Weekly Writers: Writing A Good Blurb For Your Book

And various tips for doing so

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Blurb

I use blurb to mean the brief book description that goes on the back of a paperback book, or as an ebook description in an online store.

Top Tip: Writing A Compelling Blurb

A blurb aims to sell the emotion and story, to make it irresistible to the kind of reader who loves that genre. A good blurb tells us a number of things, as concisely as possible.

• The main character(s). A named person helps the reader to care. Generally only focus on the primary character (or two characters in some books, such as a romance).

• What do they want, and what is stopping them getting it? What difficult choice do they face, and what is at stake if they fail? This is what makes the reader want to know more, as a teaser for the storyline. There must be conflict to create tension.

• The setting (place, time period). This helps to attract the right reader and put off people who won’t enjoy it – fans of eighteenth century historical novels are different from fans of future dystopias.

• Clues to the type of book it is (genre, mood, tone). These are further attempts to define the experience being offered, to attract the right audience, and put off the wrong ones.

Give readers a sense of what they can expect from the book, capturing its tone and spirit. As such, I recommend writing it in the same voice and style in which the book is written. Funny, angry, bemused, acidic. The blurb’s voice should match the book’s, or the voice of the main character. If the book’s narrator is witty and sarcastic, the blurb should be witty and sarcastic. Is the book an ominous and richly worded gothic mystery? Again, the blurb should capture that voice. A blurb that captures the speech patterns, life and flavour of a character can be particularly striking.

A blurb done in this way is a good illustration of showing, not telling. An example might be a book with a comical protagonist who is a cheesy and crap superhero vigilante. A blurb based only on telling might have the flat and generic:

“Underpant Man must find the villain and clear his name. Follow his exciting and wacky adventures in this humorous novel.”

But it could be much better to show the book’s tone in the blurb:

“Holy Justice! Underpant Man is going to track down his nemesis if it’s the last thing he does (it may well be), and then it will be Kapow! time for sure.”

I should add that writing a blurb in character is a lot more fun to do, as well.

Most blurbs are written in the third person, present tense: “John Bigwhack is a golfer with a dark secret”. It’s a direct way of communicating the key information. However, like any rule, it can be broken if the end result works. So, for one of my books that is written in first person with a strong voice, I decided to write the blurb that way as well, to better indicate the tone of the book:

If you’re reading this: HELP! I’ve been kidnapped. Me and my big sister stayed together after our parents died. We weren’t bothering anybody. But some mean government agents came anyway, and split us up. Now I’m a prisoner on this space ship. The agents won’t even say where we’re going.

I hate them.

And things have started to get a bit weird. Nullspace is supposed to be empty, but when I look out of the skywindows I can see … something. Out there. And I think it wants to get in here. With us. My name is Clarissa. I am ten years old. And they will all be sorry when my big sister comes to rescue me.

My thoughts above all apply to fiction, but non-fiction needs a blurb as well. Although the process is different, we still need to indicate what the book is about, and tempt the (right) person to read on. In this case you may be identifying a problem the reader (rather than protagonist) faces, and how the book will help to solve it. It is fine to use bullet points in a non-fiction blurb, describing elements of what the book will offer the reader. You could end with a picture of what the reader’s life will be like after reading the book and implementing the book’s suggestions.

Some additional tips for all blurbs: