The End of Supernice

Posted on by inkbiotic

Supernice cover

Blurb

A funny and gripping story about a tyrannical alien invasion in a sleepy seaside town.

Chirpy YouTuber Nick and his cynical teenage daughter Natasha have their lives thrown into turmoil one afternoon when the walls inexplicably start swallowing people. Over the next week, more and more are snatched away, until the announcement is made: Earth is under new management. Aliens have taken control and they’re not happy with how humans have been behaving. 

The new leaders introduce a series of increasingly oppressive rules. Make a single mistake and you’ll be taken away – to be transformed into an upstanding member of the community. 

An upstanding, smiling member of the community with a brain like mashed potato.

As their town, and the world, are thrown into chaos, Nick and Natasha each find their own way to deal with the horror. Nick becomes a YouTube celebrity, convincing the public to behave. Natasha joins a makeshift rebellion working out how to dodge the alien demands. Each wants the best for the other, but they end up on opposing sides in humanity’s most vital and bizarre battle.

Will they ever be united against the real enemy? Will the human race become the docile drones that the aliens want? Or is universal niceness an impossible and undesirable dream?

The above is my blurb for my book, Supernice.  I’ve mentioned many times that I hate writing blurb. I spent ages fiddling with it and I’m still not sure, so any feedback on that will help me out.

Also, yesterday, I sent out the last four chapters out to bloggers who wanted to read it and which feels quite momentous. To any of you who’ve been reading it, I’d really like to hear your views or if you have any questions. What did you think of Nick and Natasha? Do you think others would like the book?

My plan is to release it in a week or so on Amazon and Smashwords.

Writing Blurb for your Novel

Posted on by inkbiotic

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This guy knows how to write blurb, just look at him, he BREATHES blurb

Blurb sometimes gets muddled up with teasers, so I’m using the definition that makes sense to me. Blurb is a short, enticing description about your book, up to four hundred words long. It’s not a synopsis. Guides on how to write blurb often have a long list of information to include, such as description of main character, setting, events, all finishing with a question. I disagree with most of that. Although it’s fine as a formula, the description is so ubiquitous that everybody is writing blurbs that look the same. If you have a captive audience (ie people who know your writing and have at least some interest in it) then that’s ok, because those people are paying enough attention to actually read the few paragraphs you’ve written. However, if your blurb is on Amazon, alongside thousands of other blurbs, then it won’t stand out.

My theory (which may prove to be totally wrong) is that blurb only needs to contain one idea that captures something about your book and is interesting enough to draw attention to itself. It shouldn’t misrepresent your book (that will only annoy your readers) but it doesn’t need to capture the whole book either.

I was inspired by this blurb on the back of Before I go to Sleep by SJ Watson

Memories define us.

So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?

Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love – all forgotten overnight.

And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.

Welcome to Christine’s life.

I think that’s brilliant. In five short lines it’s got me thinking, I want to know what happens in this story, and it only took a few seconds to take it in.

Then I wrote my blurb for the back of my book and my Amazon page

‘Listen to me. Humanity is in trouble. You know that, right? The wars, the greed, the waste. We’re heading for disaster.

They tell us that’s just the way the world is.

But they’re lying.

I have the truth, and I can teach you the answers to the two most important questions.

Who is really running the world? And why are they doing it so badly?’

                                                                                                             Myra, Prophet 2018

I was worried that was too nonspecific, so at the bottom I added the line

Peddling Doomsday is a tense psychological drama about a cult run by a charismatic female leader.

My hope is that the first part will get people’s attention and then the final line will provide enough information for people to decide if they want to read or not.

At the moment I don’t know if this will work or not. We’ll have to see.

What are your thoughts on blurb? Have you written any? Any feedback for mine? What does it take to persuade you to read a book?