Query Theory: Blurb vs Query?

The difference between the cover blurb vs. a query letter is that one of the samples is attached to a published book. That might seem like a very basic difference, but in fact it opens up a lot of things.

If a reader picks up a book in a store and reads the blurb, there is an intrinsic promise: This book is worth your time. It's been past publishers, editors, agents--it's a full story, it's structured appropriately and it's written well.

A query does not promise any of these things to an agent. Possibly the only person who has read the work is the author himself. How does the agent know it's well written, structured, or that it even has an ending?

Obviously, whether the published novel holds up to that promise is up to the reader in the end. But it's up to the author to prove in the letter it has all of the makings of a full story. That doesn't mean you need to walk the agent through everything ("I have an ending, I promise!"), but you should be trying to pitch the whole conflict, the main conflict of your novel. You'd be surprised what agents can recognize about your book in a 250-word query letter. Many cover blurbs only pitch premise, to be wary of spoilers.

he only part I would question is that the agent can probably tell whether you can write or not in either case--whether it's blurb-ish or not, if it's compelling and well done then I would think you've crossed that basic hurdle.

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That's true, basic grammar and the mechanics of writing would be the same to an agent if you'd written a blurb or a true query. But it is very much about structure and pacing ... A published novel sitting on the shelf promises to have scenes, and a beginning, middle and end. A manuscript in an agent's e-mail promises no such thing, and more often than not the manuscripts don't have those things.

And it's not as though queries written like blurbs do not get looked at by agents. It's not as though a "blurb" in place of query can't be good. You'll see agents talk about these on their blogs. "It violates all the rules, but ..." That 'but' is usually great voice or an exceptionally unique premise.

Another big difference between a blurb and a query is the sophistication of the reader. Agents consciously know what a specific genre must contain, whereas the normal reader doesn't. By looking at a few things, an agent can usually figure out what the plot is and where it must be going.

Agents also deal with a higher volume than a normal reader. You'll see this in their comments, and I know my dislike of the orphan who has to save the world is strengthened each time I see it. Producing something that is unique is hard for an agent. Normal readers, however, are frequently looking for something comfortable and familiar.

Agents also don't respond to meaningless puff words. Telling an agent that your book is a blockbuster and a potential best seller won't do you a thing. You have to show the agent why your book might become a blockbuster or a best seller.

And lastly agents are looking for writing problems. You can see that sometimes will advise posting the first x number of words in QLH. That's because we're seeing an underlying writing problem that we think will show up in the person's opening.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

From my experience, the best possible query is exactly like the jacket copy on a published book, except that your query reveals the ending of the novel. In fact, out of teh last two dozen or so successful queries I've seen, only a couple weren't written along teh lines of jacket copy.

But a blub and jacket copy are not the same thing.

A great synopsis is always a great synopsis, no matter who reads it, but a blurb is just fluff.

GreySpy said:

Wait a sec, Jim . . . are you saying that I shouldn't pitch by book by saying, "this is the greatest horror novel since Steven King's THE STAND"?!? Crap, that was my big line!

Kidding!!! Thanks for the tips.

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If that was your big line, I'd have tried to spell the comparable author's name correctly...

When I was a slush reader, I always preferred the queries that were more blurbish. A query shouldn't be a synopsis. You only need to pitch the concept and give an indication of the plot, not a whole detailed description of the conflict. We read queries for the concept of the book--whether it was solid, saleable, etc.--and whether the writing of the query itself was professional.

Here's Kristin Nelson's take on it. Clearly, she prefers for you to use a blurb in your query. Some agents may like a more synopsis-y one.

Ultimately, what matters is that your query is well-written and compelling.

You only need to pitch the concept and give an indication of the plot, not a whole detailed description of the conflict.

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When I suggest writers pitch the main conflict, I do mean the whole main conflict. But that doesn't mean they need to walk me through the entire book.

To me, premise or concept is: Everyone on planet earth blacks out for sixty seconds and witnesses his or her future.

Main conflict is: When everyone on planet earth blacks out for sixty seconds and sees their futures, recovering alcoholic John Marks sees himself drinking a bottle of Jack. He sets out to solve the mystery of why everyone blacked out, so he can prove the future won't come true.

Premise doesn't necessarily contain the real story, and pitching the main conflict doesn't mean I need to give away the ending, or that it reads like a synopsis. That doesn't mean to say that premise alone can't interest an agent. Some premises are intrinsically linked to their conflicts; others aren't. Sometimes premise alone can sell the book; sometimes not. Some jacket copies stop at premise.

But since query letters are attached to unpublished novels, unlike jacket copies, they are different animals. In my opinion it's smart to go a step further and make absolutely sure the real conflict is there. Right away you can identify from the second example there's a beginning and an end--you can't say the same from the first example.

GreySpy said:

Hi all. Over in Query Hell, somebody made a comment about a query that really struck me--the remark was that the query in question is really more of a "blurb" than a "query." Needless to say, this was not intended as a compliment! I found the idea of queries being different from blurbs to be a fascinating distinction, and I'm curious what y'all perceive the difference(s) to be.

Before this, I would have said the two are essentially the same: they're pitches to interest people in your story. An agent is really the first "purchaser" of the book--not purchased with money but with opportunity cost... the agent says, yes, I will spend time shopping this project rather than the million other things I could be doing. So the query should make an agent say, "Send me that MS right now!" much the way your flap copy should make a customer say, "Sell me this book right now!"

However, having read that remark in QH, now I'm not so sure. Maybe there is a distinction in the way queries should be written?

So what do you all think? Blurb versus query: what's the difference?

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If you read Kristin Nelson's blog (as caromora points out), a back cover blurb is exactly what she recommends and that's very similar to what Nathan Bransford says. Neither of them would say that for some reason a blurb isn't a "true query." I am wondering what the definition of a "true query" is!

What Ms. Nelson says and the advice I will follow when i write my query (and who knows how good it will be) is this: ...examine the first 20 or 50 pages of your manuscript. Then zero in on the main catalyst that starts the story forward—the main conflict from which all else in the novel evolves. It’s the catalyst kernel of your story that forms your pitch....

(emphasis mine)

I don't know what kind of query they say to write in "Query Hell" having never been there, but I do feel that following the advice of agents for querying agents is a good idea, so that's what I personally plan to do.

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2007/10/pitching-and-all-that-jazz.html

katiemac said:

Main conflict is: When everyone on planet earth blacks out for sixty seconds and sees their futures, recovering alcoholic John Marks sees himself drinking a bottle of Jack. He sets out to solve the mystery of why everyone blacked out, so he can prove the future won't come true.

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I agree with pretty much everything you've said. Though the main conflict you've written here is, essentially, a blurb. It's remarkably like what you'd find on the back of a book. I haven't seen any book that just glosses over the main concept without delving into who the MC is and what his or her personal stakes are.

Not sure if the industry has changed a lot since I worked in it, but at the pub where I worked as an editor and with the agent I read slush for, we always referred to this section as the "query blurb" or the "blurb part of the query."

If you read Kristin Nelson's blog (as caromora points out), a back cover blurb is exactly what she recommends and that's very similar to what Nathan Bransford says. Neither of them would say that for some reason a blurb isn't a "true query." I am wondering what the definition of a "true query" is!

I don't know what kind of query they say to write in "Query Hell" having never been in there.

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"True query" was just my writing on the fly, ignore the "true" if you wish.

Honestly, queries and jacket copies can be very, very similar. However, I think it's confusing to suggest writers model their queries after jacket copy. A manuscript is not a published novel, and there are many things a query letter can do that a jacket doesn't even need to do. The biggest difference is showing in your query that you've got a full, complete story arc. Again, this doesn't mean you need to walk me through your book. But the very fact a book is published means it has a complete story within its pages, so a jacket copy or back-of-the-cover blurb can be fine stopping at premise.

Sometimes queries need to push further. They've got a heck of a lot more to prove.

I think I broke a lot of rules with my query. But it was mostly on purpose. I wrote my query very much in the tone of the book -- which was not matter of fact, at all. And I started with the setting. And, because of that, info like the word count came near the end. But I wanted to write a query that was true to the book -- if you liked the query, you'd like the book, and if you didn't, you didn't. As it happened, the agent(s) who liked the query, and asked for more, generally liked the book -- and one of them offered me representation right away. I think your query, whatever it is, needs to be true to the book. If it's the kind of book that has a good blurb, then write that. I'm no expert but I think agents who like a particular query are looking for a book that fits that same vein...

I agree with pretty much everything you've said. Though the main conflict you've written here is, essentially, a blurb. It's remarkably like what you'd find on the back of a book. I haven't seen any book that just glosses over the main concept without delving into who the MC is and what his or her personal stakes are.

Not sure if the industry has changed a lot since I worked in it, but at the pub where I worked as an editor and with the agent I read slush for, we always referred to this section as the "query blurb" or the "blurb part of the query."

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I agree what I wrote above could have substituted just fine for the jacket copy.

Maybe it's because I've spent so much time in QLH, but I see so many queries come in for critique without an inkling of the conflict. They see "write a back cover blurb" and think they can leave it unspecific, at the basics. The letter changes drastically when suggesting focusing on conflict instead of trying to "sell."

Perhaps, then, we should be changing people's opinions on what jacket copy really is, but those can also wildly vary. (As can queries, of course.)

But I've found it necessary to distinguish between a jacket copy and a query letter. I think it's essential for writers to understand why and how they are different, regardless if their jacket copy and query letter turn out similar.

The biggest difference is showing in your query that you've got a full, complete story arc.

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All I can tell you is that when Kristin Nelson asked a friend of mine for a full, she said in her letter, "don't tell me the end and ruin the story for me". I read the query that got the request and it didn't give the whole story arc. Following Ms. Nelson's advice, it concentrated on the conflict in the first 50 pages. If you read Ms. Nelson's blog and Nathan Bransford's advice such as his "query template" that isn't what either of them says.

However, I'm in no position to say that you're wrong either. What do I know? I'll just follow their advice and hope for the best.

Edit: Of course, the letter itself will contain more information than a blurb such as genre and word count, but I understood us to be talking about the "blurb" portion of the letter.

All I can tell you is that when Kristin Nelson asked a friend of mine for a full, she said in her letter, "don't tell me the end and ruin the story for me". So...

I'm in no position to say that you're wrong but I do question the advice.

And if you read Ms. Nelson's blog and Nathan Bransford's advice such as his "query template" that isn't what either of them says. On the other hand, what do I know? I'll just follow their advice and hope for the best.

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I never suggest writers give away the ending. I agree that's poor advice, nor is it what I said.

That doesn't mean you cannot show, via the conflict, you have a whole story. See my post above, where I wrote a quick blurb (ha) using FlashForward's premise. In the first example I used premise. In the second example I used premise and conflict. The second example suggests an ending (conflict resolution), but it in no way reveals what that ending is. It's subtle, yes, but agents do recognize these things.

If teh agent doesn't want to know the ending, don't tell her, but I've talked to twenty agents who do want it for each who doesn't. So I guess you need to know what the individual agent wants, and I've had to reveal the ending on every last novel I've sold.

And I guarantee 100% that just about any editor will want to know the ending before looking at the manuscript.

I'll edit this to say that I don't mean you give a highly detailed ending as you would in a long synopsis, but I've had three agents, worked with two others, and talked to a bunch more, and nearly all of them wanted to know whether the ending was happy or sad, successful or unsucessful.

But agents do vary in what they want, which is one reason I think large batches of identical queries are usually a bad idea.

katiemac said:

I

Perhaps, then, we should be changing people's opinions on what jacket copy really is, but those can also wildly vary. (As can queries, of course.)

.

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No, definitions of "jacket copy" do not vary. It's not an opinion. Both "blurb" and "jacket copy" are technical terms. A " blurb" is an endorsment, a statement of how good the novel is, whether taken from a review, or given by another writer, etc.

"Jacket copy" is always the synopsis of the novel itself. It's on the inside dust jacket of hardcover novels, and is written by the publisher in order to sell the novel to the reading public.

Jamesaritchie said:

No, definitions of "jacket copy" do not vary. It's not an opinion. Both "blurb" and "jacket copy" are technical terms. A " blurb" is an endorsment, a statement of how good the novel is, whether taken from a review, or given by another writer, etc.

"Jacket copy" is always the synopsis of the novel itself. It's on the inside dust jacket of hardcover novels, and is written by the publisher in order to sell the novel to the reading public.

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Except, James, that "technical terms" do, in fact, vary. For instance, in the UK, the word "blurb" is used to refer to what we on the North American continent call "jacket copy".

No, definitions of "jacket copy" do not vary. It's not an opinion. Both "blurb" and "jacket copy" are technical terms. A " blurb" is an endorsment, a statement of how good the novel is, whether taken from a review, or given by another writer, etc.

"Jacket copy" is always the synopsis of the novel itself. It's on the inside dust jacket of hardcover novels, and is written by the publisher in order to sell the novel to the reading public.

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Technical definitions may not vary, but people's perceptions (I used opinion before) of the content do vary. When it comes to writing a query letter, that can cause problems. If we want to tell people to write query letters like jacket copies, then they need to first understand what a successful jacket copy actually is and does. Again, personally, I think we should be distinguishing the differences between jacket copy and query letters when it comes to learning purposes.

It's obvious after hanging around in query letter hell that maybe people don't understand what a jacket copy really is. Because if you say, "write a jacket copy (or a blurb)," many times you'll get something won't work as a query letter or a jacket copy.

A synopsis is a brief overview of the entire plot of the novel, at least that's what I read over in QLH. It usually is a spoiler of the whole book, except in micro-brief (1 page or less).

I think that unless the agent specifically requests a synopsis, the query letter should have enough in it, As Katie said, to show the final conflict without giving away any surprises in the ending.

If the agent is interested in the query, they'll want to enjoy the book, not have the whole thing 'given away'.

It needs to communicate the Protagonist, the Goal, the Stakes, and the Conflict.

The blurb on the back of the novel often doesn't get you much past the first 50 pages of a 200 page book, because you want the reader to be 'hooked into buying' but you don't want to spoil the book for them.

...Am I getting this right?

MisterChris said:

A synopsis is a brief overview of the entire plot of the novel, at least that's what I read over in QLH. It usually is a spoiler of the whole book, except in micro-brief (1 page or less).
I think that unless the agent specifically requests a synopsis, the query letter should have enough in it, As Katie said, to show the final conflict without giving away any surprises in the ending.

If the agent is interested in the query, they'll want to enjoy the book, not have the whole thing 'given away'.

It needs to communicate the Protagonist, the Goal, the Stakes, and the Conflict.

The blurb on the back of the novel often doesn't get you much past the first 50 pages of a 200 page book, because you want the reader to be 'hooked into buying' but you don't want to spoil the book for them.

...Am I getting this right?

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Kristin Nelson specifically advises that you do stick to the first 50 pages, just like a back of the book blurb (which is different from the inside cover blurb, by the way) So I would say, you may not want to give whatever the "final conflict" is, especially if that gives away the ending--and it's hard to see how it wouldn't.

In addition to the quote I gave above, here is what she says:

Notice that when you read the back cover of a book, it just gives a hint or a teaser of the story and that it also usually focuses on a crucial early event in the novel. That gets the ball rolling.

And the back cover copy of a book never reveals the ending—and neither should your pitch paragraph. After all, if I want to read the entire novel, I don’t want to know the ending beforehand.

A synopsis from what I understand is not necessarily 1 page or less. I've seen requests on agent websites for synopses of varying lengths mainly 2 or 3 pages.

But I'm just going on what I've read on agent sites, so very possibly other people have better advice.