createspace.com sells a service called “Marketing Copy Essentials’. I love this service because I can never seem able to summarize my books into something to put on the back cover. I always think my book is too complicated to express in two paragraphs. It’s even worst when a person asks me to my face what my book is about. They obviously don’t want a 30 minute review. What do I say?

Marketing Copy Essentials to the rescue. It took createspace.com about 10 days and $249 and here it is.  This book, titled ‘Baktu’, will publish next month (depending on how fast my illustrators are). Do you want to know what it is about? I am finally glad you asked.

First, the “Tagline“, the “elevator pitch”, the 30 word summary.

The action-packed sequel to Negative Zero finds Tomek on the forbidden planet of Baktu, hunting for the fearsome creature that abducted his friend—and on the front lines of an imperial invasion.

Now if I memorize that, I can answer passing friends or elevator passengers when they ask. Thanks createspace.

And now the book description. createspace says this is what should be my book’s description on the Amazon.com web page. Apparently this needs to be different than the book’s back cover.

The sequel to Negative Zero blasts off with our intrepid spacecraft engineer finding himself mere minutes from being fired upon by two elite warships of the Azten imperial navy. In direct defiance of the Azten Empire of Federated Worlds, Tomek is headed to the surface of the forbidden planet Baktu.

After being stranded on the low-tech planet for almost a year, the human Tomek has found a home—even falling in love with a young Bakti named Spri.

But the Bakti have been keeping a secret from the foreigner—a secret that could lead him to find the creature who abducted his friend Claymore. The same awful secret also holds the answer to why the planet has been isolated by the Azten government for the past two hundred years.

Meanwhile, as Tomek hunts for monsters on the tranquil planet, a civil war has broken out in the empire and the sinister Trident organization hasn’t forgotten about their clever nemesis.

Then there’s the Golantan armada that’s heading toward Azten, crushing all resistance in its path…

With Baktu located at the edge of the empire, how will the Bakti manage to resist an invasion on their own?

I love it. I will need to keep it in my back pocket in case someone asks for an in depth description.

And finally the back cover text that createspace designed for me.

“Baktu.”

It’s the word Tomek’s friend Claymore cried out just before being carried off by a monstrous creature. At the time, Tomek didn’t know what it meant.

Now, in the fascinating sequel to Negative Zero, he’s hovering over that exact planet in his damaged spacecraft—with the Azten imperial navy threatening to destroy him if he continues on his present course.

No life-form may land on or leave the planet.

But Tomek manages a daring escape while under fire, marooning himself on the mysterious forbidden planet.

The ingenious engineer starts out with three goals: find out why Baktu is under quarantine, find the link between this little-known planet and the creature that abducted Claymore, and find a way to escape.

But other intergalactic forces are at work—including a little thing called “love”—and Tomek will soon find himself rallying to the defense of the empire.

Ah, that is nice. I can’t wait to read it. Although technically (since I am an engineer) “intergalactic” is probably the wrong word. I may change that to “interstellar”, since everything happens among hundreds of worlds (if you include the Golantans) but within just the one galaxy.