Well, good evening, my lovelies! I hope that you had a great week. And if not, I hope that this blog post makes it better.
Last week, I mentioned that one of the things I wish I had known before going into publishing was having an author biography.
Today, I want to share with you yet another thing I wish I had known about writing a book.
You need a blurb.
A what?
A blurb. A summary. A small synopsis to go on the back cover of your book, or maybe the front cover flap, if it’s a hardcover.
Why? Because when people pick up your book in a store – or buy it online – they want a summary of what it’s about.
Now, this is NOT a play-by-play of what happens in your book. People don’t want to know exactly what happened. You just want to whet their appetite – make them hungry for the meal! That means your book. Make them hungry for your book.
So, here’s what to remember when writing this wonderful blurb of yours.
It’s not an exact summary of your book. When I look for a book, I want to know the main character, the main conflict, and what is at stake. When people know the main character, they get invested. When they know the main conflict, they get interested. When they know what is at stake, they get intrigued and hopefully buy your book.
When I wrote a blurb for Undaunted and had Malachi read it over, he quickly told me that it was boring. Let’s be real – trying to write a blurb for the book that you just lovingly wrote can be tiring. You already wrote the manuscript, and now you need to make a five-sentence paragraph about it? (And that’s not a rule of thumb. I just picked a number). It was harder for me to write this blurb because I wanted to include everything that the book was about. But don’t do that. The blurb is just the appetizer, friends. The book is the meal. Make people hungry for the meal.
So, make your blurb short but exciting. That’s what I mean when I say to tell people what is at stake. If the main conflict doesn’t get resolved, what could happen? For the main character in Undaunted, one of the stakes is “what happens if the truth is found out? What happens if his secret is found out?” That’s a stake – what if everything doesn’t work out for him?
My mistake was making the summary short but unexciting. If you’re unsure about how your blurb sounds, ask people for help! Malachi helped me make the blurb exciting by adding in the keywords that I had forgotten to add, words like drugs, alcohol, and partying. Keywords that a young teenager would take notice of. Add in the keywords that your target audience will respond to, so know your audience!
Share enough to get people interested. Don’t under share; you risk the chance of making your reader feel unattached, and when they feel unattached, they won’t want to continue reading your book. If you overshare, your reader can get the feeling that they already read the book and won’t want to read it.
It’s a balance, writing this blurb. It can be tricky, my friend, but if you have a story to tell, then it’s worth it. God will give you everything you need to make your dream come to pass. Remember, He is more invested in you than you think.
Remember, you are deeply loved.
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