Perception, Perception, Perception: Part 4

Back to the drawing board again...because the learning curve's as rough as it is thrilly-dilly.

I'd been satisfied with my new Amazon Author Central bio...until I read one by a colleague, Mark Chisnell, that showed me how it's done. Mine had been in the third-person--which I now saw was a major mistake. So was my persistence in keeping my bio as terse as I could. Compared to my laconic third-person 15 lines, Mark went on for 57 lines in the warm and open first-person. He came across as a living room guest, one who answered honestly the questions he knew I must have. Not just where he came from or where he went to school--what sort of person is he, what were his major life experiences, who influenced his writing, why the devil should we read his books, etc. I liked the way he took the time to show me who he was. And I liked his way with the language.

Two results:
1) I downloaded a book by Mark Chisnell because I liked what I'd just read.
2) I spent an afternoon reworking my own pitiful bio. I beefed it up to 49 lines, answering in my own way the same questions that Mark had addressed.

Correction: three results! And here is the third: today, in the same spirit, I spent several hours reworking the product descriptions on Amazon for Nobility and The Vanishing Magic of Snow. In each case, I tripled the length of the copy. I took the extra space to chat with potential readers about the brevity of the two novels--and why these are novels, not stories...exactly what I mean when I call them Anytime Yuletide Chillers and why readers can read them in April...'Trivia' about the novels that should be of interest-e.g., in Nobility, each of the four books opens and ends with a color...leading us from black to the rainbow at the end.

Furthermore, in the description, I was careful to include ALL of the keywords...more than once, when possible.

Back to work tomorrow: new product descriptions for SOUTHERN SCOTCH and THE ALCATRAZ CORRECTION.