Arghhh!

Attempt #1

My book is called The Oldest Trick. It’s about Tyvian Reldamar, criminal mastermind, who is betrayed by his partner and then has this ring put on his finger that makes him do only good things. Then he needs to get revenge doing only good things.

God, that’s awful – nobody will think I’m a competent writer with a mealy pile of words like that. Try again.

Attempt #2

The Oldest Trick is about Tyvian Reldamar, criminal mastermind and smuggler of the arcane. He’s been betrayed  by his partner and afflicted with a magic ring that won’t let him misbehave. Now he wants revenge, but how do you get revenge without misbehavior?

Not bad, I guess. Too long, though. I’ve lost my theoretical ‘standing in an elevator making small talk’ audience. Of course, one wonders how someone with so sharply curtailed an attention span is going to read a book serialized into two parts, anyway. Hrmmm…

Attempt #3

The Oldest Trick is about a criminal mastermind, Tyvian Reldamar, and his quest for revenge while being cursed by a magic ring that only lets him do good things.

Meh. It’s okay. Succinct, anyway. Straightforward.

It occurs to me that I haven’t mentioned the genre. Dammit.

Attempt #4

The Oldest Trick is an epic fantasy about criminal mastermind Tyvian Reldamar and his quest to secure revenge against his former partner all while under the curse of a magic ring that won’t let him do bad things.

Yeah, that’s not bad. Wait…isn’t there other stuff I need to mention here? Like the publisher and the release date and stuff? Dammit!

Attempt #5

My debut novel, The Oldest Trick, is an epic fantasy about Tyvian Reldamar, criminal mastermind, and his quest for revenge while afflicted with a magic ring that won’t let him do bad things. It will be released in February 2015 from Harper Voyager.

Hmmmm…that’s pretty good. Still, I can streamline a bit.

Attempt #6

My debut novel, The Oldest Trick, is an epic fantasy about criminal mastermind Tyvian Reldamar and his quest for revenge while cursed with a magic ring that won’t let him do bad things. It will be released in February 2015 from Harper Voyager.

Yeah…yeah, I like it. Not too bad. Now I just need to memorize this thing for the next time somebody asks what my book is about. What I usually do is sputter for a while about how it’s fantasy but not like Game of Thrones except kind of only not really.

And let’s not even get into the part where I try to explain how the first book is serialized into two volumes (Part 1 to be released in February, Part 2 to be released in June 2015) but is really a single story and that it’s true sequel (All That Glitters) is scheduled for release sometime in Fall 2015.

Really, all this would be easier if I could just hand people a USB drive with a five minute powerpoint presentation on it. Or themed buttons. Or business cards with all of this printed in very, very small type.

Deep breaths, Auston. Deep breaths.