 In last week’s blog we asserted that understanding a protagonist’s motivation was one of the critical factors in creating interesting characters for stories. In fact, we went further than that and said authors should be doing the same for antagonists as well. But in order to do that we also need to understand how and why motivation works in general otherwise we can’t attribute the right motivators for the correct reasons. For example, if our story involves a love triangle, what might motivate one of the characters to abandon their love in order to make the object of their love happy? In a selfish world like ours that makes no sense. But it is a well-used trope in romance. Which is what this week’s blog is about. It’s a whistle stop tour of motivational theory and what it can do for you as an author.  Motivation or Incentive? The first thing to understand is that there is a significant difference between motivation and incentive. The big difference between the two is that an incentive can never be enough for a person to place themselves in jeopardy. After all, there’s no point in being paid £1 million (an incentive) if you are going to end up dead and can’t spend it. But a person may take a dangerous, high paying job if it is the only way to provide security for the ones they love. Love is a motivation, money is an incentive. To put it another way, motivation drives us, but incentives can only pull us. In fiction we are always looking for what drives the character. The lure of wealth may be an incentive for a criminal, but it carries the risk of imprisonment. So, what motivates criminals to take that risk? Understanding that motivation makes the criminal far more interesting than just the lure of wealth, which is quite shallow.  Psychologist Abraham Maslow, the granddaddy of content based motivational theory. Theories of motivation are generally grouped under one of two headings: content and process. Content theories focus on what things provide motivation and process theories focus on how motivation occurs. To add depth to a character it isn’t enough to know what motivates them (content) it is also important to know why (process). The two together provide layers of complexity and that makes characters more interesting. Abraham Maslow is the granddaddy of content theory. He theorised that in order to function at a higher level, you first required certain needs to be satisfied. In other words, you can’t create great art if you are starving to death. So, you have to have your hunger satisfied before you can achieve your goal to become an artist. This became known as a “hierarchy of needs”.  Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You may, at this point, be tempted to mention the name of Vincent Van Gogh, who only sold one of his paintings during his lifetime. But he wasn’t actually poor. He had a very well paid job selling art in his brother’s Paris gallery before he left to pursue his own artistic career. Van Gogh wasn’t penniless at the start of his career – though he may have been by the end. In practice this means that we are first motivated by a need to survive, but if that is secure we can then move on to be motivated by something at a higher level. In fiction this means that if a character is trapped inside a burning building, they aren’t going to be interested in catching the person that lit the match. Only after they have escaped the inferno will they turn their attention to that. A vagrant living on the street wouldn’t be motivated enough to help a damsel in distress, because their priority would be their own survival. But they can be incentivised to help the damsel because the incentive (usually money) secures their basic needs. However, if it looks like they may die in the attempt, the incentive would no longer be enough. They would need some other motive, such as love for the damsel. While good Samaritans may exist, they don’t place themselves in danger. They need motivation for that to happen.  GET MOTIVATED! As can be seen from that example, content based motivation is a tricky business and if you don’t understand those sorts of basics, your readers won’t believe in your characters. But notice the sorts of things that appear in Maslow's hierarchy of needs diagram from the third level upwards. there's plenty of stuff hidden behind those short statements with which you can play in order to provide your characters with motivation. But what content theory also makes clear is that what motivates us isn’t constant. Our motivation can change in response to circumstances. For example, we may be highly motivated to succeed in our careers, working long hours and totally immersing ourselves in our jobs. Then one day we meet the girl (or boy) of our dreams and suddenly our career isn’t the most important thing in our lives anymore. Winning the heart of the object of our desire is now what is uppermost in our minds, to the extent that we may throw away our career in order to be with that person. That, of course, runs contrary to Maslow’s theory, because if we lose our job we also lose our security. So, it appears that some motivators are more powerful than others, at least for some of the time.  Achievement and competition. Achievement and competition are theories of content motivation studied by David Mclelland. Today this is often portrayed in fiction as a negative thing; highly motivated achievers or competitors are often depicted as criminals or cheats, driven by their desire to win at all costs. Which is odd, because the sports stars we admire the most are highly motivated by competition and achievement. Not only do they compete in their sporting arena, they also compete off the field by consistently trying to beat their own best performances, in the gym for example. Name the sports star you admire the most and you are naming a highly motivated competitor, but modern fiction suggests you will also be naming a cheat. I think we need to change that stereotype with positive competitive role models in fiction. Is competition and high achievement a bad thing? That is for you to decide, but I know of one author who uses competition as a motivator for the success of his heroic characters.  Psychologist B F Skinner When it comes to process theories, there is one that is usable in fiction. It is “reinforcement” theory, developed by B F Skinner. This is based on positive outcomes of certain types of behaviour. In fact this can be traced back even further, to Pavlov and his dogs, but Skinner is better known for his study of humans. If you can imagine a misbehaving child being given a biscuit in exchange for better behaviour, it will soon learn that if it misbehaves biscuits will be forthcoming, so that the reward becomes the motivator for bad behaviour. Extending that theory into adulthood, if a character believes that rewards come from bad behaviour they will continue to behave badly – which is great motivation for criminal characters. The opposite applies as well, of course. If good behaviour results in good outcomes, then a character is motivated towards good behaviour. It may also surprise them when their good behaviour results in a bad outcome, eg their loyalty being betrayed. That could be enough for a previously good person to start behaving badly. Because when we add emotions to motivation, we start to get a powerful mix. I have already mentioned the power of love to derail a career, but there are plenty of other emotions that can affect motivation.  The most challenging question it is ever possible for an author to ask is what makes one man brave and another a coward. This is especially so in stories that involve death but can also be played out in terms of moral behaviour. Nature has given us three responses to danger: fight, flight or freeze. What makes one person choose to fight, another choose to flee and another to do neither (freeze)? Fear is a natural response to danger, so all three responses should be regarded as equal, because nature gave us the choice. But our regard for bravery and our contempt for cowardice shows that we don’t regard all three responses as being equal. Very often the individuals who take the actions can’t answer our question. Ask most decorated war heroes why they did what they did, and they are unable to answer, or they fall back on clichés like “duty”.  But duty only takes us so far.
A soldier standing firm in the line of battle is doing his duty. A soldier that charges an enemy position in order to save a comrade is going far beyond that. It happens in real life, but quite rarely which is why medals such as the Victoria Cross and the Congressional Medal of Honour exist to recognise such actions. But in fiction it is the norm for the protagonist to exhibit that level of bravery and persistence. So, what can we give them, in emotional terms, so that they do that? And, more importantly, how can we create a backstory that shows how they developed that quality, based on what we know about motivation? This is where Skinner’s theory becomes important. If during their developmental years the character is rewarded for having beliefs and values that we admire, but isn’t rewarded for having beliefs that we detest, the qualities for which they were rewarded will become the motivators. They will also become the barriers when those qualities are undermined. The flawed protagonist is one whose beliefs and values are called into doubt by events, which cause them to question their beliefs and results in internal conflicts. The loner cop who drinks way too much whisky didn't start out that way. Something made them like that and the author gets to decide what it was. There is far more to motivation than I have had time to cover in this blog. I recommend further research. How much you include in a story is up to you, but layered characters with strong motivations are always going to be of more interest to readers than shallow characters who only respond to incentives. If you have enjoyed this blog, or found it informative, then make sure you don’t miss future editions. Just click on the button below to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll even send you a free ebook for doing so.
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 As publishers, we get sent a lot of books. But that’s OK because we’d be in trouble if people didn’t send us their books. It would be nice if I could say that all those books are great, and we can’t wait to be able to get them uploaded and out there with the reading public. Unfortunately, we can’t say that. I would estimate that perhaps 50% of what we are sent is never going to get published; not by us and not by any other reputable publisher, large or small. It usually takes us less than an hour of reading to make that decision. About half the rest start off well but then start to run out of steam, usually around the 30 to 40,000 word point. It was probably around that point that the author realised that writing a book wasn’t quite as easy as they had thought, but they kept ploughing on anyway, in the hope that something great would come out of it. Sadly, it didn’t, but it will take us maybe 2 – 3 hours to decide to pass on those books.  Finally, we get to the 20% to 30% of books that stand a real chance of finding readers. Those are the ones where we invite the author to work with us to try to get the book into its best possible version before we finally publish it. Some authors then pass, because they think their book is good enough already and doesn’t require our interference, or maybe they think they can get a better deal elsewhere (and maybe they can). But if a book is on our website it’s because the author has been more realistic and understands that all work can be improved, even if it is only a little bit. Just once in a while we get a book sent to us that we know from page 1 is going to be good. How do we know that? Because we get so absorbed in it that someone has to tap us on the shoulder and remind us that it’s time to pack up work for the day. Even then we’ll upload it onto a tablet so we can keep on reading it on the way home (but not if we’re driving). "Character = Conflict = Plot" Those books may be rare, but when we analyse what they have that other books don’t have, it usually comes down to just 3 things.
You will notice that I haven’t mentioned the plot. That’s because the plot is not the main driver of our engagement with the story. The protagonist and the problem(s) they face are what hooked us: character + conflict = plot. You will also notice that I mentioned the antagonist as being one of the 3 things that hooked us. Antagonists don’t get many mentions in blogs about writing and that’s a shame, because without an antagonist you only have half a story. Where would James Bond be without Goldfinger or Blofeld? Unemployed, that’s where. It is our contention (feel free to disagree) that a well-constructed antagonist is as important to a story as a well-constructed protagonist. For every Snow White, we need a Wicked Queen.  Think of Darth Vader. He starts off as the archetypal antagonist, just bad because he’s bad. But then we find out that he is Luke Skywalker’s father and, all of a sudden, he becomes much more interesting. He becomes so interesting that a considerable proportion of the next 3 Star Wars films are devoted to his “origin” story (Ep I: The Phantom Menace, Ep II: Attack of the Clones and Ep III: Revenge of the Sith). Yet time and again we get books submitted to us with antagonists so one dimensional we feel no emotional interest in them. We need to despise the antagonist in order to make it more important for the protagonist to succeed. But in those stories it is often like trying to despise Wiley Coyote or Elmer Fudd. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Number one in my list was the protagonist.  So, what makes a good protagonist? That will vary from genre to genre. For fantasy fiction they are required to be heroic, while for romance the first requirement is that they be attractive in some way (it doesn’t have to be a physical attractiveness). But that is just the surface level. The more complex the character, the more interesting they are. The more interesting they are, the more interest the reader will take in them. And the more interest the reader takes in them, the more likely it is that they will continue reading the book. It is very important that readers continue to read the book. If you are an Indie author, you need those readers to post favourable reviews of your book in order to sell more copies. And if you want to find a publisher, you have to submit a book that the publisher wants to finish reading.  Building complexity into a character, however, isn’t simple. It takes time and it takes an understanding of people. There are a few short cuts that can be taken, tropes as they are known, such as giving them secrets, but the thing that really catches the imagination is their motivation. Why are they doing what they are doing? After all, they could just as easily stay at home with their feet up reading a good book, like the rest of us. The reader has to believe that the protagonist is dealing with the conflict because they have a really strong reason to do so. But that leaves the reader with a gigantic “why” to be answered. And the only person who can answer it is the author.  Take Jack Reacher, for example. He is a drifter, a loner, and he doesn’t have to get involved in the problems of others. Yet he always does. He is motivated to help by a range of different things, depending on the plotlines, but the one that recurs most regularly is the desire to fight injustice in whatever form it appears. It may be the injustice of a small business owner having to pay protection money to gangsters, or it may be the injustice of the law not taking a victim seriously. It may be the injustice of the police being too incompetent to find the real criminals. It may even be the injustice of someone being wrongly accused of a crime. But whatever it is, it motivates Reacher to get involved when he really doesn’t have to. So, what motivates your protagonist to get involved when they don’t have to? And why does that motivate them so much?  Internal conflict is always good for adding layers of interest to a protagonist. That can be introduced in many different ways, from a lack of self-belief to questions about the morality of what they are doing. It is especially useful when internal conflicts start to impact on whatever goal the character is pursuing. Think about a vegan being attracted to someone who works in an abattoir – can you imagine the complexity of making that relationship work? It doesn’t always have to be as blunt as that example. In fact, subtlety often makes it more interesting, especially if the internal conflict is revealed slowly over the whole book rather than in one big lump, so that the reader says “Ah, now I see what the real problem has been all along”. To really get to grips with both motivation and internal conflict you have to research your character(s). Yes, I know you only just created them, but that doesn’t stop you doing “research” on them. All you have to do is ask the right questions – then answer them.  Dress your characters. Start with their parents: were they loving, cruel, dismissive, encouraging or even absent? Parents are the first influence on a child and therefore the first to influence your character’s personality when they are older. From there you can move onto teachers, peer groups, young adulthood and the dreams and aspirations that come with it. For older characters, the age of Jack Reacher for example, you may want to continue that research into their 20s and even 30s. You dress your characters with their life experiences, their beliefs and their values the same way as you dress them in their clothes, and those things then provide their motivation and/or internal conflicts. If they fight injustice, then what is the injustice they suffered that makes them want to do that? If they are on a quest, what is it they are seeking to find out about themselves along the way? If they are afraid of starting a romantic relationship, what happened in their past that makes them so afraid now? I’m not going to ask all the possible questions; you are the author, they are your characters, you need to ask the questions. But the better the questions you ask, the better your characters will be.  And the same applies to antagonists. We are familiar with the surface level motives of antagonists: love, hate, jealousy, greed, lust for power, revenge, etc. But no one is born seeking revenge. No one is born jealous. No one is born lusting for power. So, what was it in their life that changed them and gave them those surface level motivations? What happened to make a “normal” human being want to rule the world?  You can throw in psychological motivations, such as psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissism megalomania, paranoia etc but even they require some sort of explanation. If you are going to use them you will need a good grounding in psychology and/or mental health so that you can understand what your antagonist’s backstory has to look like in order for them to suffer from those forms of psychological disorder.
If you can come up with two complex characters (protagonist and antagonist), you are going to come up with a complex, layered conflict between them that holds the reader’s attention and has them crying out for more. And if you can come up with those 3 elements, you are going to find a publisher who wants to publish your book. If you have enjoyed this blog, or found it informative, then make sure you don’t miss future editions. Just click on the button below to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll even send you a free ebook for doing so. Disclaimer: We are not connected to Book Brush in any way other than as users of the product that has been reviewed. This review has not been paid for by Book Brush or by any other person or organisation.  This article is a review of the Book Brush app which allows authors to design their own book covers, rather than having to pay someone else a lot of money to do that for them. I have to say up front that some of the things that Book Brush allows you to do can be done just as easily in PowerPoint (if you are good at using PowerPoint) but, equally, some of the features are unique. And what is most unique as that it draws together everything you may need to be able to do under one URL. The service is provided on an annual subscription basis, charging at 3 levels: silver, gold and platinum. We paid for the silver level ($99, about £85) as that provided the things we needed right there and then (we knew we could upgrade later if we wanted to). Looking at the other two packages, it is hard to see them offering that much more – but on the other hand if it is something you want to do repetitively and you have no other way of doing it, you may regard the extra money as being well spent. I’ll cover the differences in the subscription levels a little later in this blog. "doing it myself was a no-brainer" The first thing I found useful was the introduction video that showed me how to use the app. I was able to watch it before I had even subscribed, and it persuaded me that what was on offer was going to save me money. Typically, we pay a designer on fiverr.com around $100 to provide us with an ebook and paperback cover package (with us providing the images to be used) and, as publishers, we may need a dozen of those each year, costing around $1,200. So, paying $99 a year and getting one of our team to do it was a no-brainer, providing we can create the sorts of designs that we want. How long does it take to design a cover?  Having watched the video and learnt the basics, and combining it with some use of PowerPoint (I’ll tell you why later) I was able to create a cover for the next Carter’s Commandos book in around 15 minutes. OK, the design isn’t complicated, but using the sorts of templates that are available within Book Brush, it wouldn’t have taken much longer to produce something more elaborate. I was able to do that after watching just one video and spending about an hour playing around with the various features. What’s more, I rather enjoyed doing it because the results are so easy and quick to see and it’s fun to be able to experiment with different designs. Warning to procrastinators: It is very easy to spend a lot of time playing with Book Brush while convincing yourself you are doing something productive. So keep an eye out and don't fall into that trap when you should really be writing. At the end of the process we know that by using Book Brush templates, our finished cover is going to be fully compatible with the technical requirements for KDP and other book publishing sites. But the biggest advantage is the range of templates that are available and how you can manipulate them to create a design that is unique to your book. The templates and other images are conveniently organised into genre specific groups.  KDP cover creator offers you about a dozen templates and they are pretty much fixed. You can add your own images, of course, but trimming them is difficult and it is inevitable that your book cover is going to look like hundreds of others, which is where Book Brush offers one of its great advantages. Not only that, but you have an almost unlimited ability to change colours and fonts. The platinum subscription for Book Brush offers the flexibility to remove backgrounds from images, but you may not want to pay for that. Removing background allows several images to be combined to create unique covers. Which is where PowerPoint comes in. If you know how to do it, you can remove backgrounds from images in PowerPoint, save the combined image as a .jpg and then import it into Book Brush ready to use. I’m not going to go into detail about how to do that in this blog. We searched YouTube and found this “how to” video for people who don’t already know. Along with all the templates Book Brush also has access to hundreds of thousands of free to use images which you can apply to your covers but, of course, you can also create or buy your own. They have a wide range of fonts and all the special affects you would expect to see for applying shadow, changing transparency etc. If you want to use a particular font and it isn't available in Book brush, you can import it.  There are also some blogs on the site that could be helpful to you, such as the one we read to discover what fonts work best for which genres and which should be paired together to differentiate between titles, sub-titles and author names. So, what more do you get if you upgrade? With the gold package you get templates into which you can insert your finished covers in suitable formats to use for your social media marketing, cover reveals etc, such as showing the cover in a Kindle frame with accompanying promotional text. That was about all I saw there that was different and not something that I considered to be worth paying for. With platinum you get the ability to create video trailers for your books, by combining either your own video images or using their collection of stock video. To that you can add music or a narration. The package is quite easy to use, can create videos compatible with the different social media platforms and the results look very professional. But it isn’t something we would use a lot so, in our opinion, it didn’t justify the additional $147 subscription fee.  If they offered the opportunity to buy a one-off video package for $10 - $15, we’d certainly use it, but I don’t think the subscription offers value for money unless you’re going to be creating a lot of video trailers.
Where Book Brush really comes into its own is in creating paperback and hardback covers. With the wide range of trim sizes on offer through KDP and the wide variation of page counts between books, coming up with a PowerPoint template that works for every book is impossible, so it’s all down to trial and error, which can take hours of work to get right. But Book Brush just asks you how many pages your book has and then creates a custom template for you which is guaranteed to pass KDP’s quality standards. All you have to do is overlay the different content you want to use for your design and, again, you can use their designs and images or create your own. So, overall we are quite happy with Book Brush. It’s easy and quick to learn and you can start producing professional looking book covers within an hour of paying your subscription. We certainly recommend the silver package. Whether you want to pay more for the extra buzzers and bells is down to you. If you would like to know more about Book Brush, click/tap here. If you have enjoyed this blog or found it informative, be sure not miss future editions by signing up for our newsletter. We’ll even give you a free ebook for doing it. Just click the button below. It's New Year and we here at Selfishgenie Publishing are taking a well earned break. But don't worry, our blog will be returning on Saturday 7th January 2023, so watch our socials for information on what we will be blogging about. In the meantime, we would like to wish you a very Happy 2023. And don't forget, books published by Selfishgenie are a great way to use those Amazon vouchers you got for Christmas.  It's Christmas and we here at Selfishgenie Publishing are taking a well earned break. But don't worry, our blog will be returning on Saturday 7th January 2023, so watch our socials for information on what we will be blogging about. In the meantime, we would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And don't forget, books published by Selfishgenie are a great way to use those Amazon vouchers you got for Christmas.  In this last blog before the Christmas holidays, we've handed it over to one of our authors to get her take on one of the stories from Christmas. All views expressed are those of the author and aren't necessarily those of Selfishgenie Publishing. Note: This is a work of fiction.  The first Christmas Day - a hillside near Bethlehem - night has fallen. “It’s a cold one tonight, alright.” Dave said as he returned from checking what the sheep were up to out on the side of the hill. He stretched his hands towards the fire and rubbed them to restore his circulation. He saw that the food was cooked and took a piece, savouring its delicate musty flavour. “You’re not wrong there.” Another Dave replied. “If it gets any colder I’ll have to wrap a fleece around my shoulders.” “Shhhh!” A different Dave hissed, pointing towards the sheep. “If they hear you say that they’ll get upset. You know how easily upset they get and seeing your drape the skin of one of their half brothers around you will get them in a really bad mood.” “Sorry, wasn’t thinking.” Another Dave apologised. He popped a morsel of food into his mouth. “Hey!” The first Dave said, pointing towards the sky. “What’s that bright light?” “Where?” A different Dave replied, searching the heavens, but looking in entirely the wrong direction.  “There, you idiot! Over there, near where that bright star’s been for the last few nights. But this one’s moving. Look, it’s getting bigger and it seems…” realisation dawned on him. “It seems to be coming straight for us.” “One of those burning rocks we sometimes get.” A different Dave responded, disinterestedly. “Hang around on this hillside long enough and you’ll see plenty of them. Course, you’ve only been a shepherd a few weeks, but us old hands, like another Dave here, we’ve seen it all, haven’t we?” Another Dave nodded his head. “We sure have. But I have to say this one looks a bit different. For a start, it’s a lot brighter looking, and it isn’t moving in a straight line like they normally do. This one is sort of … well, zig-zagging a bit, like it's looking for someone to hit.” “Hang on,” The first Dave said. “It seems to be slowing down, sort of hovering like.” “Kneel before me, Puny Humans.” A voice boomed out of the brightness.  “No need to shout mate. We’re right here. We can hear you, you know. And turn the brightness down a bit while you’re at it.” Another Dave shielded his eyes from the glare. “Oh, sorry.” The voice got quieter and the light dimmed, to reveal a figure within it. “Now, where was I? Oh yes. Kneel before me, Puny Humans.” “Do you mind if I don’t” A different Dave said. “At my age the old knees give me a bit of trouble if I kneel. If it wasn’t for the herbs I chew, I’d be in constant agony.” “Oh, OK. But you other two ….” “I kneel before no man!” Another Dave pronounced, taking up a pugnacious stance. “Women though, that’s different. I’ll kneel before a woman anytime, if you get my meaning.” He leered and let out a dirty chuckle. “Well, if you two aren’t kneeling, I’m certainly not.” The first Dave chipped in. “I am the Archangel Gabriel!” The voice figure turned up the volume to booming level again. “I am the Messenger of God. Why do you not quake before me?”  “Look mate, no offence or nuffin’, but we’ve ‘ad Canaanites, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Sumerians, Greeks and now Romans through here. They couldn’t make us kneel, so you’ve got no chance. You may be the Messenger of God, but you ain’t God, so we ain’t kneeling. Nor are we quaking, trembling, worrying or hurrying.” Another Dave said his piece and sat down at the fire once more, his back to the Archangel. “Oh, well … erm, OK, I guess you don’t have to kneel then.” The Archangel admitted defeat, the volume of his voice once again reduced to a more conventional level. “I must say, you make a nice change.” A different Dave said. “Normally we get burning bushes or columns of fire that talk. It’s nice to have an Archangel for once.” “There was that talking frog, that time. remember?” Another Dave said.  “Oh yeah. We heard that after we ate those funny mushrooms we found on the hill.” “In fact, we generally hear things when we eat the funny mushrooms, come to think of it.” The first Dave observed. “I wonder if the two things are …” “If I might get us back on track.” The Archangel interrupted their reminiscences. “I’ve got a city to destroy for failing to obey the Word of the Lord and if I don’t deliver this message first, I’ll be late.” “Oh yeah, you go ahead then.” The first Dave said, sitting back down next to the fire, opposite another Dave but facing the Archangel. He popped another morsel of food into his mouth. “Hang on a minute …” The Archangel said, puzzlement in his voice. You …” he pointed at the first Dave. “Your name’s Dave, right?”  “It certainly is. Dave bar Dave, that means son of Dave, seeing as you’re a stranger around these parts.” “I know what ‘bar’ means.” The Archangel replied testily. “I’m not a moron.” “That’s a matter of opinion.” Another Dave muttered. “And you … You’re Dave too.” He pointed at another Dave. “That’s right. There’s Daves in our family going all the way back to Noah.” “And he’s Dave?” he pointed at a different Dave, who thought the dark shadows away from the firelight concealed the fact that he was picking his nose. “That’s right. Everyone around here is called Dave. ‘Cept the women of course. They’re all called Davina instead.” “But why? Isn’t that a bit confusing?” “’Spose it is a bit.” Another Dave conceded. “But this ‘ere …” he swept his arm around to encompass the nearby city. "This ‘ere is the City of David, so we’re all called Dave, or David if we’re on our Saturday best behaviour.” The Archangel shook his head, but wisely decided not to pursue the subject anymore. Instead, he refocused himself on delivering his message.  “This night, in the City of Bethlehem, a child was born. He is the Son of God and he shall be called Emmanuel.” “Emmanuel, eh? Sounds a bit French to me. Why can’t he be called Dave like everyone else?” Another Dave asked. “Because God wants him to be called Emmanuel and, as he’s God’s son, I think God has the right to name him!” The Archangel was clearly losing his patience. “Alright, alright. Keep your wings on Archie. Anyway, what’s this got to do with us?” “You are commanded to go to Bethlehem, to the stable where the child was born, and there to pay Him homage and to worship Him.” “A stable, eh?” The first Dave said. “Doesn’t sound too hygienic for a new-born baby. And if he’s the Son of God, you’d expect him to be born in a nice private hospital, wouldn’t you?” “God wanted it this way.” The Archangel snapped. “Look, are you going or aren’t you? Because if you aren’t, I’ve got to find someone equally as common … I mean humble … as you to go and bear witness to the child’s birth.” “But why us? Why should we go?” “In years to come, there will be a need for men to bear witness to the circumstances of His birth, that’s why. You’re as good as anyone. Oh, and there are three Wise Men on their way too. They will be witnesses as well.”  “But we didn’t see him being born.” A different Dave objected. “We’re only finding out about it now. And, anyway, one baby looks just like another baby. They all look like little Buddhas.” “For heaven’s sake don’t drag Buddha into this. We’ll be here all night. Look, go, don’t go. I’m past caring.” With that the Archangel turned up his brilliance again and shot skywards, fast dwindling into a distant speck of light, which then got lost amongst the stars. “Bloody Archangels. Think they’re God’s gift.” Another Dave muttered under his breath. “I suppose they are really; God’s gift I mean.” The first Dave said to no one in particular. “That would explain the bright star hanging over Bethlehem. It's a wachamacallit … a sign.” A different Dave said. “Yeah, I suppose it is. But I didn’t think it meant ‘Son of God born here.’” “Are we going, then, to Bethlehem?” The first Dave asked. "I quite fancy a night out." "There’s no point.” A different Dave said. “How can we be witnesses? No one ever comes up here, so we can’t tell them what we saw. And we can’t write it down ‘cos we can’t write. If we could write we wouldn’t be shepherds, we’d be Wise Men, or at least postmen. So let the Wise Men be witnesses. Or the postman, for that matter.”  “That’s good thinking, that is.” The first Dave said. “Those Wise Men are bound to write down what they saw and then the whole world will be able to read their eyewitness testimony. Maybe they’ll get their own section in the Bible, when it’s updated of course. You know, Bible 2.0.” “Yeah,” said a diffident Dave said. “They’ll probably get a whole book to themselves, like Isaiah or Deuteronomy. Who was Deuteronomy, anyway?” “Wasn’t he a cat?” The first Dave answered, sure he’d seen him in a show at some time. “Besides, there’s no one to mind the sheep. I think the whole thing’s a scam anyway.” Another Dave stated, throwing another log on the fire. “What do you mean?” The first Dave asked. “Think about it. It’s obvious, innit? That Archangel comes down here, spins us a yarn about the Son of God being born in a stable, so we go rushing off there to see it. Then, when we come back, the bugger’s nicked all our sheep while we were gone.” “But what about the Wise Men?” The first Dave persisted. “That’s the biggest clue of all. The only Wise Man you’ll ever see in Judea is the one that looks after his sheep and doesn’t let some passing Archangel nick ‘em!” “Yeah.” The first Dave mused. “Maybe you’re right. Got any of those funny mushrooms left? Or did we scoff the lot before that Archangel arrived?” If you have enjoyed this blog and want to make sure you don’t miss future editions, just click the button below to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll even give you a free ebook for doing so.
We’re taking a break over the Christmas and New Year period, but we’ll be back with a new blog on a publishing, book marketing or author based theme, on Saturday 7th January. In the meantime, all the staff here at Selfishgenie Publishing, and all our authors, wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. This week we hand over our blog to one of our authors, Robert Cubitt, who has been dabbling in the world of audiobooks. All views expressed by the blog's author are his own and are not necessarily shared by Selfishgenie Publishing  As an Indie author, have you ever wondered if you should turn your masterpiece into an audiobook? I did wonder, so I did some research to see if it was the right thing for me (spoiler alert – it was). First of all, the market for audiobooks in the UK in 2021 was £151 million, up from £133 million in 2020. In the USA the market was worth $4.2 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow to $33 billion by 2030. Just a microscopic slice of either of those pies is a significant amount of money. So, why are more Indie authors not pursuing this avenue for selling their books?  Aside from snobbery (some authors don’t believe that audiobooks are really books) the answer is cost. First of all, audiobooks cost far more to buy than either an ebook or a paperback. In the US an audiobook will cost between $20 and $30 and prices are comparable in the UK. For this reason, many audiobook retailers work on a subscription basis, allowing listeners to download multiple titles each month for around $15 (and the equivalent in pounds).  If you subscribe to Spotify or iTunes, you will already be familiar with this and Audible provides a typical subscription model for audiobooks. In essence it is no different from what KindleUnlimited does for ebooks. The reason behind this cost is that an audiobook requires a narrator, and they don’t come cheap. If you want a well-known actor to narrate your book you can think of a starting price in excess of £3,000 ($3,500) and some audio books use more than one actor: an overall narrator, a male character lead and a female character lead, which further increases the cost. The cost of those voices has to be recovered before either the author or the publisher makes a penny in profit.  But I wasn’t going to be deterred by this, so I went looking for cheaper options – and found them. I’ll be talking about acx.com a lot, as they are the largest distributor for audiobooks. They sell audiobooks through Audible, Amazon and iTunes, which between them control around 80% of the audiobook market. If your audiobook isn’t on acx.com, it isn’t anywhere. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first thing you need if you want to publish an audiobook is a narrator. So how do you find one of those? And, more importantly, how do you find one that won’t charge an arm and a leg to work with you?  My starting point is the same as for any job I want doing in relation to publishing: fiverr.com. A search for “audiobook narrators” provided me with an extensive list of potential candidates. Each one has posted an audio clip of their voice, so you know what you are getting before you even approach them. If your book is British based you will want a British accent (unless you are Lee Childs, who sets his books in the USA), likewise if you are an American author you will probably want an American accent. You may want to choose between a male and a female narrator. Whatever you want, you will probably find someone to offer it. There’s even one that offers to read a French translation of your book for the French market.  Rates for narrators vary and they quote their prices by 100, 200, 250 words etc so do check carefully what they are quoting so that you can compare prices properly. The narrator I picked out suggested a starting price of £4.54 (around $5.25 at current exchange rates) for 250 words, which is very much at the economy end of the scale. (I will provide his details at the end of the blog.) But his voice sounded good, so I asked for a “custom quote” based on the length of my book. My narrator came back with a quote of $1,800 (about £1,560).  If that makes your eyes water, then I empathise because it made my eyes water too. However, you must remember that, unlike many services, you aren’t just paying for time, you are also paying for talent. But my books have been doing well recently and paying that amount from my recent royalties wasn’t out of the question. However, I wasn’t going to commit to that amount of money on the spot. I messaged back to the narrator to say I would think about it and get back to him. At which point the negotiations really started. My narrator told me he could do it for about half that amount, but with a royalty share option – 50:50. This is a facility that acx.com operates, so the author doesn’t even have to pay the royalties to the narrator; acx.com does that. If you think that is giving away a lot, please remember that 50% of something is always better than 100% of nothing.  So, we agreed $900, which would be paid through Fiverr.com and the rest would be paid in royalties through acx.com. So, just a quick conversion for my British readers, I paid about £780 upfront to my narrator, plus Fiverr.com’s charges. Please note that the royalties scheme has no limit to it. The author doesn’t stop sharing when a certain level of royalties have been reached. It goes on for as long as the audiobook remains on sale. That can mean my narrator receives a lot more than $1,800 if the book is a good seller, which is why some narrators like this way of doing business. But, if the book isn’t a good seller, my narrator (and me) may not make very much from it. That’s the gamble we are both taking.  Don’t be surprised if your narrator asks about your ebook and paperback sales figures before he or she agrees to a royalty share deal. And they may check out the book’s sales ranking on Amazon, so don’t try to fool them. Having never done this before, I decided to find some resources to tell me how it all works. In terms of the technical requirements for the book, I found this helpful check sheet. It gets a bit technical in parts, but it does provide the basics. Most of that is your narrator’s responsibility, but it does no harm for you to know about it too. I then found this video on YouTube which provides a practical demonstration. That is stuff that you as the author will need to know in order to upload your audiobook for distribution.  In terms of uploading your book, it is no more difficult than using any of the self-publishing websites with which self-published authors, like you, will already be familiar. However, there are two things which are very different:
Because I had already decided on my narrator, I didn’t need to get into the audition process. But basically, if you want to look for narrators who are already registered with acx.com (and the vast majority are) you can upload an extract of your book for prospective narrators to audition and bid for the work. You can apply filters for your narrators, such as nationality, language, gender, accent, and general tone of voice you want for your book (serious, dramatic, humorous etc). If you have already decided on your narrator, as I had, you can search for them by name in the appropriate section, and they will be linked to the project.  When you tell acx.com the wordcount for your book, they do a calculation on how long it should take for a narrator to read (a 90k book is about 9.5 hours). In the appropriate section of the site, you can then enter an hourly rate you are willing to pay. Multiply one by the other and you get an indicative cost for your audiobook. I would suggest a starting price of about $50 (£45) per hour. If you don’t get any bids to narrate your book by the cut-off date that you specify (typically 2 - 5 days) you can increase the hourly rate until you get a bid with which you are satisfied. The site pays royalties of 40% for exclusive distribution rights for your book or 25% for non-exclusive rights. I went for exclusive, which gives me 20% and my narrator 20% Having already chosen my narrator, and found him in acx.com’s directory, I filled in the details for the royalties share scheme. This section also asks if you agree to fund some or all of the narration costs. Don’t tick that box if you have agreed a “royalties only” scheme with your narrator, as I had; acx.com doesn’t need to know about the lump sum payment made using Fiverr.com Caution: once you have posted these details you can’t change them. You have to cancel the whole project and start again (as I discovered).  And that’s about it. Your chosen narrator will get to work and provide you with a 15 minute segment, so that you can verify they are narrating your book the way you expected. Once you have signed off on that they will carry on with the rest of the recording and they upload the files when they have finished. You listen to the files to make sure you are satisfied and after that it is no different from publishing an ebook or paperback. Publishing an audio book isn't a speedy business. Firstly you have to wait while your narrator actually narrates your book and it probably isn't their full time job, so they will be doing it in their spare time. Secondly, once it is uploaded there is a lengthy quality review process which acx.com says takes 10 business days to complete but which took longer in the case of my book, for some unexplained reason. Then comes the hard part, of course – marketing the audiobook. Because, just like any other publishing medium, no-one is going to stumble on your book by accident. You have to tell readers/listeners about it, and where to find it. But this is where you get a little bit of a bonus by being on a royalties share basis. Because your narrator has a vested interest in the book being successful and they will probably do some marketing on their own behalf. Can you narrate your own book?  If you think you have the voice for it, then of course you can. But beware, acx.com has very tight quality standards and you may not be able to reproduce these at home. Readers also want a “clean” listening experience, so they don’t want to hear the sound of your children squabbling in the background, or your dog barking at the neighbour’s cat (or both). See the technical checklist I linked to above. So, how successful has my audiobook been?  I have no idea because it has only just been launched. But I’ll be back after Christmas with an update, so be sure to check back.
And if you want to find out more about my audiobook version of Operation Absolom, you can download a free extract here. Or you can check it out on Amazon by clicking here. If you are an author who would like to use a male British narrator for your book, then I am pleased to recommend Michael Hajiantonis. You can find him on acx.com under that name or you can do what I did and find him on Fiverr.com using this link. If you would like to get a promo code for a free download of the Operation Absolom audiobook, just email us through our contact address. All we ask in return is for a review and a share on your social media. Good luck! If you have enjoyed this blog and want to make sure you don’t miss future editions, you can sign up for our newsletter. We’ll even send you a free ebook for doing so. Just click the button below. This week we hand our blog to one of our authors, who is reviewing a book.   I’m a lover of historical fiction, so when I heard about this book it was an easy decision to buy it. What made it even more attractive was the fact that many of the people who are used as characters in the book were real. They lived and breathed and did many of the things that the author attributes to them. While some of the story may be fiction, a lot of it is historical fact. Act of Oblivion, by Robert Harris, is set during what was known in England as “The Restoration”. That period after the end of the rule of Oliver Cromwell, when the monarchy was restored to England (Useless trivia- it was still known as England even though it included Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It wouldn’t become “Britain” until 1707). When Oliver Cromwell died, it was his wish that his son, Richard, succeed him as “Lord Protector” (King in everything but name). However, the English establishment didn’t fancy that. If they were going to have a King, they wanted it to be a proper King and the rightful heir to the throne. So, Charles Stewart, son of the executed King Charles I, was invited to come back from his exile in Flanders. There was the thorny issue of what to do about the people who had fought against his father, so The Act of Oblivion was passed by Parliament. This guaranteed that a free pardon was granted to all who had fought on the side of Parliament during the English Civil War, with the exception of a small group of people. That small group of people included the men who had sat in judgement on Charles I at his trial and those who had signed the warrant for his execution, about 50 or so men. A couple gave themselves up in the hope of receiving Royal mercy, some had already died of other causes, some were living in exile in Europe, and some had gone into hiding in England. At least two fled to the American colonies, where there were many allies of the Parliamentary cause and its Puritan religious supporters. The book starts in 1660, just after Charles II returned to the throne, with the arrival in New England of Colonel Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe. They are two former soldiers in the Parliamentary Army (Roundheads, as they were known because of their dome shaped helmets) who are on the run under threat of execution, having been two of the signatories of the execution warrant of the late King Charles. Whalley also happens to be Goffe’s father-in-law. They were real people. As well as being a soldier, Goffe is also a zealous Puritan, with a knack for giving rousing sermons. Whalley, while being Christian, is less committed to the Puritan ideal. Much of the story follows their travels around the fledgling colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut as they try to evade capture and are protected by likeminded colonists. In London we have Richard Naylor. He is fictitious, but as Harris says in his introduction to the book, if you have a hunt, you must have a hunter and Naylor represents all the real life hunters of the wanted men. Naylor is a bitter man and is relentless in his pursuit of Whalley and Goffe, against whom he has a personal grudge, as well as the others under sentence of death. He is Clerk to the Privy Council, which allows him to wield enormous power. However, he finds that his power is limited by geography and what he can do in England to intimidate people he isn’t able to do in America, despite it being under English rule. London is a long way away and it would take a lot of English troops to enforce the warrants that Naylor is carrying. "You don’t have to know much about the English history of this period to enjoy this book" I think we are supposed to feel some sympathy for the characters of Whalley and Goffe. They were coerced into signing the execution warrant by Cromwell (which really happened) and see themselves more as victims. However, I had little sympathy for them. There is a considerable difference between doing one’s duty as a soldier and signing a death warrant because you have been ordered to. do so. But that is just my opinion. You don’t have to know much about the English history of this period to enjoy this book. Pretty much all the historical information is skilfully fed into the narrative along the way. It is very well researched. If you are an American and would like to understand a little more about what life was like in your country in the second half of the 17th century, then you may find this book of interest. You may also discover why your country has some of the political and religious views that are held by some people today, because history does sometimes repeat itself. You will also find out how New Amsterdam became New York. The pace of the book is what I would describe as “steady”. There are points of high action, but there are also long passages when not a lot happens, which is why I have only given the book 4 stars rather than 5. Whalley and Goffe are in hiding for lengthy periods and it’s difficult to inject much pace into those sections. However, they are important when it comes to understanding the historical and religious context of the English Civil War, as Edward Whalley starts to write a memoir of Cromwell, which tells us a lot about the man.. Harris is a very successful author, so it is not for me, a mere reader, to comment on his writing skills, but I can tell you that I never lost interest in the book, and I also learnt a lot, sometimes without even realising that I was learning things. I would recommend this book to readers of historical fiction on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. If you want to know more about “Act of Oblivion” by Robert Harris, just click the cover image or use this link. This week we hand over our blog to author Robin Saint, who wanted to plug his book "Outlaw", but we wouldn't let him. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and aren't necessarily those of Selfishgenie Publishing.  It is that time of year again, and no matter how hard I may try to avoid it, it’s not going to go away. So, if I have to address the subject at all, I may as well make this blog useful. If you are one of those gift givers that has a natural talent for choosing the right thing, then this blog may not be of much use to you – but for everyone else,, you may find it useful. Oh, by the way, just because the recipient said ‘Thanks, it’s just what I wanted” it doesn’t mean they meant it. They may have just been trying not to hurt your feelings. Look at the eyes – are they smiling as much as their mouth? As a male, this list tends to be focused on what men like or don’t like to receive, but I’ve added a special section at the end that hard won experience tells me what women don’t like.  The Top Ten Worst Christmas Presents
 10. Anything to do with astrology, feng shui and other “ancient wisdom” or “new age” philosphies. – See also item 9. Come on people, we live in the 21st century. The reason people believed in this stuff in the past was because they knew no better. We do know better. It doesn’t work and never worked. Events will happen or they won’t happen. They can’t be predicted and they will still happen or not happen no matter how you arrange your furniture, place crystals around the room or make things smell. If you dance naked in the moonlight on Mid-Summer’s eve and then win the lottery the next day then it’s a coincidence. You would still have won the lottery if you’d stayed fully clothed and gone to bed instead. The only people whose fortunes improve through belief in this stuff are the people who make, sell or publish the garbage that perpetuates this superstitious mumbo jumbo. You may think it odd to exclude presents related to religion and superstition from a list related to a religious holiday, but I make no apologies. I celebrate Christmas as a tradition, much the same as I do Halloween, not as a religious act.  My Top One Best Christmas Present. A gift that suggests that the giver has spent some time thinking about the recipient’s personality, their hobbies and pastimes, their lifestyle and other character related traits. If they enjoy gardening, make it gardening related. If they enjoy long walks in the country, make it something that can be used on long walks, or which inspires them to find new places to go for walks. It might not be what they wanted, but it will show that you cared enough to think about it and, as we all know, it’s the thought that counts. It will also show that you read this list. What not to give a woman.  1. Sexy underwear or lingerie. I’m not being politically correct here, it’s just that men usually get it so wrong. They buy what they think is sexy, or imagine is sexy, not what the woman will feel comfortable wearing. It can make a woman feel like a sex object and that is something the modern woman is unlikely to appreciate. Even if she doesn’t object on the grounds of feminism, the man’s taste in such garments is likely to make a woman cringe. Best to stay away from that whole lingerie area – and probably night attire as well. You can't win, so don't try. 2. Perfume. Of course, many women love perfume and it is actually a good gift – if you buy the right perfume. Women are very fussy about their scents, so buying the perfume that has the most pretentious advertising campaign rarely works. If you want to buy perfume, do some research. Ask her best friend what she wears, ask her Mum, her sister, ask just about anyone who knows her. If you live with the woman in question, or have access to her bedroom (not in a creepy way) then check out the dressing table. The favourite perfume will almost certainly be in pride of place and the bottle will probably be almost empty because it is used so much. Memorise the name. Write it down. Have it tattooed on your arm if necessary. Just a tip - if it costs less than £50 ($60) then it probably isn't the right perfume. 3. Kitchen or household goods or appliances. Already mentioned above, but this is a particular no-no for husbands and boyfriends to give. A quick way to spend Christmas Day in frosty silence is to buy your beloved a new vacuum cleaner, a set of matching bath towels or, even worse, kitchen towels. 4. Never give a woman bathroom scales or anything weight loss related - unless you like eating hospital food. You may think this shouldn't need saying, but I know at least one man that made that mistake (unsurprisingly, he's now divorced).  How to get the right present for a woman Listen! Since the beginning of November, possibly earlier, the woman in your life has probably been dropping hints about what she would like for Christmas. If she’s been stopping next to jeweller’s shop windows, in the perfume departments of department stores, asking you if you like such and such a dress in a shop window, she hasn’t just been making idle conversation, she has been telling you this is what she really, really wants. If she said she’s always wanted to drive a Formula 1 racing car, then she wasn’t just fantasising, so get her an Experience Day so she can live her dream. With regard to Experience Days, do be careful. Thinking ‘she’ll love this’ is dangerous if she hasn’t said she would love it. It’s also dangerous to assume that she’ll enjoy doing something as a couple. Just because you want to jump out of an aeroplane at 10,000 feet it doesn’t mean that she does. Spa days and pamper days are popular with most women, but they aren’t a solo experience. Either you have to be prepared to go with her, or you have to give it as a day for two people so she can take her bestie. If your beloved hasn’t been quite so forthcoming, then ask her to make a list and e-mail it to you, with links to web pages where you can see the items for yourself. Make sure you pick one item from the list and you can’t go wrong. It isn’t romantic, but it works. The surprise element comes from her not knowing which item from the list you will choose. And if you want to receive a present that you will enjoy, then make sure you have a list. People will ask the special someone in your life what you would like for Christmas and if they have a list, they can answer. And if she doesn't seem that excited when you hand the present over, at least you have the excuse that it was on the list. And if you love her, make sure that your Christmas present to her tells her so.  Tips for everyone Amazon wish lists are very useful. Set one up and make sure people know where to find it. Even if your friends and relations don’t shop on Amazon, they can still check out your list to get ideas for what to buy from wherever they do shop. Personally, I think you can’t go wrong with a book both for men and for women. If you know what sort of books the recipient likes to read, then choose the latest best seller in that genre (but it is worth checking with a family member or friend to make sure they haven’t already bought it for themselves}. If they are a sports fan, then a book related to their favourite sport ticks two boxes at once. If you are thinking of giving a book, then check out the “Books” tab on this website for some great ideas - especially for lovers of sci-fi, World War II action and golf. (there's a particularly good one on there about Robin Hood but Selfishgenie won't let me tell you its title). 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 It is disturbing to read on social media, especially Twitter, that so many authors struggle with writing a synopsis for their book. After all, they have just written between 80k and 140k of beautiful prose but are struggling to write just one page of A4 that will communicate to an agent or publisher what the book is about. Perhaps, like panic, the under confidence of some authors is spread to other authors like a virus, making perfectly confident writers suddenly doubt their ability. It is about the only explanation I can think of. But rather than try to analyse the cause perhaps, in this blog, I can help authors by offering some practical advice.  The starting point of any task is to establish a goal – something to aim for. Fortunately, agents and publishers have already done that for you, because they know what they want from a synopsis. To put it simply, they want to know what your book is about in as simple language as possible, so that they can be confident that the author knows what it is about. You may wonder about the last part of that sentence. After all, surely the author knows what their book is about, don’t they? Apparently not. The author may think they have written an exciting fantasy/sci-fi/hist fic/YA/whatever novel, but if they can’t explain that in simple terms, the agent (or publisher – I’ll stop using both terms from here) won’t believe that they know what they are doing. "Pick one genre!"  To start a synopsis, you must first clarify what genre it is written for. If you think your book crosses genre boundaries, eg a fantasy that includes a romance, then which genre is it mainly aimed at? In life I have often said that you don’t always have to pick a side, but in writing a synopsis you do have to. Pick one genre! If the romance element of the story is crucial to the fantasy plot, you can cover that later (or vice versa if romance is the main genre). And don’t start getting into sub-genres, the way Amazon categorises books – they have something like 16,000 different genre classifications. In reality there are between 35 and 50 recognised genres, depending on who you ask. Purists would argue that it is an even lower figure, but that is why they are called purists.  Picking your genre is vital because your agent has to know that the book has a chance of making money. Writing in an unfashionable or unpopular genre is going to dispatch your novel to the reject pile faster than a split infinitive ever would. Also, there are many agents who specialise in a specific genre and they want to know up-front that they are the right agent for your book. They won’t waste their time reading your book if it isn’t in their genre. The next step is to write a brief (75-100 word) summary of the plot. It is suggested if you can’t summarise the plot in that few words, then you don’t really know what you have written. To give you some idea of what I mean, try this summary of one of our author’s books.  “Operation Absolom tells the story of a young man, Steven Carter, who enlists in the British Army during World War II. Bored with garrison duties he decides to volunteer for a more adventurous life with the newly formed commandos. In doing so he gets far more adventure than he bargained for and comes close to losing his life in the freezing waters off the coast of Norway. In order to survive, he has to dig deep into reserves of courage and determination that he didn’t know he possessed.” To save you counting, that is 88 words. The key thing about that summary is that it tells you when the story is set (World War II), who the protagonist* is (Steven Carter), what he gets himself involved in (fighting in the commandos) and why he gets involved (seeking adventure). It also tells you that he gets more than he bargained for, which is the source of much of the drama in the plot. The last sentence indicates a degree of personal growth taking place during the story- which means that the character develops as the story goes along.. (FYI you can find out more about Operation Absolom by clicking on the cover image)  The main body of the synopsis is a longer description of 300 to 500 words. The way I go about that is to take each chapter in the book and write a single sentence saying what that chapter is about. Again, using Operation Absolom as an example, here’s what we came up with.
And so on. If there are chapters that just deal with sub-plots, delete those sentences. There is nothing wrong with having sub-plots, but the agent is more interested in the central plot, so confusing things with sub-plots and using up valuable word count along the way isn’t going to help your case. Now join the sentences up into sensible paragraphs, emphasising the major points of the story. If you are familiar with the way story arcs work, with highpoints preceded by build-up and followed by aftermath, then it is important that the description follows the same pattern, so that the agent can see where the high and low points are and therefore get some feel for the pace of the story. This is what we did with the three sample sentences we produced above: “After a conflict with his commanding officer, Steven Carter decides to volunteer for the commandos. His training in Scotland reveals an unconventional approach to soldering that risks cutting his commando career short, but he survives to join his new unit, 15 Commando. At once he is pitched into training for a top secret operation, Operation Absolom.” I’ve used only 57 words to cover almost a quarter of the book, leaving me plenty of word count still available to deal with the more action packed parts of the book. Note the hints and teasers used to tantalise the reader eg conflict, unconventional. If you are struggling to keep below the 500 word level, then you are probably including non-essential information.  As well as sub-plots, don’t include: - Dialogue, - Descriptive passages, - Inconsequential characters, - Backstory (you may hint at this with phrases such as “troubled past” or “difficult family life”), - Moralising messages - Metaphors (speak plainly). If you include any supporting characters, refer only briefly to their role in the plot and their relationship to the protagonist, eg Sam is Frodo’s best friend and would rather die than be left behind in the Shire. Later in the story he takes on greater significance in making sure that Frodo fulfils his purpose.  Beware the search for perfection! The final, short, paragraph just closes the synopsis off in a neat and tidy manner. Tell the agent what the total wordcount is and if you have any plans for a sequel. If the sequel is already underway, say that. If book is intended to be part of a series, say how many books you are planning for it (agents like to know they can expect a long term relationship with an author (with accompanying long term income)).
Finally, beware of seeking perfection. You can spend a hundred hours on drafting and re-drafting 40 versions of a synopsis and it probably won’t be any better than the second or third draft. The agent doesn’t care if the synopsis isn’t perfect because, unlike the book, it isn’t something that is ever going to be published. The agent expects it to be properly spelt and grammatically sound, that is all. What they are really interested in is whether or not the story sounds interesting enough to read all the way through. How do you know if your synopsis is good enough? The same way as you know your book is good enough. Show it to someone whose opinion you value and ask “Would you read this book based on this synopsis?” As always, don’t rely on family or friends to be honest with you – they love you and tend to say what they think you want to hear. Use someone who can be relied upon to be impartial, such as your beta readers. If you haven’t got anyone to whom you can show your synopsis, send it to us. You can find our address on our “Contact” page. Make sure you tell us that you just want some feedback on it, so we know you aren’t submitting your book (though we may invite you to submit it if we like the sound of it). * Always use the word “protagonist” in a synopsis, not “main character” or “MC”. It is more professional sounding. There is only ever one protagonist. Anyone else is a “supporting character”. For the same reason the “villain” is always the “antagonist”. If you have enjoyed this blog and want to make sure you don’t miss future editions, you can sign up for our newsletter. We’ll even send you a free ebook for doing so. Just click the button below. |
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