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Today’s post is advice on how to write an engaging book blurb for your box-set. I scrolled through Amazon reading some of the blurbs and I found my eyes skimming over these super long blurbs that covered each book.
In my opinion, if the back jacket copy is too extensive and wordy, even if the author includes a blurb for each book, it is going to make a potential reader’s eyes glaze over. It is like information overload.
The blurb is just a “hook” to encourage your readers to want to read your book and/or find out more without giving away too much of the plot. Remember that a blurb is just a teaser and does not need to include every plot point or mention every character.
All book blurbs should be under 200 words and only highlight the main conflict, the stakes, setting, genre, and mood. Including too many plot details or background info can bore your reader or confuse them about what the book is about. They should be concise yet compelling. Too wordy or rambling and potential reader might look for another book.
For example, this is the marketing copy for two of the books in my own bundle:
Books One & Two of the Bestselling Spellbound Prodigies Series
Read the first two installments of Shiloh’s harrowing journey into a magical world filled with supernatural creatures, dangerous magic, and haunting romance.
Box Set includes: BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN and SHATTERED SILENCE
Shiloh Trudell isn’t like other sixteen-year-old girls. She’s a heritage witch with psychic powers, who can communicate with the dead. So when she takes a summer job at the haunted Craven Manor, her life takes a frightening turn after she encounters a ghost with a sinister agenda.
What’s even more dangerous than her new profession as a demon hunter is the sexy new hottie in town whose emerald-green eyes and crooked smile causes her heart to skip a beat. Shiloh can’t seem to ignore her inexplicable attraction to the drool-worthy Trent Donovan, even when she’s got bigger problems to deal with. . . Like discovering who put a supernatural hit list on the other teenagers in town.
Between dating the hottest guy in town, fending off soul-sucking demons, and studying magick, Shiloh finds herself on the verge of uncovering a shocking secret that the others in town have vowed to protect.
But will exposing this secret come at a deadly price?
Scroll Up and Click "Buy" now to Instantly Download These Amazing Stories!
As you can see, it is short and to the point. It covers the setting, premise, and conflict. It has a few tropes and gets right to the heart of what a reader can expect from these paranormal romance series.All stories share these important elements in common: A character who wants something, but something stands in her/his way, so she/he struggles against that force, and either succeeds or fails.So when you're trying to write a book blurb for a longer series, it seems natural to include every blurb in the product description. My advise is NOT to do that. Just write a longer summary which pertains to the series as a whole and extend it to 300 to 400 words to include the conflict, theme, character goals, obstacles standing in the hero's way, the bad guy (unless the plot is man vs. himself, than include the character's fatal flaw), and what's at stake for the hero.
Let me put it this way, if someone asks you what the series is about, what do you say? How do you summarize the entire series? Write a short outline detailing your series, and then turn it into marketing copy. Don't lose sales or potential readers by having a blurb that is too long and rambling and overly wordy. You only need to lure them into reading the excerpt and then clicking on that "buy" button...
NOTE: Originally posted on the Emblazon website.
Blurbs. Stop groaning. You know you need one to help promote and market your book. And if you do up a blurb correctly, have an eye-catching cover, and wrote a great story, then you’ve done your job. The blurb is one of the most important marketing tools in getting your book ready for publication. In fact, you've already got a version of your blurb done—the synopsis in your query letter is essentially the same thing as a blurb. Here again, though, there are some significant differences. With a query letter, you're relating the entire plot. With a blurb, you want to entice the reader—to get them engaged with your story so they can come along as you unravel the plot for them. So here again—while the forms look very similar, their purpose is quite different.
Here's a surefire method to develop a quick, cohesive blurb. THINK THREE PARAGRAPHS. In the FIRST paragraph, introduce your main character. Now in the SECOND paragraph, introduce your secondary character— a BFF, love interest or antagonist—and the conflict. Remember, the conflict is what drives your plot.
Then in the THIRD paragraph, you bring it all together. This is where you pose a question to the reader—maybe not a straight out QUESTION but a rhetorical one. You want to give the reader a sense of urgency regarding the plot—what will happen if the characters' attempt to resolve the plot fails. In other words, what the stakes are.
The blurb in its entirety tells its own little story—and that's what keeps people buying and reading this book. You want to set up the protagonist, the conflict, the obstacles to resolving that conflict and to give the reader a sense of the risks involved in failure. What you've done is to create a microcosm—a tiny example of what your book—the macrocosm—is.
Writing a successful blurb is a test of any writer's skills. It's darn hard to filter down sixty thousand words into five hundred. But this is a skill a successful writer must learn to do. Throughout your career, whether this is your lone book or the first of hundreds, whether you stay in independent publishing or whether you move on to the Big Six, you MUST LEARN to write effective taglines and blurbs that work. That sell. Your. Book.
Below is the blurb to the prequel of my time travel series, Legend of the Timekeepers, just re-released on August 1stthrough Mirror World Publishing. Although I didn’t use three paragraphs, I used all the information stated above. Let me know what you think:
Lilith was a young girl with dreams and a family before the final destruction of Atlantis shattered those dreams and tore her family apart. Now refugees, Lilith and her father make their home in the Black Land. This strange, new country has no place in Lilith’s heart until a beloved high priestess introduces Lilith to her life purpose—to be a Timekeeper and keep time safe.
Summoned through the seventh arch of Atlantis by the Children of the Law of One, Lilith and her newfound friends are sent into Atlantis’s past, and given a task that will ultimately test their courage and try their faith in each other. Can the Timekeepers stop the dark magus Belial before he changes the seers’ prophecy? If they fail, then their future and the earth’s fate will be altered forever.
Intriguing? I hope so! If you’re an author how do you go about creating blurbs? And if you’re a reader, what blurbs have caused you to make that book purchase? Love to hear your comments! Cheers!
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Whether you plan to self-publish or work with a publisher, it’s crucial to know how to create an appealing blurb for your book—one that’s compelling enough to entice a reader into buying your book. Book blurbs are mostly used in query letters and the back jacket copy of novels. Basically, it is the beguiling description of your novel used to entice readers into, well, reading your work.
This is marketing copy, not a synopsis. Keep it brief. Keep it interesting. Keep it engaging. Don’t bog it down with too many details about the plot or subplot. Use persuasive, strong nouns, adverbs, and verbs to describe your novel.
Strive for quality—not quantity. Superb back jacket copy never explains every characters background, every plot twist, or pinch-point of your book. Write a blurb that is descriptive, but not all-inclusive. Think tempting, but not embellished.
Professional copywriters know that effective promotional copy harmonizes with a storyline and doesn’t exaggerate or minimize what readers will find inside.
One way to get a better understanding of good promotional copy is to read the blurbs of other published novels in your genre. Visit a library, bookstore, or search online at places like Goodreads to read book blurbs. Whenever you find a blurb that really grabs your attention, see if it gives you some ideas for your own book description.
Once you have a few blurbs written down that you like, find a critique partner to help you polish it. Or ask a friend or writing buddy, who’s familiar with your premise, and have them write a brief summary of your storyline, noting the detailed plot points they enjoyed. This is an excellent way to gain an invaluable assessment of your storyline.
Another excellent way to help you write a blurb is to excerpt your own work. Try this, comb through your entire manuscript searching for paragraphs or phrases to quote. This method can be very effective if you find a strong passage that can be taken out of context and still make sense.
In the following chapter, I’ve included examples of blurbs used in query letters and used for backjacket copy to give you a better understanding of how a book blurb should be written. I spend a LOT of time revising and tweaking my book blurbs. I have CPs go over and over them until my head bleeds. Writing a good blurb with a great “hook” isn’t easy. But it is essential to an Indie / self-published author if you want readers to take a chance with their time and money on your book. Or if you’re asking an agent or publishing editor to read your manuscript.
Either way, it is important to create a blurb so amazing and catchy that who wouldn’t want to read your story?
Please read these awesome posts on writing a better book blurb, which should really help as you revise your own with a more successful “hook”:
How long does it take you to write a book blurb?
What methods do you use to create a "hook"?
I've actually had a little time to look at some of the Internet gleanings I've been saving up these past few weeks. And I can't wait to discuss them.
It took a while for me to get around to The Last Word on Blurbs at Educating Alice, because the documentary about Gary Shteyngart's blurbs that Monica links to runs 15 minutes. When I finally saw the little film, I found it interesting because it seems to project the pointless nature of blurbs and suggest that the literary world, itself, doesn't take them seriously, while all that same time portraying Shteyngart, a well-known "blurb whore" in blurbing circles, as a nice guy trying to be helpful. As I was watching it, I imagined hundreds, if not thousands, of writers contacting him, hoping for a blurb, not because it would say anything particular about the quality of their books but because it would be neat to have a Shteyngart blurb. I'm thinking it could be like collecting autographs or balls signed by athletes.
Some of what you'll see at Six Things I Learned About Publishing a Book That Very Few Books Will Tell You at The Huffington Post you probably have seen in a lot of books. However, I was particularly interested in Points 1 and 2. 1. The author, Nataly Kelly, talks about connecting with an editor on LinkedIn. I have wondered about whether or not LinkedIn would be useful. I rarely hear any talk of it in author promotion materials. However, my limited knowledge of it suggests that it is professional rather than social. Shouldn't that mean you'll get fewer political rants and odes to pets there and more real professional exchanges? I could be convinced to link up with LinkedIn. 2. Kelly says an agent is necessary to assist with negotiations, even if you "made" the sale yourself. I've often heard that. However, in this video Mark McVeigh did for the 2010 WriteonCon, he said that getting an agent at that point is a little late, and that for most new authors, an agent won't be able to do much more for you than the editor's original offer. Which way to go? I am at a loss.
New Developments in Self-Publishing at Turbo Monkey Tales. Note that in spite of the new technical developments related to self-publishing, the post also makes the point that self-publishing is still publishing. In order to publish a book, someone has to do the work of a publisher--"editing, design, and marketing, at the very least." If authors publish themselves, then they either have to do that work or they have to pay someone to do it. But there's no getting around the fact that it needs to be done.
And while we're talking about writers needing to spend money, as we were in that last para, let's also touch on them making money. The financial realities described for genre novelists are similar to those for children's novelists. I would add something to this quote from the excerpt from Brian Keene: "And you probably won’t see a royalty check until another year AFTER your book has been published (provided enough copies have sold to earn out your advance)." The part about "provided enough copies have sold to earn out your advance" is extremely important. Many books never sell enough copies to earn out the authors' advances, and, thus, those authors never see a royalty check, never see money beyond the original advance. Some authors only make money the years they receive advances.
Okay, we're going to end this weekend's links on a lighter note. Maybe. Take a look at 7 (More) Children's Books by Famous "Adult" Lit Authors at Brain Pickings. My personal favorite is the first one, The Crows of Pearblossom, by Aldous Huxley. It's about a crow couple who are having no luck at all starting a family because a rattlesnake that lives below their tree keeps eating their eggs. Seriously. It eats 297 of them. They trick the snake into eating two stone eggs, which, as you might guess, kills him. They then go on to live happily ever after, I guess, with the 60-plus children they proceed to produce. There is a Greek tragedy element to this story that appeals to me.
The July/August issue of the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators' Bulletin has a review by Karen J. McWilliams of Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author by Patricia Fry. In the review, McWilliams describes "endorsements," particularly from other writers. After reading Promote Your Book, McWilliams realized that "...when an author...comments on my book, she can include free ads about her own novels...Ms. Fry said encorsements should be displayed on the front and back covers and also listed in the inside front matter, another way for authors and endorsers to advertise for free."
Endorsements here are what many of us refer to as blurbs. For a long time, I've realized that writers blurbing other writers' books were getting free advertising because their name, perhaps listed as "author of Blah Blah in Blah," would appear on thousands of books without them having to pay a cent. Some serious motivation for writers to wrack their brains for something nice to blurb, is it not? But for me to be thinking that in my cynical and jaded way is one thing. For me to see that other people have not only reached the same conclusion but are pointing out that this is a low-cost promotional technique for enterprising authors is quite another. I am feeling even more cynical and jaded right now, and not in a witty, Peter O'Toolish way.
Fortunately, I saw the announcement for the winners of the Lukewarm Cover Blurb Contest at A Brain Scientist's Take on Writing, and it made me feel better about being cynical and jaded. Personally, I would have voted for the second place winner, whose entry begins with "This is a book that no one else on earth would even have conceived of writing" and ends with "I couldn't get through it fast enough."
I’ve spent the past week or so exploring e-books, in preparation for the creation of the enhanced electronic version of TRACKING TRASH. Among the gems I’ve discovered so far is E.O. Wilson’s LIFE ON EARTH. What is available now is only an introduction to the enhanced textbook that will eventually be available, but the introduction is free–and stunning–so I recommend checking it out if you have the devices to do so.
To me, LIFE ON EARTH is an incredibly well-done glimpse into exactly what an enhanced e-book can do. As a codex-clutching skeptic, I thought I’d never be converted. Oh, my. If I’m not converted, I’m at least intrigued. This is not the textbook of old. It includes the same information, but presented in engaging ways that enhance understanding and didn’t for a moment distract me as a reader. There is footage of E.O. Wilson in the field, animations of cellular components, stunning full color image galleries, and more, all accessible (or not) as often as you like. Of all the e-books I’ve explored so far, the textbook genre is the one in which the electronic format makes the most sense.
Also? I think E.O. Wilson is a national treasure. In a short video interview introducing the chapter on small creatures, which you can see above, he explains why he has spent a lifetime studying ants. They are abundant and easy to find, he explains, simple to study and intensely interesting. And then, with a boyish chuckle that melts the part of me that so admires passion, he adds “I honestly cannot understand why most people don’t study ants!”
Me either, Mr. Wilson. Me, either.
Venetia Butterfield over at the Penguin blog via Jacket Flap has been chatting about creating blurbs. Now, her job is to write all that delightful jacket copy that we the readers use to decide if we're going to read a book. Sometimes that copy is an excellent representation, sometimes you read copy (not hers I'm sure) that's so off from the actual book that you wonder if the person who wrote it read a single page of the book.
Now, since I work at significantly smaller operations that Penguin, I have to write the blurbs for the books I edit myself. It's a vexing, difficult job. You have to write enough to entice the reader, but not enough to give the story away. You can't be misleading. It's much harder than writing a review since you can't give an opinion. (And admitedly, what I post on this site can only loosely be termed a "review.") And since I generally like, if not downright love, my books, my opinion is a bit biased anyway.
Occassionally, though, I find that someone else, namely the author, writes a better blurb for the book in question. So, I thought I'd show 3 blurbs for 3 different books. I wrote one of them, and the authors wrote the other 2. You're challenge: which one did I write? Which one is your favorite? Which one is my favorite? I'm putting them in order of the books' publication date.
Bad Girls Club (no relation to the TV show)
Book releases in Spring of 2007 (Ok, so I can't remember the date off the top of my head, and I'm to lazy to open my calendar.)
Destiny has a secret. She’s been told not to tell anyone what happened to her, her mom, and her little sister at Crater Lake. She also can’t tell anyone that sometimes her sister is covered in bruises. Her friends all want her to report her parents, but Destiny won’t tell the school counselor. If she does, it could cost her little sister’s life or possibly her own. When the secret becomes too much to carry and the truth she knows becomes a lie, Destiny has to make a decision. Will she fi nd the strength to speak the truth or will she drown in the lies? Will she discover her own worth and the voice she needs to cry it out, or will she remain what her mother has always called her -- a bad girl?
From the Desk of Septina Nash: The Penguins of Doom
Book releases on 7/7/07
Dear Reader,
In order to make this book I had to escape from a mad scientist, adopt a trio of wild penguins, become an Olympic freestyle skateboarder, collect a whole bunch of empty yogurt containers, and fi nd my missing tripletsister. In order to enjoy it, all you have to do is read every page.
Thanks for doing your part!
Sincerely,
Septina Nash,
Main Character
Knowing Joseph
Book releases in the Fall of 2007 (again I can't remember the date)
Brian would give anything to have a normal nine year-old brother — one that doesn’t scream, that normal sounds are not too loud for, or just a brother who would play with other kids. But no matter how often he pretends not to know him, Brian has to face that he doesn’t have a normal brother. He has Joseph, his autistic brother.
Life with Joseph isn’t easy. Joseph needs order and structure, which is something other kids find weird. Brian connstantly finds himself defending Joseph from kids that understand Joseph even less than Brian does. It takes a new friend and a school project before Brian can begin to truly know Joseph.
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You wrote Bad Girls Club.
Spetina Nash is your favorite.
Septina Nash is my favorite.
When do we get the answers?
Um... Nathan Hale? That's my answer and I'm sticking with it.