So... I have a self-published book coming soon! If you've been in any of my logline threads, you know that I'm pretty passionate about helping people get to the core of their stories and dish that out in a single sentence, called a logline. For a while now, I've been working on getting as much of that information as I can into a book.

And now my logline book is just about ready for primetime! I'm putting the finishing touches on it (mostly just the self-publishing stuff) and I hope to have it available in June!

The book is called Finding the Core of Your Story and it's a short and snappy guide to writing your logline. I've tested it on some people with zero logline experience and had them come back feeling confident in their abilities to whip out a great logline after reading the book. And some of them even wrote killer loglines as a result.

As the back cover says, "Whether you write novels, movies, or even operas, this book is for you. Every storyteller should be able to say in one sentence what his story is about. This book will help you learn to do just that."

So! With this thing coming out soon, I need to do some promotion and get the word out. To that end I'm looking for people who would like to review the book on their blogs and help me promote it. Here's what I have in mind:

- If you want to review the book, just ask! (IMPORTANT EDIT: I'm taking requests for review copies until June 9, so contact me right now if you're interested.) Once I have the book published, I'll send you a promo code for a free copy on Smashwords. If you're wondering about the amount of time it'll take to read, I can tell you that it's roughly 12,000 words. Short and sweet.

(Note: If I get swamped with requests, I reserve the right to be choosy. That said, I'm a generous guy, so you have a good shot at this. )

- After you get your code, read the book, hopefully enjoy it, and review it on your blog.

- I will also send you two or three more promo codes for more free Smashwords copies to give away as you see fit. Your are encouraged to be creative with this because...

- Everybody who does a review and holds a giveaway will be eligible to win a signed printed copy of the book, given by me to the person with the promo code giveaway that I like bestest. (This, of course, requires that you tell me how you give away your codes.) I love quirky, creative ideas for giving things away, so use your imagination and make me smile.

- Bonus! I will be spreading the word about the blogs that do reviews of the book, so this gets you a little publicity into the bargain!

Does this sound like something you'd do? E-mail me: jordan (AT) smithsrus (DOT) com

Include a link to your blog, tell me who you are, why you're excited about my book, whatever you want. I'll put you on my list of people to send review copies to once I have the book published.

Also... If this is too complicated or involved for you, tell me right here in this thread. If enough people say this doesn't work for them, I'm open to thinking of other ways I can give away some review copies.

Makes me wish I had a decent blog and knew some writers in real life!

*hand shoots up* Me me me! I wanna try it!

I've never done a giveaway, but I've always wanted to try.

*puts Grace on the list*

I just heard back from my last test reader and the book is pretty much all ready to go! Just have to finish up with the cover designer and do all the self-publishing stuff.

Add me to the list. I need this book. You've been such a great help! I'm pretty sure my email is on my profile... *checks* Okay... Maybe not.

The logline book has been soft-launched just now! An official announcement blog post and such will come later, but here's the page if you want to take a look: http://phantommoose.com/finding-the-cor ... line-book/

And it's still not too late to get a review copy of the e-book. See the first post in this thread for details. I'll need to hear from you by the end of this week, though. That's June 9.

My proof copy is here from CreateSpace and I am thrilled! Just a few tweaks to the interior and I shall launch the printed version.

Nice.

Awesome, Jordan!

That's great!

Congrats, Jordan! Your help around the forums on this topic has been invaluable, so I know the book will be good.

I've decided, on a whim, that I shall have a weekend-ish sale on the e-book. Maybe it's to celebrate approving the printed copy proof this morning.

So, if you use the code YG57P on Smashwords, you can get my book for 50% off! https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/168149

This looks cool. * checks out * So it isn't very expensive either... * ponders asking Papa 'bout this * I've heard about you and loglines.

There's a giveaway up over here: http://jgracepennington.com/find-the-co ... our-story/

Thanks, Grace!

My pleasure!

Everybody run on over there and enter the giveaway! You want this book. You know you do.

But I don't know anything about loglines yet!

Here ya go: http://phantommoose.com/2011/08/09/what ... ne-anyway/

Hey Jordon, I've just read your book and I think it's fantastic. One problem though, I have no idea how to do a contest of any sort. I get viewers on my blog, but no one comments. I feel as though if I do this no one that sees it is going to care, let alone participate.

Well, here's the thing... I will be tweeting and Facebooking about your review/giveaway if you put one up. And you should post a link here. So people who don't know about you yet will be finding out about you through me. At the very least, four interested people have entered Grace's review/giveaway so far, and only two of them will end up with copies, so you could hope the remaining two will stop by your place...

Okay, so what kind of contest should I do? And how would I judge stuff? I'm so clueless...

* scours blog *

At the risk of being too biased, since this is a giveaway contest...

Most giveaways I see are either based on simply commenting on a post to enter and then a random drawing is conducted, or otherwise have some prerequisite for entering. For example, Grace's giveaway requires that people write a logline with three words she supplied in her post. So there's one way you could go, having something fun people have to do to enter.

There's no wrong answer here. Just have fun with it!

Alright. I'll be sure to let you know when my post is up.

And here it is!

Hooray! I'll share that around some places in a bit here...

I can't tell you how excited I am about this book - but I gave it my best shot with this blog post: http://www.aubreyhansen.com/2012/06/tru ... smith.html

There's a giveaway at the end, so it's worth reading all the way through.

I'm having a little trouble posting a comment.... Does your blog require the blogger to let the comments through, or do they just come through when you post? I am not sure if my comment even got posted or not, because whenever I try it just says 'Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!'

Thanks for all your support guys! I feel like part of the family now! Course I did before... But now I do more than ever.

(Been checking out your blog...it's pretty cool!)

Thanks.

Another review and giveaway! http://siennanorth.blogspot.com/2012/06 ... -your.html

Well. Today is the day that I announce whose giveaway contest I liked bestest. (See first post in this thread.)

First, let me say a huge thank you to all four of you who posted reviews and hosted giveaways for my book. Y'all were fantastic and made this a really tough choice.

But all contests must have winners. And so I have chosen...

Grace's giveaway!

In addition to making a cool alliteration, it gets the top award from me for getting the participants to write loglines in a very non-threatening way. Giving three starting words was just brilliant, and now all those who entered even have a logline to use as a starting point for a future story!

Grace, I've got your e-mail address, so I'll send you an e-mail about your fancy signed copy of my book a little later today.

Thank you again to all of you! This really wasn't easy to judge!

And, in the shameless plug variety of sentences, my book is still available for preorder until Saturday, and that will be your foreseeable last chance to get a signed copy short of meeting me in person and shoving it and a pen into my hands, so if you want one, get your order in soon. http://phantommoose.com/finding-the-cor ... line-book/

Also... I should be back sometime in the near future with a link to a guest post about loglines I did over at The Write Practice blog. Exciting times!

*nods happily* Her idea was brilliant... I was hoping she'd win. Now if we could get some of the entrants to write loglines for their stories, we'd really be in business...

Congrats on the guest post! Can't wait to see it!

Congratulations, Grace!


I hope BushMaid uses hers.

Wow, thanks Jordan! I had loads of fun hosting the giveaway.

Say... Can I ask a favor?

Okay, good.

Would some of you who've read my book mind going over to Amazon and leaving an honest review (read: don't feel obligated to give it five stars)? I have a guest post coming out on a large-ish writing blog sometime this week, so I'd really like to have some social proof of my book's awesomeness (I hope!) on the Amazon page.

Link to make things easy: http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Core-Your ... 477568727/

I can't do much for you in the way of thanks except be especially grateful, but that's gotta count for something, right?

I'm still "not here" but I wanted to let everyone know that my guest post about loglines is going up today over at The Write Practice: http://thewritepractice.com/

She is. She is fitting in reading it and studying it amongst everything else she is doing and is enjoying it immensely.

I hope BushMaid uses her logline -- it won the contest for a reason.

Hey, everybody! I have some exciting news to announce about my logline book… Follow the link, if you would: http://phantommoose.com/2012/10/11/revi ... n-the-way/

Today I launched my new website, Fix My Story. It's the new home of my book(s) and blog posts about storytelling. If you check it out today, you'll discover that the revised and expanded edition of Finding the Core of Your Story is available for pre-order, and you can get a look at my snazzy new cover. http://fixmystory.com

Ooh, exciting!

Release date (for Kindle) is officially December 12! And I'm taking pre-orders for signed printed copies through the 22nd. http://fixmystory.com/2012/12/05/revise ... cember-12/

Also, have I mentioned anywhere yet that the Kindle version will be free for the first day?

Everybody, the Kindle edition of Finding the Core of Your Story is free for the next three days! I'm also holding a giveaway for a $50 Amazon gift card, so follow this handy link for all the details and such: http://fixmystory.com/2012/12/12/findin ... -giveaway/

I already have it! I got to the 12th faster than you did, so I had the amazon page open and periodically refreshed it until it finally said it cost zero.

That's terrific!