I Changed My Blurb and My Keywords (Yes, Again)

The other day when I asked Google what was wrong with my novel, it didn't mince words. While it wanted me to change the story 🤣, I don't take orders from anyone, much less a soulless bot. My writing is probably the only thing in my life that's not up for discussion.

I fed Google a basic retelling of the story, including "then a bunch of things happen"--because it wasn't worth my time to go back and refresh my memory of inconsequential scenes--but I managed to recount the important parts. It told me (in lieu of re-writing the book) that my blurb needed to include some of the dramatic elements I'd left out. I was on the fence about that, but when I did a word count of Google's new version, it only amounted to 193 words, compared to 113 for the original, so I wouldn't be overshooting the standard blurb length. Naturally, I changed some of Google's word choices to make my blurb sound human, but I did incorporate the things it asked for, including how she fought back against the record company and the bit about the ill-fated tour.

Leah Branch is one humiliating assignment away from burning down her music career.

After her singing dream dies, Leah hits the road to start over. When a surprise Nashville record deal lands in her lap, it feels like a miracle—until the label tries to strip away her identity, changing her look, her songs, and even her name.

Forced into a grueling, low-budget promotional tour where everything that could go wrong does, Leah finally hits her breaking point. Caught between corporate fame and her own soul, she makes a drastic move: she flees the tour and walks away from her contract.

But corporate empires don't let go easily. Back home and facing financial ruin, Leah takes a low-level job just to survive. Just when all hope seems lost, an unexpected phone call from a former corporate enemy changes everything. Armed with a dangerous secret, Leah must find the courage to fight back, take down the label, and reclaim her true calling.

From the heady, predatory world of big-budget music to a peaceful small-town redemption, Running From Herself proves there are second and even third chances. All you have to do is grab them.

Google is under the misapprehension the the novel is more a psychological thriller, which it definitely is not, but raising the stakes in the blurb isn't necessarily a bad thing. My goofy confession: I never took the whole contract payback issue all the seriously when I was writing the book. It was an element for moving the plot forward, for sure, but the events that surround that are, to me, much more interesting. It led to Paul Gables producing her band's album and to Leah humbling herself to become a food delivery person and a demo singer for a stranger's awful, I mean awful songs. Where else would the humor have been injected? (I really need to re-read that book. It sounds fun.)

More helpful, perhaps, was adding a subtitle; not on the cover, obviously, but in the KDP setup section. Google told me there was a mismatch between my "sunny" cover and the story itself, and that this would be a way to remedy that. Funny, I never viewed the cover as sunny.

And yes, I changed my long-tail keywords. Despite what everyone says, for me keywords have never made any difference in sales, so with that in mind, why not change them? No harm done.

Google basically approved of the categories I'd chosen, but as you know, KDP's choices are so limited, categories are hard to get wrong.  

So, yes, changes were made...again. I might need to do this every couple of months, just to keep my toe dipped in the publishing waters.