Sometimes self-publishing feels like walking up a long staircase. Each step is another thing to do. Finishing the manuscript is not at the top.

As with taking a long flight of stairs, the last few steps can seem the hardest.

I’m itching to get back into editing Tangled Roots, but my husband has the draft for now. He’s meticulous in his editing and I know to be patient. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about the parts I find the hardest in self-publishing: Covers and Blurbs.

Sure, writing a good story takes time, consistency, patience, and dedication. I don’t find those things hard. Just like climbing up a staircase, if you keep moving you’ll make progress.

Editing is the same, at every level. Is the story right? Is the expression of the story right? Is the grammar and punctuation consistent and appropriate? Have I broken too many rules? I might not be totally efficient in the process of finishing a manuscript, and I’m certainly still learning, but (with help) I step through the work.

(Aside: I found another good editing blog this week, by Louise Harnby. I started with this post on tentative language in fiction. I’m now subscribed to her blog.)

On the other hand, covers are hard. Finishing the draft of Tangled Roots feels like reaching a landing but it isn’t the top. I’ve spent hours now scouring premade covers, hoping to find a concept or a vibe that fits my story. Someday, when the series is done, I might hire an artist to craft updated covers for all the books, but today I wouldn’t even know what to ask for. I don’t even know how many books will be needed to tell the full story of Casten’s Horn that is emerging. Finding a premade that has the right feel is enough for now.

The cover for Driftless Spirits came from BookCoverZone. I really love that site because there are a lot of self-service tools for font changes, text placement, making covers of various trim sizes, making marketing images based on your covers, and other things. You can also mock up a cover with your book’s details before purchasing it (it displays with a heavy watermark but it’s fine for visualizing your options).

Although not a “traditional-looking” cozy mystery cover, I find the feel and imagery of Driftless Spirits’ cover honest to my first story:

It’s a bit ethereal and I hope also suggests introspection and change. The story is as much about Charlotte’s personal growth as it is about her solving a mystery and stopping a crime. I consider the book “cross-genre,” a term I only recently came across. I don’t feel like it fits perfectly anywhere and that’s okay. It’s the story that came out of me: part cozy mystery/suspense, part women’s fiction (I think, anyway), and a setting with deep history and sense of place.

If I’m honest though, the cover is also problematic. It’s minimalist and finding a cover for Book 2 to “match” has been near impossible. Tangled Roots isn’t like Driftless Spirits anyway. Charlotte continues to grow but she doesn’t need a second introspection journey. She’s on firmer footing even if there are still a lot of discoveries to be made, not just about herself but also about her surroundings.

Trying to describe the story leads to the second-hardest part of self-publishing, at least for me: Writing a short and punchy blurb that is honest, hooks a reader, and doesn’t reveal spoilers. The current blurb for Driftless Spirits probably does two of those three things:

Charlotte Burke can’t shake her recurring dream.  Over and over again she dreams of finding a mysterious journal on a candlelit desk while wandering through a strange house in the middle of the night.  Every dream has shown her a framed picture of an old woman sitting at the same desk, except the latest version.  Last night, the woman stood and offered Charlotte a keyring.  In the morning, Charlotte woke up with her car keys in her hand.

Her best friend is worried but skeptical when Charlotte insists the house is real.  The dream is metaphorical, Ivy says, reflecting Charlotte’s restless state.  Ivy gifts her a journal and urges her to take the trip her subconscious is demanding before she wakes up behind the wheel.  A roadtrip of self-discovery will help Charlotte figure out what she really wants.

Charlotte agrees to the roadtrip but not for Ivy’s reasons.  To her, the house, the journal and the woman in her dream are all too real.  She sets off to do the impossible.  If she can find the house and uncover its secrets in time, she might save far more than her driftless life.

This blurb focuses on what launches Charlotte’s journey, not what she finds. It feels honest, but it might be too cagey. I like the length though, and adding to it might bog things down. I come back to this blurb a lot as I consider how to market Book 1. (I’m not even going to talk about marketing in this post, which needs its own post entirely. I’m not at all successful at marketing yet. And, yes, I realize the cover and the blurb are part of Marketing.)

As for Tangled Roots, writing the blurb is my focus for the week while my husband continues to edit. It will probably take the whole week to write even a first draft. All I have so far is a first draft of a tagline for the cover, and I know it’s not good enough yet:

“Bones discovered under a century-old tree reveal intertwined stories of devotion and murder.”

I wrote one just to be able to add something to cover mockups. This tagline is missing the stakes. The murder might have been in the past, but it’s still affecting the present.

I think I need to write the full blurb first and then distill it down to the tagline. I hope to share a draft of that blurb by Friday or Saturday. I’m sure it won’t be the final version, but I need a deadline looming over me to engage in the fight! Writing a few hundred words to describe my story is harder than writing the story itself. This week I have to remind myself of the staircase I’m climbing and continue to take steps even if they’re hard.