Hi, everyone. We're glad you're here. This is the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. Get ready to have your world rocked. As we dive into the wild and sometimes wacky world of self-publishing. We are three fabulous bestselling authors. I'm your host, Kimberly Todd with my best friends.

K. C. Luck

and Jamey Moody. 

Join us as we discuss the joys of writing, challenges of self-publishing, and anything else that tickles our fancy. 

Hey there, and welcome to episode 35 of The Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. I'm Kimberly Todd, and I'm here with my fabulous friends, KC Luck and Jamey Moody. 

Today we're talking about writing book blurbs that sell. But before we start, KC, how was your week?

Another great week. Retired. I had a good week. I went to the beach, last Thursday, and it was beautiful weather. Went with my girlfriend. We looked for rocks, seashells, took a nap. So that was a great way to spend time. And then when I'm not out traipsing around, I am working on my next novel, Fixing Hearts, which will come out probably late June or mid-July. So that's what I'm working on as far as my art.

Well. Cool. That's good. Yes. My book is coming right along as well. I think it's gonna end up being a little longer than I thought. I never do know how long they're gonna be. I just shoot for a for a certain length, but it's coming along and we're getting to the good part. And it's so fun when you're writing that part. This weekend my little town shut down our square and we did a Cinco de Mayo thing that was quite fun. We celebrate that down here a lot. I don't know about in other parts of the country, but since we're close to Mexico, a lot of people think that's Mexican independence, but it's not. It's when, Mexico beat France in some war. But anyway, it's a lot of fun with great Mexican food and margaritas and things like that. So that's what I did this week. How about you, Kimberly?

Yeah, talking about writer routines and stuff, I read the, Mel Robbins book, Let Them, which I really liked. She has a podcast and I like that even more on YouTube. And one of the things that I watched the other day, I guess it was a week ago, she has a morning routine that she does, and I'm telling you, it's like, do this for one day and see if it works.

And basically, you just get up outta bed, you make your bed, you drink a glass of water, and then you go for a five to10 minute walk and it's, really five to 10 minutes so you don't stress yourself too much or whatever. But anyways, that has been doing so much for me. I've been able to write a lot quicker, a lot better. I guess it just clears your mind or whatever. So, I highly recommend that podcast if you wanna relax and chill in the morning. 

Okay, wait, I've got a question then. You've been doing this? Listeners, Kimberly is a sleeping anomaly.

Or not sleeping. 

So yeah. Not sleeping. So are you telling me you get up, let's say, 10:00 PM because that's when you usually get up and you go out and walk. Then? Or, are you telling me you do this in the morning at like five o'clock in the morning when you get up and start your work day?

I do it at five in the morning, but then I'm chicken to go outside at that time, so I'll wait till about seven when the sun's up and then I do the walk part then.

Yeah. See, I was worried for your safety. I'm like, when are you doing this?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Anyways, we talk about writer's life a lot, and I do think if you get yourself into a routine, it does help. And I just happen to like her thing that she picked out, so...

mm-hmm.

Let me add to that then. I used to do something similar to that before I even started writing. I got up and I worked out first thing in the morning 

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I liked it for, I did it for a long time, but then, I don't really know how it happened, but I got tired of getting up early. So, so now I work out in the evenings and a lot of people say, oh, but if I don't do it in the morning, then I won't do it.

But I do, I come home and that's the first thing I do when I get off work is, I do my workout or whatever because I enjoy it. I mean, that's the whole thing behind it, but I understand what you mean, Kimberly. You're right. If you get up and move around, do a little something. You know—wakes you up.

Yeah, she was talking about how there's morning people and non-morning people and she was trying to encourage the non-morning people to also do this routine. And it like stops you from looking at your phone. You pay attention to your mind, body, and spirit first before anything else, before you let the rest of the world in. And I just think it's fantastic, but that's just me and I'm a little woo-woo. So, there you go.

No, no. I'm not saying it's bad. You are woo-woo.

I am.

There's nothing wrong with being woo either. I'm telling you, I'm all for it.

Oh gosh. Okay. Did we get any texts this week?

We did, we got one from Cheryl. She said until our show, she didn't realize how important blurbs were. So that's good to know that, in one of our shows, we mentioned it briefly that blurbs do help sell the book. She does read the blurbs and sometimes they will make or break her buying the book. So, there you go. Write blurb. 

Huh, I gotta agree with her. I've been reading a few blurbs here lately and I thought, Hmm, I don't think I'd wanna read that. 

Mm-hmm. 

That tells you how important they are. We also got an email from Cheryl because she posed a question that doesn't have anything to do with blurbs necessarily, but I thought it was a good question that I wanted to throw out there to y'all.

She was reading a book, it wasn't one of ours, but she found a mistake in it and she wondered if, I don't know if it was a typo or what, but she wondered if she should reach out to the author that would the author want to know. And I told her from my experience, I was like, hell yes, please email me and let me know if you find an error, because we can go back in and change those.

So, I wanted to get y'all's view on it. I would figure y'all would want to know, but go ahead.

Yeah, I'd definitely wanna know. I'd like for them to email me, and not post it on Amazon.

Yeah, exactly. 

Some people do. 

That is not helpful.

So… 

But yes, please, please tell us. 'cause we wanna know. I've had friends, not me, but I've had friends that have mentioned that they had a chapter missing or something weird happened and the upload, and they didn't even know. Right? 

Mm-hmm. 

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I do wanna know as well. I don't mind hearing if there's a, like you said, a chapter missing. God, please do tell me. You can actually text me that one. But if there's like poor grammar or missing words, especially missing words, things like that. I do wanna know, I do not wanna know that you think we should change the entire plot. That is not my favorite email, so... change the ending, something like that. I do not wanna have those emails. Thank you for your input, but I am not gonna rewrite the book for you.

I think one of my audio books, actually, this came to mind when you said missing chapter. I think the wrong epilogue was in the back of one of my audio books, and a listener, reached out and told me, because I had the same narrator doing a series. And so, I think we were on book two and the epilogue for book three was in book two.

Something like that. We got it fixed. I mean, it wasn't big deal. Just we didn't know. So yeah, so please reach out and let us know. Okay. One thing we wanted to talk about before we talk about blurbs is listeners, I don't know if y'all have been aware, just this past week, it's been going on more than this past week, but a lot happened as far as AI generated books, in the Sapphic community.

But here's the thing. Someone looked at the top 100 books on lesbian fiction, lesbian romance, different charts, and they took the blurbs and they changed one or two things and they did a cover that was very similar to the book. And then they put that blurb into AI and wrote a short book, maybe 80, a hundred pages, and they re-uploaded it, and published it.

Mm-hmm.

So, it is a form of copying. I don't care what you say. Amazon, of course it's not plagiarism because it's not word for word. And they may change, let's say the occupation and the names of some of the main characters. So, it makes it just a little bit different. But they're basically kinda stealing books. 

And it was, traumatic for people. And then all of a sudden, I got a Facebook message from a loyal reader. And sure enough, it happened to one of my books. They had taken my most, recent book and changed up a few things on it. And sure enough, they had a book, it was 82 pages long and this particular, author had like 200 books in there that they had uploaded to Amazon in the last say month.

Oh boy.

Or a week. Yeah. And I mean, Jae, our fearless leader, author Jae is on the case and she has been in touch with Amazon trying to see how they can resolve some of these things. And our wonderful reader support groups have gone on and one starred these books, which has made a difference. So, they're taking 'em down, but just as quickly they're putting new ones up.

And if you wanna read more about it, you can go to Jae's website. She has a very long article that talks about, a few now in her blog. she's at jae-fiction.com. So j-a-e-fiction.com to find out more, and also to get on her mailing list. If you're an author, get on her mailing list. She's sending out updates.

Right. And she's also got, something on her blog there. They have, formed a, Facebook group called SASS, that's for Sapphic Action Support Squad. Several authors have come together and it's just gonna be a place where we can all be together and kind of figure out what's going on and maybe share resources on what to do in instances like this.

And just support each other. That's the whole idea behind it. So please, you may look there and you might wanna join that Facebook group and they're also gonna have a newsletter.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, the Facebook group is literally, like you said, it spells out SASS. 

Sapphic Action Support Squad.

Yes, if you type

Yeah, we're a squad man. We're a squad.

That's a cool word is what, why they did squad. But yes, type it into Facebook. In the search bar. It does come up and you can join without, any issue.

Its mission is to organize, support and advocate for the international sapphic literature community. So, readers, authors alike join that and we'll come together and we will keep producing wonderful books for everyone to enjoy. But I just want, yeah, I just wanted all of y'all to be aware of that. So.

Okay, so, this week we're talking about writing your book blurb. KC, you wanna start?

Yeah, so, book blurbs are actually, the book description. So, if you look at the back of a book. Or if you look at the listing on Amazon, it's that description that's included that tells you just enough about the book to hopefully entice you to read it. So that's what we're talking about when we say blurbs and it's very important to get that right.

We've mentioned it before, but it truly is critical. You wanna get it right because it is part of the first impression. So, after the cover, it is a thing that they're going to notice next. And you don't want any grammatical errors or typos in that because it literally is showing the world what kind of writer you are.

Right. I have kind of a format that I generally follow to do a blurb, but first you need to start with a tagline that's going to grab their attention. And I usually do this in bold, 'cause if you think about it, if they see the cover and you get 'em to click. Then the first thing they're gonna see or read underneath the title is gonna be that first line.

And so, I bold that and try to make it some kind of action or, something to draw their interest because we want you to keep reading. So that's what I start with as a tagline.

Yeah, and I do the same thing. I bold the first line and it's usually, to get their attention and hopefully get them to read the next paragraph of your blurb. And I use examples that, I've done, like, "Love. Family. A choice. Sometimes plans change," or, "Is it possible to find a second chance at love?" Like something like that so that they go into the next paragraph.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to think of mine. Okay, so my new book that's coming out More Than a Wish, the tagline is, "Beneath the Stars. Two Hearts Collide. Will one summer be enough to rewrite their universe?" I hope that would make you want to read further, listeners.

Yeah, so that's interesting. You use a question. Mine's not nearly as long. Mine's more like Kimberly's, you know, like for everybody needs a hero. I put in, "Hold onto your heart." ' cause it's kind of a play on the fact that it's an earthquake. So that's interesting. You put such a long one on there. Yours truly is a tagline. 

 On that one I did because, the book, before it, it says, "Two hearts, one unforgettable night, and a love written in the stars." So that one doesn't ask the question, but the question was appropriate in this book. How's that? So it kind of depends on your book. Because you know, that is the big question in this book, so...

mm-hmm. And you do wanna start with a hook, even if it's after the tagline, when you start getting into the actual description, you wanna make sure that this is a very enticing little bit. I keep mine to around 200 words, which is hard. Unlike Kimberly, who uses it as an outline. I find that it's a little challenging to take a 70,000-word book and put it into 200 words to entice a reader, so that is why a lot of people say blurbs are so hard to write, but do keep it short, kind of punchy and suck the reader in.

Yeah, and you don't wanna rewrite the book right there. You don't wanna give them an outline or a plot of what's gonna happen. You just wanna give 'em a little taste and then throw that question in somewhere. So that they'll think, oh, well maybe I need to find out what's gonna happen.

Yeah, I've seen, to your point, I've seen that where some readers have said, Ugh, they just basically did a short story of the book. Instead of actually enticing them. ' cause it is marketing, so you wanna entice them. You don't wanna just say, and then I did this and then I did that, and then I did this. You wanna entice them and get them to wanna go into the book and read it.

Mm.

Maybe the less is more is something to go by right here, you know? As far as the format of it though, I start off with that tagline. I. Then I take the next paragraph is what I call it, but it may only be a sentence, it might be two. And I talk about the first, main character. Then I go to another paragraph and it might only be a sentence or two, and I talk about the other main character I.

This is usually what I do. And then I go to the third paragraph, which is, again, it's only a sentence or two, and that's where you try to catch 'em and say, first you're introducing who these people are and hopefully you're making them interesting. And then when you get to that third paragraph, here comes the conflict.

Here's what's going on. You know, what's gonna happen to these people? Can they get there? Can they get their happily ever after? And then I usually end it. With, some kind of comment about the trope so that they know what they're getting.

Yep. Very similar. Very, very similar. 

I do also wanna make sure I write it in, present tense so that it is more active when they read it, even though I don't write that way necessarily. The book itself. So when I talk about present tense, I mean in my Darkness Falls book I put, Taylor is an Army veteran. 

 I do the same thing. I do one paragraph for one character and one paragraph for another character. And in that I try to describe their current situation, what their problem is and what they're trying to solve, and then try to leave some kind of question so you wanna know more.

So, I might end it with something, one of the paragraphs like, " Is true love worth risking your life for," something like that and then go on to the next character. And then also after the two paragraphs, I do a kind of final paragraph that ends with the tropes. Like for Mafia Girl, I did, "Mafia Girl, Maybe? Is an opposites attract workplace, sapphic romance with a happily ever after." Something like that. And then of course, the call to action, which is buy Mafia Girl now, or something. 

Mm-hmm. I also include if it's a series, so I like people to know what book in the series this is. ' cause some people do like to know if they accidentally stumble on the third book in a series. I don't wanna give them a heads up.

Smart.

Yeah, I don't always do that because I try to write the book so that it's a standalone. even though it's part of a series, but I have to say most of the times in my series, if you'll start with that first one, it just makes it a lot better. And I've had reviewers say that you can, read this book as a standalone, but it is just so much richer if you've read the book before it or something like that, you know, so, and I appreciate that.

But yeah, I try to end with some kind of cliffhanger like question, you know, "Will their love survive? Will they take the chance?" 

Then, you know, you might say, come along on this age gap, small town, forbidden romance, and find out if they had the courage to reach for love.

That's, that's toward the end of my current blurb. 

And also, another thing you can add is, any warnings. So, if you do have triggers in your book, please put them in the blurb. For example, in my lesbian billionaires, book, I make sure I tell them that this is, erotic in nature. I don't use the word erotic. I use something like very hot or very steamy. ' cause using the word erotic will, tip off Amazon, that it might not be just a regular romance. And they'll put you in what we call Amazon jail, in their erotica category where you can't actually advertise it with their ads. And it's hard to find unless you search.

Mm-hmm.

Well, we've talked about how long these blurbs have to be and things like that, but for the I Heart SapphFic newsletter, they only want a 50-word blurb. So, for me, blurbs are probably the hardest part. So not only do I have to write this blurb, but then I have to turn around and condense it down into 50 words. So, keep that in mind because, new authors for sure, you wanna get your book in the iHeart staff newsletter that comes out on Tuesdays with the new releases.

So, keep in mind that you're gonna have to write, kind of two blurbs, one that's longer, and then one that's, 50 words or less.

Mm-hmm. I think actually Jay and some of hers wants it to be 50 characters, so…

Yeah, that's even worse.

She wants that tagline. She doesn't want anything else, so you gotta be really punchy with that one.

Yeah. For her, different giveaways and things like that. Yeah. She will say, give me a one sentence summary and please don't make that one sentence long.

Yeah. And then happened, and then happened, and then happened, 

And then, and then... 

Another thing to do, I recommend highly is to have other people read your blurbs, to make sure that you don't have anything that's confusing in there. So someone that's not familiar with her story, so maybe not an ARC reader, but someone else.

Make sure it's not confusing. Make sure it gives enough information to be enticing. Make sure you don't have any typos or grammatical errors, but I don't recommend, putting it on Facebook for the whole world to read, because then you're gonna get 50 different versions of how they want your blurb to be written. So just narrow it down to one or two people.

Yeah, I always do that. I always put my blurb in with my manuscript to my editor because I am paranoid about my grammar. I wanna make sure that's fine, and she will say, this is a little weird. Why don't you tweak that part. 

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. 

Well, that's nice. I haven't thought about doing that usually because I do not have the blurb written when the manuscript goes to the editor.

Yeah, I've had the editor look at it after the book is written and after they've edited the book. ' cause I don't have them written either. But yeah, it's always a good idea to maybe have your editor look at it.

But it's a good idea to let other people look at it too, that haven't read the book. I like that idea because you are so invested and you know these people in this book so well, that you could say something in there that you just assume everybody knows because you know it and you know, and they don't because they hadn't read the book yet. So that's a good thought.

Okay, well next week we're talking about launching your book on a budget. KC, do we have a question?

Yes. What's the most creative thing you've done to launch a book Without spending a lot of money? Please tell me.

Yes. And I especially wanna know, because I'll be launching a book this month, May 29th is when it comes out. So, send me your ideas, folks. Maybe I'll try some new things and see if they work. I can be the little, Guinea pig for book launches.

Okay, well that's it for this week. Thanks for listening.

Thanks everyone. Talk to you next week.

Thanks for listening. Bye. 

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to reach out to us, you can contact us by email at contact@threelesbiansandapen.com with the number three spelled out or on Instagram, Facebook and X at Three Lesbians and a Pen using the number three. And finally on our website, at threelesbiansandapen.com, we look forward to hearing from you, see you next week.