One Reason, In a Growing List, Why I'm Glad I'm Not Self-Publishing

If you're not a writer, the jacket copy on the back of a book may look easy to write. It's just a couple paragraphs, so how hard could it be?

If you are a writer and don't yet have the experience of hammering out your final jacket copy, you probably dread the prospect. Here's a book that took however long to write (seven years, in this case), and that required however many words to tell (about 100,000 words for this one), and you have to persuade strangers to buy the book by telling them everything they want to know about it in 200 words or less. Ack!

Fortunately for me, damcphail can explain where my attempts at cover copy are on target, where not, and why not. I get to propose what goes on the cover, and if I really wanted final say I could probably have it, but I have the benefit of a publicist who can say what, in her experience, moves people to buy books. Frankly, when it comes to selling a book, I'd rather have her experience than my intuition. That's what a publishing house, large or small, is for.

Cover Art! Cover Copy!

I've been given the go-ahead to share the cover art and the cover copy. I need to find out who the artist is, because it's lovely, and s/he deserves public credit.

At first I was a little startled by how much skin is showing, but the characters live on the beach and go skinny-dipping more than once, so the skin's not just there to sell books. That said, if people pick up the book because of the woman on the cover, I don't mind a bit. If they read it, they'll buy my next book because these stories rock.

What I do feel a little bit weird about is my own name as a caption to this nubile and nearly naked woman. Though the cover is a reasonable evocation of the book, it's not an evocation of me. Maybe for ten minutes while I was seventeen, I might have looked that good. These days I look like somebody's mom, because I am in fact somebody's mom.

The cover copy below is probably in its final form. The book will be available for pre-order soon, I think, at which point I will be shouting from the rooftops.

Let a Little Magic into Your Life

In Tales from Rugosa Coven, catch a glimpse of a New Jersey even weirder than the one you think you know, as a covenful of very modern Wiccans wrestle challenges both supernatural and mundane—and, occasionally, each other.

The personal injury attorney who chose kitchen-witchery over his family’s five-generation lineage of old school ceremonial magic would like to miss his dead parents, only now that they’re dead they won’t leave him alone. The professional fortuneteller stands out at forty paces, with her profusion of silver amulets glittering over her Goth wardrobe, but nobody has guessed her secret sorrow, especially not the covenmates who see her as their wacky comic relief. And the resident skeptic, a reluctant Pagan if ever there was one, will have to eat her words if her coven sister’s new boyfriend really does turn out to be from Atlantis.

The Jersey Shore’s half-hidden community of Witches, Druids, and latter-day Vikings must circle together against all challenges. It’s a good thing they’re as resilient as the wild rugosa roses that hold together the dunes.

Praise for The Rugosa Coven Stories

I absolutely love Tales from Rugosa Coven! It reminds me of the best occult fiction, but with better plots and a New Jersey I recognize. I can't wait for more!
—Nina Harper, author of Succubus in the City

When I read Closing Arguments a few months ago, I was left wanting more. With Sarah Avery's follow-up to that novella, Atlantis Cranks Need Not Apply, I was left salivating.
—Jeremy Bredeson, Facing North Reviews