Maybe you spent ten years writing your novel, but you still only have ten seconds to sell it to a potential reader browsing in a bookshop. Somehow, in those ten seconds, you need to intrigue them enough to buy your book… and that’s why you need to know how to write a blurb.
What’s So Important About Writing a Good Blurb?
There are only a few ways people really choose books:
- Someone recommends it to them.
- It’s by an author they already like.
- They’re attracted by the title, the cover, the blurb, and the first page.
The first two possibilities are largely out of our hands, which leaves the title, cover, blurb and first page as the only things we can control.
I’ve already written articles about how to choose a title and how to design a book cover. Now here are my thoughts on how to write a blurb that works.
How to Write a Blurb: Purpose
First, we need to understand the single purpose of a blurb:
To get the potential reader to buy your book.
Getting the potential reader to hand over money for your book is literally the only purpose of a blurb. The cover design and the title must have already attracted their attention enough for them to have picked your book up, so we’re partway there. Now we need to get them to decide to buy it.
Remember, the reader is likely to just glance at the blurb in a bookshop, surrounded by hundreds of other books all competing for their attention. The blurb has maybe ten seconds to convince the reader not to move on to the next book on the pile. It has to intrigue them, and fast. This is the most important thing to remember when writing your blurb.
How to Write a Blurb: Elements
A blurb includes five elements:
- Tagline: A catchy phrase that encapsulates your book’s essence.
- Endorsements: Positive reviews or recommendations from respected sources.
- Author Comparisons: References to similar, well-known authors to position your book.
- Book Quote: A memorable line from your novel that showcases your writing style.
- Main Text: The heart of your blurb that hooks the reader.
Tagline
A Tagline is a catchphrase or slogan for the book. It’s the line that will appear on the movie poster when a Hollywood studio films your novel. It should intrigue and it should make the genre clear. So if the book is a thriller, the tagline should be thrilling, for a mystery, it should be mysterious, for a comedy, it should be funny. Etc. etc.
For example, the Tagline for my novel A Kill in the Morning was:
For a much more detailed look at taglines, see How to Write a Tagline for Your Novel.
Endorsements
What you’re trying to do with endorsements is provide proof that your book is worth reading,
Endorsements include things like:
- Positive reviews
- Recommendations from other authors (particularly bigger-name authors)
- Awards and prizes won
- Bestseller status (if you have it)
For example, A Kill in the Morning had an endorsement from Stephen Baxter, a far bigger name author than me, on the front cover. It also had snippets from the best reviews and more author endorsements on the inside cover. Similarly, a statement such as “Author of [your previous novels]” reminds the reader that it’s by “an author they already like”, which is one of the few ways people really choose books.
Author Comparison
Author comparisons are an attempt to position debut authors in the market by comparing them with established authors. The potential reader might not have heard of you, but maybe they’ve read and enjoyed the bigger name, bestselling authors referenced.
For example, the promotional copies of A Kill in the Morning had this comparison:
Take the meticulous research of Robert Harris’s Fatherland, the spy thrills of Ian Fleming, the classic action of Alistair Maclean and Quentin Tarantino at his most maverick — and you’re coming close to A Kill in the Morning…
Similarly, I often see statements like “For readers of (author),” and I’ve even seen statements like “Better than (author) or your money back!” both of which are similar author comparison strategies.
Quote From the Book
This is simply a memorable passage or aphorism from your novel.
Quotes are useful because they give a good impression of the style of your writing.
Again, the quote should make the genre clear. So if the book is a thriller, it should be thrilling. If it’s a comedy, it should be funny. If it’s a romance, it should be romantic. Etc. etc.
The first line of the novel might be useful here, because you should have already spent a long time honing that line to make sure it hooks the reader.
The quote in the blurb for A Kill in the Morning was the opening line:
Main Text
Your main text is where you take a reader who’s already somewhat interested after reading the tagline etc. and really convince them to buy the book.
It should:
- Start with a powerful hook to grab the potential reader’s attention with your first sentence. There are several types of hook:
- Humour. Making the reader laugh always works.
- Mystery. People are hard-wired to want to know the answers to questions.
- Cognitive dissonance. Like mystery, a paradox can be intriguing.
- Describing the high concept.
- Introduce your main characters and their central conflict
- Set the tone of the story
- Make the genre crystal clear
- Create intrigue without giving away too much of the plot
Optional Sixth Element: Statement of Genre
Many genre novels, particularly self-published ones, use statements like: “An assassin thriller” or “A billionaire romance”.
Clearly, this makes the genre niche the novel inhabits clear, but it should already be clear from the book cover design and the way the blurb is written.
That’s why it’s optional—it shouldn’t be necessary.
Still, if you think the main selling point of your novel is its attractiveness to a very specific group, then directly telling them, “This is for you, picaresque, time-travelling, tragicomic, romance lovers!” may work.
Is a Blurb the Same as a Logline?
My Killogator logline formula is well known, and I’ve helped a lot of people develop their loglines. Some of them have asked me about the difference between a logline and a blurb.
Although the blurb and a logline both try to sell your novel, they have different audiences.
- A logline sells your story to potential agents and publishers
- A blurb sells your story to would-be readers
Unsurprisingly, different audiences have different concerns and selling a story to a publisher and selling it to a reader requires different approaches. The major differences are:
- A blurb is substantially longer than a logline.
- A logline focuses on premise and conflict, while a blurb creates intrigue
- A blurb sometimes includes quotes from the book
- A logline gives the whole story away, and a blurb doesn’t
For example, here’s the logline for A Kill in the Morning:
In an alternate 1955, a burnt-out British agent infiltrates Germany on an unauthorised mission to assassinate a calculating German spymaster. In Germany, he discovers the spymaster’s wonder weapon, and has to sacrifice everything to stop him using it to win the long cold war against Britain.
And here’s the main text of the blurb:
The year is 1955 and something is very wrong with the world. It’s fourteen years since Churchill died and the Second World War ended. In occupied Europe, Britain fights a cold war against a nuclear-armed Nazi Germany.
In Berlin, the Gestapo is on the trail of a beautiful young resistance fighter, and the head of the SS is plotting to dispose of an ailing Adolf Hitler and restart the war against Britain and her empire. Meanwhile, in a secret bunker hidden deep beneath the German countryside, scientists are experimenting with a force far beyond their understanding.Into this arena steps a nameless British assassin, on the run from a sinister cabal within his own government, and planning a private war against the Nazis. Now the fate of the world rests on a single kill in the morning…
You can see that the logline focuses on providing clarity on the core premise of the novel, while the blurb focuses on intriguing the reader.
(For more on loglines, see: How to write a killer logline)
Back Cover Versus Front Cover Blurbs
Elements of your blurb can appear on the front cover. The tagline and an endorsement often appear on the front cover. For example, you can see the “Never let evil out of your sights” tagline and the Stephen Baxter endorsement on the front cover of A Kill in the Morning, below:
If you are using an author comparison and/or statement of genre, they could go on the front cover too.
Obviously, though, the bulk of the blurb goes on the back cover.
Why is it Hard to Write a Blurb?
A bit like logline or synopsis writing, the chief difficulty with blurb writing is being too close to the story.
Readers are just looking for the core concept of your book. They’re looking for books that are the type of story they’re familiar with and enjoy, but not so similar that it’s predictable and boring. They want to know what makes your book ‘the same but different’ compared to other stories they already like.
So, first, focus on what is it about the premise of your novel that’s really going to hook a reader. Then focus on the characters. What is it about the characters that readers are going to love?
Sell not tell.
When you’re writing your blurb, you need to make a solemn promise to sell, not tell. It’s that important.
How To Write a Blurb: Common Mistakes
Again, we need to remember that people in bookshops aren’t paying careful attention, they’re just skimming through dozens of books. You have to get them to pay attention. You have to get them to think, “Oh, I love that kind of story” or they’ll just move on to the next book.
With this in mind, here are the five most common mistakes I see in blurbs:
- Burying the hook
- Omitting the tagline
- Blurb is too long
- Not making the genre clear
- Mismatching between blurb and novel
Burying the hook
Unless the first couple of sentence of the blurb grab the reader, you’ll lose them. If you’ve got a great concept but it’s not explained until the reader has read a hundred words, then many of them will never get here.
Omitting the tagline
A tagline is quick to read and grabs attention. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do, so why not have one?
Blurb is too long
This is the main problem with a lot of blurbs. Including too many details shows that the author hasn’t understood the art of blurb writing. Those details are important when the reader reads the story, but you’ve got to get them to read it first. Get to the heart of why someone should read it. Sell don’t tell.
Not making the genre clear
The first thing the blurb has to do is make the book’s genre, and even its niche sub-genre, crystal clear, so the potential reader knows it’s exactly the sort of thing they like. The book’s cover design should already have made the genre clear enough that the potential reader has picked the book up, but the blurb has to reinforce that impression, so match the style of the blurb to the content of the book.
If it’s fantasy, what kind of fantasy is it? If it’s a thriller, what kind of thriller is it? What niche does it occupy?
Think about what’s attractive to the reader about that genre niche and reflect that in the blurb. Every genre has its own conventions, and there’s a reason for that: readers are looking for clarity. So, choose your words carefully. Decide what draws readers to your genre niche and then emphasise the elements of your book that play to that niche.
Mismatch between Blurb and Novel
We’ve all read books that turn out not to be what we expected based on the blurb, and movies that were nothing like their trailers… every joke in the movie appearing in the trailer, for example.
Try to keep the tone of the blurb consistent with the content of the novel. If you’ve written a sci-fi novel and blurb makes it sound like a comedy, your readers will feel duped, your reviews will be poor and your sales will drop.
Trial and Error
Write multiple blurbs and see which people in your target audience like best. Don’t just write one blurb and show it to your family. That will not work. Write at least three different blurbs and test them all.
It’s all too easy to think ‘but I like this one’. The thing is, you aren’t trying to sell the book to yourself.
How to Write a Blurb: Conclusion
Crafting an effective book blurb is an art, but an art you can master. By understanding the blurb’s purpose (all together now… sell don’t tell) and avoiding the pitfalls I’ve outlined, we can create a blurb that compels readers to buy our books.
How to Write a Blurb: Things to Do
- Understand the purpose of a blurb is to “sell not tell”
- Look at the blurbs of some novels you own and identify the blurb elements
- Think about novels you bought in shops. What it was about those blurbs that attracted you?
- Practice by writing blurbs for three novels by authors you love.
- Create a blurb for your novel:
- Write a shortlist of three different blurbs for your own novel
- Mock-up book covers with the different blurbs.
- Trial your potential blurbs with people in your target audience
- Choose the blurb that gets the best response from the target audience, even if it’s not the one you personally prefer
Need Help?
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