WRITING YOUR BOOK BLURB

So, you’ve spent months pouring your heart and soul into this manuscript and now you’ve got about three inches of space to summarize your masterpiece on the back cover. No one prepares you for how hard it’s going to be. No matter how many books I write, I struggle every single time I get to this point. Let me help you out with a few tips and tricks to make it a little more bearable.

First of all, don’t summarize. I know, it sounds crazy. But please don’t just lay out your entire plot for your audience before they’ve even opened your book. You want to give them hints, set your story up, give them a good hook to sink their teeth into, but don’t give them everything. The key to good writing is learning how to always leave them wanting more. That includes writing your book blurb.

Keep it brief. Your blurb should only be 100-150 words. It is going to be hard, fitting a novel’s worth of effort into only 100 words but you don’t have to! You’re excited. You want to give them all the best parts and explain things and shove it down their throats but believe me, playing it cool will go so much better. You can spend the whole blurb just talking up the book up without actually saying anything about what happens in it.

For example,

“In her breathtaking debut novel, All the Beautiful Things, Olivia Tillotson delicately weaves a gripping story of sun-soaked adolescence and heartbreaking tragedy that leaves her readers aching for more with each chapter.”

Could I tell you what that book is about, who the characters are, or what happens in it? No. Do I still want to read it? Yes. Fake it ‘till you make it. Maybe nobody has ever read your books. They don’t know that. Learn how to market and talk about yourself and your books as if you’re already a best-selling author. People want what other people want. All you have to do is convince your readers that you are in high demand, and they'll want to know what they’re missing out on. Now, am I telling you to overdo it? No. You need a lot more than this in your blurb, but incorporating a line or two to sell yourself to take up a little space can help those who struggle with giving away too much of their plot here.

Your book blurb should also create intrigue. Your readers should be so excited to read your book, they start on the first page before they’ve even left the bookstore. You need to create tension around your theme, main conflict, or characters before you’ve even really introduced them. The biggest mistake you can make in writing your blurb is believing that it is about explaining rather than enticing. Think of what draws you in to someone. Mystery, an interesting decision, something out of the ordinary and not easily explained away. Capture that feeling in your blurb.

My best piece of advice? Find five best-selling books in your genre and read their blurbs. Pinpoint similarities, what draws you to each one, and what you want to incorporate in your own. Then, write out three different versions of your back cover. Send them to a few friends and have them choose which they like, combine and rearrange the best parts of each, and send it back. Spend time on your blurb, it might be the most important thing you’ve written.