United we stand. Divided we fall.

 

I love taglines. They're such a great way to set the mood for a book or a movie. When I'm browsing for my next read, a good tagline encourages me to read the book's description, taking me one important step closer to buying and reading the book. 

 

Yes, I love taglines... until the moment arrives when I have to write one. I find them incredibly difficult to get right, and I'm never 100% happy with my creations. They need to be hooky, simple, and hint at the story the prospective reader can expect. Taglines require a different kind of creativity.

 

For anyone interested in my non-expert approach, this is how I went about it for my current series:

 

1) I researched taglines for other young adult books to identify the kind of thing I wanted to emulate.

 

2) I stuck to a basic template. In my case, it was two lines, as suggested by my brilliant cover designer, and I set myself a maximum of fifty characters per line. Using two lines was a great way to incorporate both of the front cover fonts on the back cover.

 

3) In terms of the creative bit, it seemed that sitting down at my desk with the express intention of inventing a great tagline got me nowhere! I found it easier to come up with ideas when I wasn't concentrating so hard.

 

This is what I ended up with for the first six books. The tagline for the final book in the series will be revealed soon and the book itself is on track to be released in early May, which is a little ahead of my target six months (since Surviving Magic was released). I am kind of torn between looking forward to it and dreading saying goodbye...

 

Do you have a favourite tagline for a movie or book? If you're a writer, do you find taglines easy or difficult? Thank you for stopping by my blog!