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Friday, April 30, 2010

The Trouble with Taglines

(February 25, 2010)

I've been reading some blogs lately that have been talking about marketing your novel. The most recent one I read was about having a "tagline", which as I understand it, is sort of like an advertising slogan. I decided I really ought to get cracking and come up with something for my tagline.

The problem is, I am terrible at coming up with pithy sayings that express the heart of what I've written!

First of all, I'm really reluctant to use the word "romance" in a tagline, because in relation to novels, I think that word has become associated with things that simply aren't in my books, although there is definitely romance in them. So how do I tip people off that this is a love story without setting up expectations that won't be met?

Here are some of the ideas I've had and have shot down:
  • "Old-Fashioned Love Stories Never Go Out of Style" - well, there's a quick way to kill interest in the story! Yeah, label it as "old-fashioned".....
  • You know, it's good to use an "antithesis" approach, but "Regular people, unusual love" just brings up some pretty bad connotations, ha ha....
  • "Romance and History on the American Frontier" - ok, that works for the current projects (except I used that "romance" word), but the next project I have in mind is not a love story and isn't set on the frontier. I don't want to have to be coming up with a new tagline to "brand" myself with every new book (ugh)!
  • "Character-driven historical fiction" - yawn...
  • "Books you'll like, I promise!" - Ok, I think I'm getting desperate....

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