinders on about your work.

So sometimes, you have to realize, maybe your book shouldn't see the light of day. At least not yet. And maybe--sadly--not ever.

So, yes, sometimes, some books should never be published. *cough cough* Twilight fanfiction porn. *cough cough*