Preptober week 4

This final week before the rush begins, take a writing break and crack open some other aspects of creativity: visuals. This week you’re going to do some “manifesting” by creating marketing materials.

Write your book pitch

Focusing on the big things about the story idea that excite you (and thus will excite readers), write the book pitch. A book pitch introduces the main characters, their goals, hint at the obstacles or conflicts. You end with a call to action that includes the genre and tropes and entice readers they will love your book because of these things.

This advice comes directly from my Build-A-Book Workshop (another session coming in 2024!)

A book pitch briefly expresses the key elements of your story
● Focus on:
1. Who is your protagonist and why should people root/care for them?
2. What is the event or situation that upsets their world?
3. What is their goal?
4. What’s in their way?
● Conclude with a discussion of the genre, themes and/or tropes

You want to keep it tight. Try not to go above 100-150 words. Here’s an example (again from my BAB materials):

Port St Joe bookshop owner Skylar Garrison has the life she wants with her girlfriend Lila and Lila’s son Max. When Max goes missing in Tate’s Hell State Forest, the search for him could expose a secret Skylar has been keeping her whole life.

This paranormal fiction tale set in Florida’s Big Bend region explores identity, family, and legacy.

In a dual-POV romance, you will want to introduce BOTH main characters and their goals, motivations and conflicts so that the reader can see how they will not immediately gel and will have to work a bit to fit together.

Here’s an example of that:

Lucas Logan is dead.

Britt, Lucas’s ex-wife, and Tanya, Lucas’s former lawyer and lover, are not friends. Tanya had represented Lucas in his divorce and Britt resented how his relationship with Tanya kept him from his children. Within a week after his death, Tanya discovers she is pregnant – and evidence suggests that Lucas’s death was not an accident.

Can the two women work together to preserve the man’s legacy for all of his children?

This romantic suspense thriller is a first-time sapphic enemies to lovers story.

By writing what readers will find interesting and exciting if they read your story, you are promising to deliver the completed tale for their enjoyment.

You can publish this on the NaNoWriMo site when you create a profile and register for the challenge.

Write author bio

Another thing for your NaNoWriMo profile: the author bio. You don’t have to share everything about yourself. An author bio is to show how you can be connected to your story and to your readers. Here are some questions to consider answering in your bio:

1. What makes you similar to the characters and/or your readers?
2. Are you of a certain age?
3. In a similar profession?
4. Do you love small towns, antiquing, etc, which feature in the story?
5. What do you enjoy about this particular type of story you’re writing?
6. How long have you wanted to write a novel?

Create a book cover

There’s a place on the NNWM.org site where you can upload a book cover for your project. A free account on Canva can give you the palette to draw together text, graphics, and images to make a lovely cover. Start with a blank “book cover template.” Look around at other covers that are for books in the same genre as your story. Wander through Canva’s free stock images and play with fonts.

Minimally you need:

1. a representative image or two
2. overlaid by the book title *top* in large-size text
3. overlaid by your author name *bottom* in medium-size text

For the representative images, to be inspirational, consider finding setting images and the most basic character representations. A man in a suit adjusting his cufflinks doubles as a billionaire, for example. You don’t have to show him surrounded by money. Unless, of course, he makes his money as a high stakes poker player and it’s central to the plot. In which case you can show a piece of a high stakes poker table with chips, etc.

Join groups for camaraderie and accountability

Now, join a Facebook group or two (search “Nanowrimo”) and/or join groups on the Nanowrimo site and revel in the energy. Don’t go in for dozens. You don’t want to spend November checking a dozen groups. You’ll never get any writing done. Just one or two.

My advice is to connect with either

1. local people for meetups around town for writing sprints together
2. people writing the same genre to be able to talk out particular plot quandaries with and brainstorm your way through.

NaNoWriMo countdown: 7 days.

~ Lara