Picking Pivot Points To Promote
Kristina Makansi
Writing is a blast. You’re typing away, immersed in a world you made up, and as you go along, you’re thinking about what’s happening and what’s happening next and what’s happening after that. Where is my story is going? Who is doing what to whom? Who is saying what and why? Where is the action is taking place, and why is it in that exact spot?
Every word is a revelation. An act of worldbuilding and character creation. I can’t remember who, but some great authorial wag said, writing the first draft is just you telling the story to yourself.
Even if you’re a so-called “pantser” with no idea what magic is going to pour forth from your fingertips next, you know something is going to happen to move the story forward. The narrative is going somewhere. Eventually, the story will end. The key question is, what is going to keep the reader turning the pages until they reach that end point?
Compelling pivot points. Moments in the story where something changes. Tension shifts. Decisions are made. Actions are taken—or not. Emotions boil over—or not. The unexpected happens, and the reader is hooked. And hooked again, over and over with each pivot point where the direction of the story hangs in the balance.
These are great moments, and they’re why you can usually find me under the covers at 3:00 a.m. immersed in a world another writer created.
But when you’re marketing a new book, you can’t reveal every exciting pivot point because then no one would buy your book. Otherwise, you could just tell it all in a big long blog post. So, we have to pick particular pivot points to promote. But how do we decide which ones to pick?
Now that I’ve started trying to get the word out about NEMESIS IN LOVE, I have to make those choices. To begin, I decided to focus on the moments at the beginning of the relationship between Nemesis and Cy, our protagonists and eventual lovers.
In this carousel post, I focus on the moment they meet.
The magical moment when Cy wakes up to find a strange woman in his bedroom.
After that, I decided to try to pique the reader's curiosity about who Nemi and Cy are—without describing them. How can I tease out the differences between the two characters in just an image or two. Just a sentence or two? Just a pivot point or two?
So, I made a couple of graphics to try to capture something essential about them both in a little visual story told from Nemi’s POV.
A quick visual story…Nemi’s impressions of Cy.
Are these good choices? Do they pique your interest? Are you interested in what happens next?
Gah! Marketing is hard.
How to narrow down the pivot point choices.
Here’s the process I use:
Write a one-page summary of your story. It can be single spaced, but you need to get ALL the MAJOR plot twists and turns as well as the underlying theme onto the page.
Edit the one-pager down to 250 words. This slimmed down summary is a great way to discover your key pivot points because sometimes they’re hard to spot—even after the story is done and you’ve typed “The End. (Plus, it will come in hand in all sorts of ways.)
Take a metaphorical scalpel to the 250 words, and cut it down to two sentences. (Semicolons or em dashes are allowed, naturally.)
These exercises help distill the story down to its essentials which then helps in the process of writing the book’s tagline and back cover copy that will, hopefully, induce readers to pick up your book and dive into your story.
I’ve worked on over 160 book projects, and love the challenge of coming up with the perfect tagline and writing compelling back cover copy. (Some people dread it, but I enjoy the challenge.) As it stands now, the back cover copy for NEMESIS IN LOVE reads like this:
ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR WHEN THE GODDESS OF RETRIBUTION AND VENGEANCE IS ON THE JOB
Once again, Nemesis, Immortal Goddess of Retribution and Vengeance, has been called back to Earth, this time from a beach vacation on a lovely little water planet in Canis Major. Her job? As always, it’s to work with her friends in the Pantheon League to serve justice and mete out punishment for evil transgressions against gods and humans. Born in the primordial past, Nemesis has seen it all. She’s done it all. And she is prepared for anything—except love.
Cy Bigelow has a target on his back. Harold Jensen, the world’s first multi-trillionaire and self-declared Chancellor of New America, wants to destroy Bigelow Enterprises and take its land and mineral rights for himself. But Cy hasn’t spent years dragging the company he inherited back from the brink of bankruptcy to give it up without a fight. And Jensen is ready to give him one.
As the connection between Nemesis and Cy deepens, she pledges to do everything in her power to protect him and those he loves. Even if it means going to war with her own immortal family.
What do you think? Does it sound like something you’d like to read? If you’d like to learn more, you can follow this link over to Book Funnel, sign up for our newsletter, and download a copy of the ARC.