Mr & Mrs - all in the family

Friday, April 23, 2010

IDEA KILLERS stop YOU in Your Tracks

Guess what Think Tanks are for? Brainstorming, right? But so many of us Stop the Brainstorm too soon. Look, no idea is born in perfection, no invention, no artwork, no novel or product. So start a new revolution in yourself: GIVE an idea a home; give it a chance to grow. Below are the top ten Idea Killers - responses to an idea that Destroy it at the roots and cut it off at the ankles:
10. Get a Committee to look into it...

9. You gotta be kidding...

8. We're already overextended (or overexposed).

7. We'll never find the time for that!

6. You don't/can't REALLY mean that...

5. Who's gonna do it? Take the lead?

4. It doesn't fit the system (in publishing: doesn't fit our list)

3. We tried that before & it doesn't work.

2. 'They' will never buy it (no matter who THEY are)

1. It doesn't GRAB me.


Robert W. Walker

author Children of Salem, Killer Instinct, plus 50 other published novels
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/
http://www.acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com/

Friday, April 9, 2010

Writing the Pitch or Platform or Query Letter

You can write a great description or Pitch or Log Line --whatever you call it, and you can use it in letters to editors as a compelling reason to buy the book. Or you can use it as a descript for your ebook that you self publish as an Indie Author on amazon/kindle at http://www.dtp.amazon.com/

If I put one of these up every day, and if you read say 44 of them and you begin to see the pattern of why all of these books sold, you will learn something about writing your own pitches or sales letters or platforms, or synopsis to sell to an editor.  This novel sold in 1979 right out the door, why?


Sub-Zero by Robert Walker



A spoof of men’s adventure and sci-fi, this ask the question of if an ice age descended over Chicago in the year 2010, would there be a madman out to kill the weatherman—and the answer is a resounding YES, but the killer keeps missing weatherman extraordinaire at WLS-TV who is seen as something of a god in his free-wheeling helicopter as he can rise above the weather while everyone else suffers. But the killer’s misses hit others around Dr. meteorologist Dr. Mark Wertman. The weather problems stem from the US’s having stored nuclear waste in the Arctic Circle and the subsequent warming trend as result! Meantime, investigative reporter Tim Crockett uncovers the fact the building they are all trapped in is sitting on a nuclear reactor itself. Meant as tongue in cheek fun, this commercial novel was published without fanfare or any understanding whatsoever of its being a spoof but rather as a “good read”! That in itself is funny as hell to the author.

The above title is today a Kindle ebook and can be found on Amazon.com under the Kindle Store marquee.

Thanks for helping to kick off my new blog and do leave a comment!
Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/