I've decided that I like the pitch I've come up with for the ABNA competition enough to make it the new "official" description for the Goldenwealth Light. Updates will show up on the amazon sales site soon, but for now, I welcome comments!
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"Rather than being a hero with the fate of an entire world on his shoulders, Theodore Ellsworth spends his miserable days suffering merciless humiliation at the hands of prep-school bullies. It just so happens that an ancient prophecy, a shimmering city, and a herd of six-legged horses are about to change all that.
When a mysterious book transports Theo and his overachieving little sister Marie to a world full of wonders that defy anything he’s ever read about before, Theo finds himself accused of a crime he didn’t commit that carries the ultimate penalty. A reluctant princess, a winged gnome, and a hot-tempered young sorceress are there to help, but will they be enough to prove to an arrogant knight and thousands of fanatical citizens that the Ellsworth children aren’t an evil that must be destroyed?
Told in the tradition of classics like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Neverending Story, The Goldenwealth Light is the first book in a fun-filled romp through the unique realm of the Traveler of Ord, weaving high adventure and deadly intrigue in a fanciful tapestry that will keep readers from ages ten to adult turning pages for hours."
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One of the biggest troubles an author runs into while writing a pitch is to not include too much information. You want your potential readers to know "everything they need to know about the book", when in actuality a pitch is just designed to give people the "gist" of it, so to speak. I've chopped about a hundred words off of mine, which I'm hoping will draw more attention to it. My personal rule of thumb is this -- if you have to click "read more" when looking at your pitch/description on Amazon, you've written too much.
What are your thoughts?