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After our recent newsletter went out, a lot of authors (over 100, in fact) got in touch about one particular challenge: writing blurbs.

The general consensus? Writing a blurb is a bl**dy nightmare.

So, we spoke to 30 of our readers, and they’ve agreed to help us create a simple, reader-focused blurb service for authors.

Here’s how it works:

If you have a book that’s currently on sale but isn’t selling as well as you’d hoped, send us:

• the book title

• the sales link

• your intended readership (for example: men over 50, female YA readers, crime fans, etc.)

We’ll then send the book link to a group of suitable volunteer readers and ask them:

1. What’s not working about the current blurb?

2. How could it be improved?

Once we’ve gathered the feedback, one of our editors will rewrite the blurb with those reader insights in mind.

We’ll then send the revised version back to the same target readers for another round of feedback.

After a few final tweaks, we’ll send the completed blurb back to you.

The cost is just £40 ($54), purely to cover the editor’s time.

Because we’re a not-for-profit organisation, we’re able to offer this service at a very low cost.

And just to be clear: we will NOT be using AI. Every part of this process will be carried out by real readers and real editors.

So send us your book info to thewishingshelfawards@gmail.com, and let’s see if we can help get those books selling a little better.

Today, I checked out AI for novel writing. Running a book award, and being a writer myself, I thought I'd better see what all the fuss was about. So I went on Squibler, put in a summary of the sci-fi 'first contact' novel I'm presently writing and pressed enter. Approx. 10 mins later, it came back with a 40,000 word novel based on my summary.

So, what did I think of it?

It was, in every way, soulless junk. Basically, a lot of techno jargon with no character development, no suspense, no - well, anything. Just garbage. I know I'm now supposed to edit it to 'make it my own', but it was so terrible, it would take longer to edit it than to write my own book.

But, in a way, that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was how it made me feel. I discovered, when you get AI to write your novel, there's no journey, no feeling of accomplishment. I just felt like a cheat. Yes, AI offered me a 'product' but even if the product had been good (which it wasn't), I would just feel like a scammer. How could I possibly put my name to a book written by a computer?Today, I was reminded of the fact that writing a book is not just about the finished product. It's about how you get there; the journey, the agony, the sleepless nights. Writing a novel using AI rips all of that away from you.

So I will happily go back to the 'hard way' of writing a novel as, to be perfectly honest, it is still the ONLY way to do it. That way, I might (just might) produce a book that (a) I'm proud of and (b) is actually worth reading.

Edward (Billy Bob Buttons / Hickory Crowl)

To see the list of the 2024 FINALISTS in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards, click on the FINALIST tab at the top of the page.   The children’s books were read and judged by children from 10 UK primary and secondary schools, the adult books by 2 Reading Groups, 1 in London and 1 in Stockholm.