Back Cover Blurb Trouble

Essentially a 'teaser' for me, with just enough plot info to let the potential reader to know what sort of book it is. If there is a line somewhere in the book that helps with that, I might include it, possibly as a lead-in to the blurb.

Which - of the selection you've obviously read - did you find best caught your attention?

Bearing in mind that your blurb would probably be landed upon by chance, I would think brevity and clarity were two appropriate factors for starters.

Depends on the book itself and on the genre. Go to a bookstore (preferably) or library, look for books similar to yours in tone and genre, and see what they've done.

In my country a known writer or literary critic is the one writing your "fourth cover", how it is called. It is less good taste to write it yourself.

Marissa D said:

Depends on the book itself and on the genre. Go to a bookstore (preferably) or library, look for books similar to yours in tone and genre, and see what they've done.

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I second this - it depends on the type of book and genre. The blurb for a book about woodworking will be different than one for a SciFi novel.

You can google 'write a back cover blurb' and find websites like this: http://www.blurb.com/blog/writing-blurbs-for-novels/

Look at similar books on Amazon and read the description (as Marissa suggested).

THEN after you've got something to start with, go to the Share your Work forum for feedback - I've found this step to be extremely valuable.

Anything's okay--there aren't rules about what must or must not appear on the back cover of a book. You can put anything you want--you're the publisher.

But.

What appears on the back cover of a book is a sales device--it's there to convince a potential reader that they have to read your book now (the front cover is the other half of that sales device.) The back cover on a sexy contemporary romance book will be different from a spy thriller will be different from a cozy teashop mystery...and readers in those genres have expectations when they browse through new books. If your book comes across as radically different from others in the same genre, it might not attract readers.

What you want is a sales pitch. Some readers will only give your blurb one sentence to hook them or not. Others may only give it a paragraph before deciding. You want a blurb so catchy they really want to click on your "look inside" and then buy. There are lots of books in every genre to choose from, you want to make yours stand out.

I just went through writing mine and by no means is it going to win awards or anything, but what I did was analyze blurbs from some of the bestselling books in my genre, and see what the general layout was. Then, after I had what I thought was a decent blurb (my first go was actually not so hot), I put it up in SYW and let people crit it. They made my finished product much better.

KittenEV said:

My book is written in third person. But the main character finds a journal that has a bit exposition in it. Would copying a blurb from that journal and having that be the back cover blurb be okay? It's from the perceptive of a minor character and written in first person so i'm not sure.

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No one can stop you doing anything and there are no rules. But the majority of quotes from a book don't really work outside of the context of the book. You need something that makes it very clear what the book is about. You also want to be specific about it. If you give a generic description that could apply to the whole genre, that doesn't help (this is things like "An epic battle between good and evil!" which describes far too many books to be useful).

If you go for a slightly longer one for your main description, you will also want a short one paragraph version. Some places want the shorter version. These days, I lean towards trying to make the one paragraph version the main version, but my first novel has a longer one as well.

I study bestselling blurbs in my genre, and like KBooks, I check my drafts in SYW.

I do something else, though, which has actually helped a lot. I write a fair number of book reviews, and really, authors are so glad to get these things that they're happy for anything nice. So I often practice blurbs. I write a few sentences to a couple of paragraphs meant to entice people to pick up their story. I figure it hones my skills, and it might help them pick up the occasional reader.

An example of what I think is an excellent blurb is from 'Artemis' by Andy Weir, that I use as a template:

Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich.

Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she’s owed for a long time.

So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can’t say no. Sure, it requires her to graduate from small-time smuggler to full-on criminal mastermind. And it calls for a particular combination of cunning, technical skills, and large explosions—not to mention sheer brazen swagger. But Jazz has never run into a challenge her intellect can’t handle, and she figures she’s got the ‘swagger’ part down.

The trouble is, engineering the perfect crime is just the start of Jazz’s problems. Because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself.

Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, even Jazz has to admit she’s in way over her head. She’ll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city.

Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal.

That’ll have to do.