Welcome to the Creative Pen podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur,

bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, publishing options and marketing ideas for your book.

You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more information at

TheCreativepen.com. And that's Penn with a double N. And here's the show.

Hello, creatives. I'm Joanna Penn. And this is episode number 5991 of the podcast. And it is Sunday the 5th of December 2021 as I record

this from Auckland in New Zealand, where we are finally out of quarantine and isolation.

You wouldn't believe how excited I was to be able to get out and walk for as long as I like outside along the waterfront.

So I am in a much better mood this week.

It's been basically two weeks of a process to get into the country.

And now we are here.

And my husband is reconciled with his mum after two years.

So it's all very emotional. Anyway, in today's

show, I'm talking to Michael Brent Collings about writing hooks and improving your fiction book

description. Some excellent tough love in this interview from Michael Brent. You'll hear my reluctance

as I find descriptions really hard. And I, let's face it, I kind of resent

them. Why do I have to sell myself in this way when I've done the hard work of writing the book?

But Michael Brent explains it in a way that makes sense. So I hope it resonates with you. And Michael

Brent is also now helping authors with book descriptions.

And in fact, after we recorded this interview, I did engage Michael Brent to help me with some book descriptions, including Tomb of Relics, which I'm going to read to you after the interview.

So once the interview is done, I will share the old version and the new version.

So you can hear the difference. So this episode is

primarily around fiction book descriptions, but if you write nonfiction, you might find it useful

...