Writing a Book Blurb

In November, you probably wrote madly and got a lot of words down for the story of your dreams.

You now have to take a step back and figure out what it is you’ve got. If you don’t know what you have, you’re not likely to get very far trying to fix it.

In my Self-Editing Guide, I recommend letting a manuscript rest for a week for every 10,000 words you wrote. So a 50,000 word story should rest five weeks – ie. go have a good time with your holidays and pick it up again in January. If you wrote even more lengthily, consider the end of January.

But I know you won’t. So, here’s something you can do before you start.

Write your blurb

A blurb is the marketing copy that you often see on a book’s Amazon listing, on the back cover, or inside the front cover of a hardcover book jacket. Its job is to entice readers to buy and read the book.

You want to make sure readers will find the setting, situation and characters intriguing. Look at books that are in the same genre as your story. Use words that suggest the tropes that appear in your story.

Age-gap romance – “Freshman college student” and “Divorced mom”

Workplace romance – “New intern” and “Jet-setting vice president”

Mystery – “Dead men might tell no tales, but several dead women could tell Pottersville coroner Abby quite a lot.”

Fantasy – “Wish River separates the world of sprites from the world of Man, and Lilibet has been warned many times not to cross. But the warrior she saw attacked by other men needs her help.”

1. Keep it to 200 words or less. The sweet spot is about 150.
2. Don’t go into pre-story things. Stick with the situation at the opening of the story.
3. Keep your character descriptions simple, and focus on motivations and conflicts.
4. Give physical description only as much as it affects the plot.

Get writers in your circle of friends to give you feedback about what parts of the blurb catch their interest or feel irrelevant.

Revise. Then…

Hire a cover artist and schedule an editor

Now that you have a blurb, you can use it to talk to others about your book. If you’re going the route of traditional publishing, you can include the blurb in your cover letter (there’s more to it, but that’s a start).

If you are planning to independently publish, you can use the blurb to hire a cover artist and schedule an editor. Cover artists are going to take anywhere from 1-3 months to do their work, and an editor may be booked out several months already.

Self-editing should be done while the cover artist is working. With a deadline in mind to give it to an editor, you won’t get yourself caught in a self-editing loop and never move forward.

~ Lara