How do you like your blurbs?
I know I’m supposed to talk about book series but I wasn’t particularly motivated to do that. Or perhaps I was too motivated and didn’t want to rant. Either way, I think the topic of blurbs on books is more interesting.
Blurbs are essential to book buying and selling. Beyond the title and cover, they are the single most essential part to whether someone will buy a book or not. After that comes excerpts which I’ll get to in another post.
Will the blurb entice the reader enough to overlook perhaps a bad cover? Or will the blurb ruin a great cover? Is the blurb too lengthy? Too short? Contain typos? Mistakes?
All of these are considerations when writing a blurb but as a reader, what do you look for in a blurb?
In my opinion, a great blurb should contain a few of the key themes to the book. I always look for the core of the book in a quick skim. Is it a comedy? Romance? Parody? Drama? Thriller? Who are the main characters and what is the essential focus. One’s closeted or one’s straight or one is a witness on the run or so on. I want to know the basic facts but without needing to know the entire story and ruin why I should read the book. A great blurb should also omit any random facts or characters that aren’t important.
If the book is about two men falling in love while getting over the death of a lover, it’s not important to name the dead lover and may confuse the reader who skims the blurb looking for the main names only to encounter three names. If the token character is named in a romance, readers may confuse the book with a ménage even if the blurb says the two people are sleeping together and one is just a friend. Similarly if several are named in a blurb for a book this could leave readers confused who the main character is/are.
Additionally there is always talk amongst authors about ending a blurb with a question. This seems to be universally shunned as horrible but do readers really care. Do you really think is a stupid, vapid convention? I mean on the one hand, the question is redundant. You know the couple will live happily ever after if it’s a romance and if it’s a thriller, no one is too worried the main character will die. There are a few common safety nets that allow readers to disregard the questions on blurbs since most readers already know the answer. So why ask the question in a blurb?
More importantly, how do readers feel about a blurb ending in a question? Does it even matter or simply ignorable?
And finally… readers, what do you want in your blurbs? What are the key things you look for when reading a blurb for a book you’re considering buying?
Posted in Ramblings
Wow, Kassa, I’m glad you asked! You’ve already covered one of my main gripes in a blurb — too much information where you’re getting the dead lover’s name and so forth.
I’d advise writers to pare the info down to the absolute minimum in a blurb. We should be able to read the blurb and tell what type of story it is (comedy, thriller, paranormal, etc). The blurb should also present a distilled version of the essential conflict: hero wants X and Y is the obstacle standing in his way.
And since it’s m/m romance, it would probably be good to work in a very succinct mention of the love interest. Hero meets mysterious man, or hero can’t ignore his attraction to his coworker, or hero can’t forget his ex-boyfriend, or whatever.
The whole blurb has to be as succinct as possible, in my opinion. And this, “Additionally there is always talk amongst authors about ending a blurb with a question. This seems to be universally shunned as horrible but do readers really care. Do you really think is a stupid, vapid convention?”
I had to laugh! I’ve been doing the question thing big time when I rewrite people’s blurbs in my reviews (I need to get back to doing this). It’s hard to know how to end a blurb sometimes and so it seemed convenient (probably because it’s a cliche, ha, ha!) I hadn’t even known that it’s a stupid, vapid convention, but now that you mention it, I can see what you mean. That’s good to know!
Hi Val, thanks for stopping by!
Your comment is great advice. Should you do a “how to write a blurb” post on your blog, please be sure to include those do’s and dont’s. Many can learn that from that.
As for the question, I honestly don’t mind it but I do think it’s funny that many reviewers and authors slam this convention. I think it’s a quick and easy way to convey a point but perhaps these days quick and easy means lazy. Interesting!
Ahhh, the joy of blurbs.
I’ll start with the easy question first and say that I really dislike when a blurb ends with a question. It won’t really make me not buy a book, but it seems a bit sloppy to me. Authors/publishers should be putting as much effort into a blurb as is put into a book, since the blurb is often the first introduction for readers. What’s being said in a question can be presented in the blurb, and often in a much better way, without posing a question. To me the question makes it seem that the assumption is readers won’t be able to figure out the conflict of the book so it needs to be presented in the simplest way possible.
When I read a blurb, I’m looking for many of the same things you are. Some idea of what the book is going to be about, what genre it is, what the general driving force of the plot will be, who the main characters are going to be. But as you say, there’s a fine line between enough and too much information.
Blurbs need to be quick teasers. I may not officially have ADD but I don’t have a lot of free time and when looking at new book releases, I don’t want to be reading a blurb for 5 minutes. A blurb will really only hold my attention for a few sentences (yeah I’m bad) before I start scanning, which is bad if the blurb hasn’t grabbed my attention from the beginning as I might pass on a book that I would really like. If the blurb grabs me from the beginning I’ll keep reading, but it doesn’t happen often enough.
A personal pet peeve is blurbs with errors or typos in them. I immediately worry about the book having issues as well. Yes, publishers are responsible for posting blurbs to their site, and often even write the blurb, but authors need to take some ownership once the blurb is up to make sure there are no errors.
A good blurb will lead me to buy the book, no matter the cover or even the excerpt. A bad blurb makes me look to something else to provide a reason why I should buy the book, and it gets much harder to convince me it’s a book I want to read.
I admit I’ve a fondness for a blurb that ends in a question. For me, it is such a great tease… if they get it right and don’t reveal too much about the conflict and climax of the story, that is.
Which brings me to my biggest bug bear about blurbs… the ‘too much information’. I find that ebooks are particularly bad for this. I don’t know how many times I’ve read a blurb and thought to myself ‘well, what’s the friggin’ point in reading that now when you know exactly what’s going to happen?!’
For me, a blurb is meant to entice me to want to find out more about the story. Anything over two paragraphs comprising maybe 2-3 sentences is way too much for me. I want to know who the protags are, including a broad descriptor, what the main premise/theme/storyline is and a hint of the conflict.
I also despise blurbs that are editted poorly. There is absolutely no excuse for this when it’s the blurb which is generally the main tool for selling books. The worst thing that I have read – and I think I mentioned this before at either yours or Val’s site, Kassa – was a character being called by the wrong name in what was a long blurb. It was embarrassing and obviously a major turn off for me as a reader.
I think you hit it exactly Kris. I think in ebooks there are no limits worrying about space on the back of a book or the inside cover flap or trying to fit onto the physical book so authors go crazy offering all kinds of information. That’s one of the biggest problems readers seem to have. Check out Liquid Silver blurbs… well don’t because then there’s no point reading their books.
I agree with you on bad editing. If the blurb contains mistakes, you KNOW the main book is going to be littered with problems. Just because the blurb is error free doesn’t mean the book will be but your chances are higher at least.
Thanks for commenting! Your continued support means a lot, especially since I know how busy you are.
I have to admit I suck at blurbs. I never know exactly what to put in and what to leave out. I’ve always tried to do without the question at the end, though.
“Read this book. It’s heaps good.”
You should try that blurb. *_*
Ok, maybe not but *I* would buy a book that said that. And if it was heaps good I’d write an equally succinct review: “ditto.”
For me a blurb should give just enough information about the book to entice me to buy. Recently I’ve noticed that blurbs are almost a page long and I wonder why that is. Are the authors having that much difficulty explaining what the book is about or do they think readers need paint by numbers? Because I include the blurbs in my reviews it’s frustrating when half of the review is taken up by the blurb.
There’s an art to writing excellent blurbs that make a reader want to buy a book, and a lot of authors haven’t mastered this. I did a post on blurbs sometime ago and suggested that maybe publishers should hire marketing experts to help the authors convey what is between the covers of a book since blurbs are such important marketing tools.
Hi Wave, thanks for stopping by!
I agree on longer blurbs being really annoying. In fact when blurbs are longer than normal I rarely include more than a sentence or two to sum up the book because then the reader has read first the blurb, then a lengthy summary and by the end of the now long review – they know the entire book without reading it.
There’s also the short or long blurbs that don’t actually get to the heart of the conflict and book. THey dance around with the action that takes place in the beginning while ignoring conflict towards the end so readers have no clue there may be big questions at the end.
I think they should have blurb writers as traditional publishers already know this and employ such. But of course the e-publishing industry tries to cut corners absolutely everywhere and god forbid they put sufficient time, energy, and money into great cover art, impecible editing, and great blurbs.
I trained as a journalist, so I lean toward brevity in blurbs. My goal is always one hundred words, and it’s something of a game to see how close I can get without losing anything essential. Pith FTW!
I think brevity is always preferred over too much. At least from what I can tell. You’ve got it right : D
I like Amber Quill’s way of doing it.
The Back of the Book Blurb should be about 150 words
The Quick Blurb should be about 50.
The Teaser is 25.
It’s a REAL challenge sometimes.
The best time to write a blurb (as I’ve said before) is in that heady first flush of acceptance. Write it, sign the contract, do the Author info sheet, it’s all the early paperwork. That way you haven’t been through Editing Hell and aren’t sick of the book. Makes you less likely to write “Stinks like a bantha dropping at double-sun noon” into the description.
LOL@Angelia. I would probably still buy that book, because the blurb made me laugh.
I have the dickens of a time writing blurbs, but one thing I have been trying to do these days is keep ‘em short. Was quite proud of myself when my most recent blurb was just one paragraph.
I like brevity in blurbs when I am looking to buy. I want to know the names of the *main* characters, the key conflict and a bit of a teaser about the ending. Never thought about the ‘questions within blurbs’ thing. I don’t think it would bother me, or turn me off buying.