If you want me, best get in line now

Hi folks--

Business is picking up, which is awesome. :) I am now putting people on a waiting list, first come, first served, so if you are going to need me please contact me soon! The list moves quickly; I just wanted people to know.

Before/After: "Broods of Fenrir"

Today's Before/After is Coral Moore's "Broods of Fenrir." This is what Coral has to say about working with me:

"Mei Lin took an otherwise cumbersome exercise and made it easy for us to work together in crafting my new blurb. I adore the results, and the process itself helped me understand some things about my book and the designing of a good summary that I can use in other areas. I enthusiastically recommend her service."

Thanks, Coral! Let's look at what we did together--and this was very much a back-and-forth collaboration:

Before:
 Brand, haunted by memories of his father's vicious rule, refuses his birthright.

The murder of a woman by one who should have been under his reign entangles him in a series of dangerous clashes bringing his vow to remain isolated from werewolf society into question. Along the way, the influence of two women drags him to the precipice of a life-changing decision.

Will the Broods of Fenrir spiral further into brutality without him, or, by leading them, can he save his people?

 After:
Shapeshifter Brand Geirson was raised to rule the Broods of Fenrir, but he refused his birthright. Instead, he killed their brutal leader--his own father--and walked away.

For hundreds of years he's avoided Brood society, until a werewolf kills an innocent human woman and Brand finds himself dragged back into the violent politics of the shapeshifters. When the two Brood women who mean the most to him come under threat, he must take up the throne and risk becoming the kind of vicious bastard his father was, or let the Broods descend further into chaos--taking the friend he swore to protect and his lover with them.

Want me to help with your blurb? I can do that.

We Have a Winner!

The chosen-at-random winner of the Adopt an Indie/Blurb Doctor contest is Madeline Claire Franklin's "The Poppet and the Lune." Her current blurb is good enough that I want to read the book already, but I'll see what I can do. :) Congrats, Madeline, and I'm looking forward to working with you!

Blurb Doctor Giveaway at Adopt an Indie

Adopt an Indie is hosting a chance to win a Blurb Doctor makeover. Go there to enter! Cool thing: David Brown, author of "Fezariu's Epiphany," says there that his sales are up since I doctored his blurb!

Right now I'm booked through the beginning of next week, by the way, but I'm booking slots beyond Wednesday. First come first served.

Before/After: "Death Before Swine"

Today's before/after is V.K. Scott's "Death Before Swine," a mystery. Here's what V.K. says about the Blurb Doctor process:

"MeiLin was super easy to work with and had a lightning-fast turn-around time. The process was very simple, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking to get a sluggish blurb moving."

Thanks, V.K., it was fun working with you! Here's the results.

Before:  
Greed. Betrayal. Murder. Just another week in Diamond Alley, Arizona... 

Ben Hart is a high school chemistry teacher who thought his biggest problems were test scores and lunchroom politics. That was before he lost his job, discovered his colleague murdered, and found himself with a new assignment—catch the killer. Now, as he navigates Diamond Alley’s backstreets, his questions are no longer multiple choice: Who can he trust? Will he ever get back to a simple life of worksheets and lab reports? And will he uncover the truth before the killer slips away?

Death Before Swine is 65,000 words long, or about 260 printed pages.  

After:  
Small town high school chemistry teacher Ben Hart is just doing his job when he shows his students what happens when you mix together certain common substances: BOOM! But then someone uses that same chemical reaction to take down the statue of beloved football coach Simon Griffin. Ben's demonstration is blamed, and he loses his job.

Feeling guilty, Ben goes to apologize to his colleague Simon and discovers him murdered. The police think it's a home invasion robbery gone wrong, but Ben quickly figures out that Simon was murdered at the statue and moved. Simon's daughter wants the killer found and doesn't have faith in the police. Ben needs a job, so he takes the case. Now he's got to sort out lies from truth before the killer gets away--but the closer he gets the more danger he's in.

"Death Before Swine" is a full-length novel: 65,000 words in length or about 260 pages.

Want me to help with your blurb? I can do that.

Before/After: "A Damn Close-Run Thing"

Today's Before/After is the first non-fiction one I've been hired to help with, "A Damn Close-Run Thing" by Russell Phillips. It's a short military history of the Falkland Islands War. Russell says, " I didn't really have any idea what to expect, and because of that it was a bit of a gamble. As it happens, I think the gamble paid off--I'm happy with the result, and I think it was well worth the money."

Before:
In April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British dependency in the South Atlantic. The small British and Falkland force on the islands was soon overcome, and the Argentinians occupied the islands. The British response was to form a task force to sail to the South Atlantic and re-take the islands. This was a major undertaking, and Major-General Sir John Jeremy Moore later described the ensuing conflict as "a damn close-run thing".

This short history includes a summary of the events preceding the war, without which the war itself cannot be properly understood. It shows why the ruling military junta in Argentina believed that an invasion would not be opposed. As well as describing the major military actions of the war, it also includes details of an Argentinian plan to sink a Royal Navy ship in Gibraltar harbour (foiled at the last minute by Spanish police) and an audacious British plan to land SAS soldiers in Argentina to destroy exocet-carrying aircraft while they were still on the ground.

After:
In 1982, the average Briton didn't know the Falkland Islands existed, let alone their status as a disputed British territory just off the coast of Argentina. That changed when the Argentinians invaded the islands and overwhelmed the small defending force. Both nations claimed the islands were theirs, but now Argentina thought the British would give them up without a fight.

They were wrong.

Britain sent a task force into the South Atlantic to re-take the islands, and the short, intense war that followed was--in the words of Major-General Sir John Jeremy Moore--"a damn close-run thing."

This short history sums up the events leading up to the war and its major military actions including details of an Argentinian plan to sink a Royal Navy ship in Gibraltar harbour (foiled at the last minute by Spanish police) and an audacious British plan to land SAS soldiers in Argentina to destroy Exocet-carrying aircraft while they were still on the ground.

It was a pleasure working with Russell.

PS: Russell has written a blog post about his experience working with me. Thanks, Russell!

Want me to help with your blurb? I can do that.