Basics of the Book Cover Blurb
Painless pointers for a frequently dreaded task
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You’ve written your book and you’re on a writer’s high. Congratulations! You’ve put together an entire book draft, which is more than many people will accomplish in their writing lives.
It’s smooth sailing from this point, right? Hire an editor, get that baby formatted, hire a cover artist, and boom, you’re good to go.
So why are you hearing the soundtrack of the scariest part of a horror movie running through your head?
Oh . . . it’s time to write that back cover blurb.
No pressure. It’s only the make-or-break cluster of words that will make people want to buy your book or doom you to failure.
But you know what? As much as writers dread the task of putting together the blurb, it doesn’t have to be the push over the edge for your sanity. You just have to go about it with focus and purpose, and the rest will (mostly) fall into place.
What is a book blurb?
The blurb on the back of your book’s cover tells the reader what your book’s about. It hooks them. It makes them want to buy what they’re reading.
The information that goes into your blurb is similar to what people call “the elevator pitch.” What can you tell someone in the time it takes to ride floor to floor that will make them want what you’re offering?
Keep in mind that a back cover blurb is different from your book’s synopsis—that information you put together for publishers that covers major plot points—and it’s not a review, either. Your blurb isn’t quite the same as a description on Amazon (though the description may include the back cover blurb).
The book’s blurb is a key part of your marketing strategy because it entices readers and causes them to want more. Just like any marketing, it creates a need that only your product can fill.
How long should a blurb be?
This is probably the hardest part about writing your blurb. It needs to give a lot of information but not too much. It needs to tell everything but not give away anything. And it needs to be brief and to the point while feeling like it’s enough.
You know all those great things you expanded on to make your book rich, full of life and imagery, and long enough to tell the story well? Ignore that and chop it down to its essence. In other words, take those 85,000 beautiful words and only use 150 of them.
Yes, that’s right. The most common recommendation is to use ten sentences or fewer. This may vary between fiction and nonfiction, but as a general rule, less is more. If you pull a few books off your shelves to verify this, I think you’ll be surprised at the low number of actual sentences on the back.
For adult books: 100–200 words, 250 at most, but aim for 150
For children’s books: 75–100 words
What information should you include?
There’s a lot of helpful information available online about blurb writing, and I encourage you to search if you want even more details and how-to advice, but there are some common factors everyone agrees should be mentioned:
your main character
the situation, problem, or conflict (conflict in the blurb should be external/situational, not internal for the character)
the stakes or the hopeful possibility
the mood (humorous, dark, suspenseful)
the hook—the reason why a reader will relate or want it
If you’re unsure of what, exactly, you want to tell, one of the easiest ways to research is to find other books in your chosen genre and see what they did. You’ll find a commonality in the features.
For example, a nonfiction book’s back cover copy may include a few accolades such as five-star reviews from famous people endorsing it. It may (and should) include the author’s professional credentials, since many nonfiction books are informative, and people want assurance that you know what you’re talking about.
Nonfiction back cover blurbs also often include a summary of what you can find in the book. People who read a lot of self-help books, for example, want to know if the information in your book is any different from the other books they’ve read, or if it includes something special they’re looking for.
What you should NOT include
If your book is nonfiction, don’t mislead your potential readers by being “clever” and making the back cover sound like fiction to intrigue them. And don’t say your book is sci-fi if it’s actually romance set in space. They’ll only get angry.
If your book is fiction, do not—and I can’t stress this enough—include spoilers of any type. Don’t even hint at them, no matter how much you want to. Think of it this way: have you ever seen a movie trailer that included pretty much every high point or funny line, and when you finally watch the whole movie you realize you’d already seen the best parts? You don’t want your reader to think they could have read only the blurb and skipped buying the actual book.
Don’t include “too much of everything.” Readers want to look at the back cover and take it all in within a handful of seconds.
You may think it’s important to list the names of five different recipes from your cookbook to entice the reader, but most likely it will just contribute to a jumble of words without context. What makes “Garden Club Cream Puffs” so exciting? Nothing, unless you’re already reading the book and find that everything in the “Garden Club” section of the book is a tongue-in-cheek reference to all the recipes that include alcohol.
What else should you leave out? Bragging. Yes, believe it or not, that’s a thing that happens. Your reader doesn’t want to hear how great you are, or how great your story is. They want to know why they should want to read it. Telling them it’s the next best thing since The Hobbit or that it’s a series that rivals the Hunger Games trilogy doesn’t tell them anything about what’s in YOUR book.
A final note on what not to include: no clichés or anything trendy. You want your book’s back cover to be evergreen, not full of phrases and references that confuse people if they read it ten years from now.
How to structure your blurb
Fiction:
Set it up by introducing your character and setting the tone of the book. Tell your reader a little about the conflict that seems unsolvable. Talk about the major obstacles the character encounters. Create some intrigue around the main conflict. Appeal to their emotions with something they can relate to—what’s at stake?— so they’re rooting for a happy ending . . . or a satisfying one, at least, where justice is served.
Sometimes the blurb starts with trios. The trio of sentences or a trio of words seem equally popular. I love what author Kim M. Watt does with her blurbs. Here are the first lines of the book blurb for A Manor of Life & Death, the third in her Beaufort Scales cozy mysteries: “Warring staff. ‘Accidental’ poisonings. Topiary of dubious intent.”
And sometimes, you just need a terrific one-liner, like in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief:
“When Death has a story to tell, you listen.”
Nonfiction:
Establish that you’re the expert (you’re the main character of your book, essentially). Tell the potential reader you understand their need and that you’ve written the book for/about them. Get them invested emotionally in what your book can do to help them with their conflict or need. Let them know a few key things your book includes that they should know if they want victory over their issue, or knowledge to achieve their goals, which will lead to their ultimate happiness.
I’m a huge fan of June Casagrande’s books that help writers to write, punctuate, and fix the grammar of their sentences. They’re always fun and hugely informative. I picked up the first one because the title made me laugh (Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies) but the back cover blurb’s first sentence was what sold me: “When writing a ‘Dear John’ letter, do you fret over whether to hyphenate ‘chronic halitosis’?”
Be encouraged!
Writing the back cover blurb isn’t the end of the world. It can actually be a good exercise as you write the book.
Some professionals advise writing the back cover blurb before even writing your manuscript. One line of thought is that a well-written blurb will inspire the author to write a better book—one that lives up to the hype of the back cover blurb, fulfilling the promise made to the reader when their attention is grabbed.
I read one article that said to write a blurb before you start your manuscript, then write another when you’re at a key point in the story arc, then another as you get close to finishing the story, just to see how the blurb changes shape.
Other thoughts on writing the blurb first (or at least midway through the writing of the manuscript) is that you don’t put off the harder task for last. Once you type “the end,” the last thing you want to do is figure out how to take those tens of thousands of words and figure out which 150 of them make for the best marketing.
In any case, it’s a good idea to write more than one. Try a few different styles to see which one feels best! You never know what will resonate with the most readers.
If you’re struggling to write the perfect blurb (or the perfect handful of blurbs to choose from), I offer a book blurb development edit for a small fee. I won’t write it for you, but I’ll help you to rewrite it to make it stronger.
