How do you write your blurbs?

PickleHeartsBooks · Sep 14, 2017

Hey guys!
I was wondering how everyone writes their blurbs that go on the back of the book or inside flap of the hardcover. Do you write long blurbs, do you give a lot away, or do you keep it vague? Do you think it's important to give a detailed summary of the world if it isn't realistic fiction?

I'm currently having trouble writing the blurb for my latest book, and I thought I'd ask what seems to work for other people. Also what kind of blurbs does everyone like the best when it comes to a book you might want to read?

My book takes place in a zombie world, but the story doesn't focus on the zombies; the zombies are just the setting. I think I've got the part explaining that down, it's just when it gets to what the story is actually about that's difficult for me. I came up with one that my friend loved (she also read the book), but I feel like it's misleading, making the reader believe that the book is about the MC trying to make a decision before it's too late. In reality, the character makes the decision in chapter four, but thinks about that choice throughout the rest of the book. I don't want it to end up being like The Night Circus or something. (that blurb totally lied.)

As for me as a reader, I like blurbs that are fairly short but still give me a good idea of what the story is about. I don't like ones that are literally two sentences, but I definitely don't like ones that take up the entire inside flap. I usually get bored of those and stop reading.

Ellis Clover · Sep 15, 2017

I'd imagine trade publishers have their own guidelines for this. Or is this a story you plan to self-publish?

Personally I like shortish and snappy blurbs - 3 paras, maybe 120-150 words total. (I don't like them too long either - they often give too much away.) The aim I think is to set up the MC's ultimate goal and the conflict/crisis, and leave it on a bit of a cliffhanger. I very much dislike blurbs that allude to the resolution, but YMMV there.

Curlz · Sep 15, 2017

PickleHeartsBooks said:
Do you think it's important to give a detailed summary of the world if it isn't realistic fiction?
........
In reality, the character makes the decision in chapter four, but thinks about that choice throughout the rest of the book. I don't want it to end up being like The Night Circus or something. (that blurb totally lied.)
.......
As for me as a reader, I like blurbs that are fairly short but still give me a good idea of what the story is about. I don't like ones that are literally two sentences, but I definitely don't like ones that take up the entire inside flap. I usually get bored of those and stop reading.

I've seen some quite efficient long blurbs for self-pub sci-fi. They work because the set-up plays an important part of the story's attractiveness. Just discovering all those strange places is intriguing. I don't think the blurb for The Night Circus lied at all. If you'd like a more in-depth insight about a trad pub book, there are plenty of reviews that go into further detail. A self-pub book may lack those reviews and you could rely more on the blurb to give a better insight into the book and the writing ability of the author. The blurb is there to hook the reader with whatever you got. I wouldn't read a book where the blurb says "it's a story about a character taking an important decision". Show me what else you got :Thumbs:

Aggy B. · Sep 15, 2017

Understanding a logline always helps me write blurbs. I also tend to look at blurbs from books within the genre of the book I'm working on to see what sorts of things are used for that genre. (I actually try to avoid a lot of self-pubbed blurbs when it comes to research though as the number of lousy cover blurbs is typically very high. They are hard to write - much like advertising copy - and trade publishers usually have folks who know how to write them, while most self-pubbing authors are just throwing something together.)

Blurbs, of course, don't have to reveal the end of the book, but they should set up some aspect of the final conflict so that folks know if it's going to be something they'd like to read. (There's a lot of difference between "In order to save the woman he loves, Frank takes on the Yakuza." and "In order to save the woman he loves, Frank enters the worlds biggest Dance Dance Revolution competition.")

Best of luck.

Mark HJ · Sep 23, 2017

I've only done the one, but I spent a lot of time on it, and worked through dozens of variations and versions.

Firstly, write two or three totally different blurbs, shelve them for a month, get you favourite beta(s) to comment, then revise, re-write, start completely from the beginning depending on feed-back, or how it reads to you after not seeing it for a month.

My first one has ten versions on my PC - but that's just the final round or two. I had a tidy on the hard-drive, so the early stuff is buried somewhere. The point is, I worked it over and tried to get it to do a job. (Whether I succeeded is another matter.

I am most definitely not any sort of expert on this.)

I wrote a tag-line and three paras, and these are the important things I was aiming for:
1: Grab attention
2: Introduce the potential reader to my MC and make him interesting.
3: Try to sell the story a bit, give some flavour and background.
4: Get all of that in the amount of text which carries the blurb on Amazon, without having to click the Read More button.

Number 4 is the tricky one and I don't know that I fully achieved it, but it seemed like a good idea that the blurb try to at least attract enough attention for someone on Amazon to want to read the rest of blurb. Less than half of the blurb comes up on the screen when I go the Amazon page.

What I ended up with is:

“Everyone has their demons, but I buy mine wholesale…”
Paul Moore, shopkeeper, Master of the Dark Arts and demonic broker, has just met the hottest witch who ever tried to kill him. A date is surely out of the question - she serves the demons of the Babylonian Triad, and no-one defies them... almost no one.
Paul thought he was the best, until the Babylonian Triad launched a turf war. Rival demons, competing traders, an explosive spice and ruthless church factions... Paul only wants to keep his home town safe and get the girl. He knows that being a Master of the Dark Arts involves sacrifice, but really doesn't want to be the one dragged to the altar.
Hell Of A Deal is a fight through life, death, demons and trying to survive a first date. It's not the end of the world, just the start of a new corner of hell.

(As an aside, spend as much time on the title. That was one of my BIG mistakes. A kindly reviewer gave me a 4* review and provided some feedback to me, which could be loosely summarised as 'great book, shame about the title and cover'. I've been through the nausea of changing both of those. Yes, the original title was rubbish - it was right when I first wrote it, but completely wrong for publication, but I got used to it. I got attached. I couldn't see it needed fixing.

This after-thought was prompted by the ad at the top of the page for Dennis Taylor's latest - as titles go it doesn't especially grab me, but it does remind me of the ads for his first book "We Are Legion: We Are Bob" - that kind of hit between the eyes. And it was a good book.)

Good luck!

BethS · Sep 24, 2017

Mark HJ said:
What I ended up with is:

“Everyone has their demons, but I buy mine wholesale…”
Paul Moore, shopkeeper, Master of the Dark Arts and demonic broker, has just met the hottest witch who ever tried to kill him. A date is surely out of the question - she serves the demons of the Babylonian Triad, and no-one defies them... almost no one.
Paul thought he was the best, until the Babylonian Triad launched a turf war. Rival demons, competing traders, an explosive spice and ruthless church factions... Paul only wants to keep his home town safe and get the girl. He knows that being a Master of the Dark Arts involves sacrifice, but really doesn't want to be the one dragged to the altar.
Hell Of A Deal is a fight through life, death, demons and trying to survive a first date. It's not the end of the world, just the start of a new corner of hell.

Just fwiw, I think that's a pretty enticing description. It would work well in a query letter, too, if you decide to go the agent route.

indianroads · Sep 24, 2017

Timely - I just finished the 6th revision / edit of my book (I have a few more to go) and will be taking a break to write the blurb.

From what I've seen on Amazon, these run at about 200 words - with only about 6 lines or less than 100 words above the "read more" link. So we need to grab attention and intrigue potential readers quickly.

Laer Carroll · Sep 24, 2017

All good advice. I write two, one a short one suitable as a logline or a short Amazon blurb, a second long enough for a back cover or inside front cover.

Content: the three basic parts of the classical story: CHARACTER, SETTING, PLOT, as in the example below. Setting can be left out if it's contemporary and conventional. Just enough of the plot to tease the core problem of the main character(s).

Vampire John Lennon in a magic-haunted Liverpool struggles to balance his needs for blood, a moral life, and his musical career.

indianroads · Sep 25, 2017

I posted a blurb in the show your work forum.
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?331981-blurb

Feedback appreciated.

indianroads · Sep 26, 2017

Got some great input. This place is awesome!

Stephen Palmer · Sep 26, 2017

Start by focussing on the main characters, and see if you can give them an attention-grabbing single line.
Then frame what you have with an opening and closing line (or very short paragraph).
Ideally, the last line asks or implies a question for the reader to answer.

How do you write your blurbs?

PickleHeartsBooks

Ellis Clover

watching The Office again

Curlz

cutsie-pie

Aggy B.

Not as sweet as you think

Mark HJ

Cat whisperer

BethS

indianroads

Wherever I go, there I am.

Laer Carroll

Aerospace engineer turned writer

indianroads

Wherever I go, there I am.

indianroads

Wherever I go, there I am.

Stephen Palmer