Back Cover Text, Book Blurbs, and Other Fun Stuff

Everyone assumes the hardest part of any journey to publication is finishing

that first draft, but it really just takes time, patience, coffee, therapy,

medication, etc… For me, the hardest part was trying to write a back cover

“blurb.” Yes. A paragraph was harder to write than my short story collection

Humans and Their Creations. The main issue is the daunting question, “How do I

describe all of that hard work in a single paragraph, when the work itself

contains _____+ paragraphs?”

It’s a lot harder than it looks, but with a few tips, tricks, notecards, and

some more medication, you’ll have a back cover blurb all your own… And maybe

even a few new favorite medications, but we’ll cover that another time (I don’t

condone drug use, just by the way. Drugs are bad. Don’t do them. Don’t go pilfering your grandma’s cabinet for her heart pills. Those are bad, too).

Now, here is my list of tips. Follow them, if you dare:

NOTECARDS ARE YOUR FRIEND

There are no rules to how you should go about making your back cover text, but my own personal rule of thumb is that it should be no longer than a fairly small notecard. Granted, your hand-writing can make a big difference, so playing with different notecard sizes could be beneficial for you, but I push for you to go for handwritten words during this process. Even if your book was written in Word or Scrivener, I would write the drafts of my book blurb on a notecard. Size is a major factor because you can go nuts in a word document, and it’s hard to tell just how large your paragraph is. If you have a book cover designer already, I’d go ahead and ask him/her what they think the ample size is, then I don’t think it would matter too much whether you use a word document or a notecard, but your designer will thank you, regardless.
YOU WILL HAVE MULTIPLE DRAFTS

Just like your book, you’ll probably have multiple drafts, and these aren’t necessarily for editing purposes. You probably will want to have multiple versions to choose from. Remember, you’re not married to the first one you write. This is a process – not too different from dating. You’re getting to know your book and its blurb, but you’re not married to any one blurb. Be comfortable with the amount of versions you may end up with. Quantity isn’t always a bad thing, especially when trying to decide which is of the best quality. Remember that.
HAVE BETA READERS READY TO GO

With the length of your book blurb a lot less than the actual book, hopefully, it won’t take very long for a few blurbs to come out of the woodwork. So, have some readers ready. I’d personally go for readers who have never beta’d your book and who have no hard, emotional ties to you. You want honesty, not a couple of butt pats and a gold-star. Plus, you want them to pick up your book like they would in a book store. They know barely anything about it, except what is on that back cover and what is revealed in the cover. Have them ready, then give them your top 3 versions. Anymore and you may be diluting their focus and excitement. If there isn’t an excellent response for anyone, then pull out the next three, or go back to the drawing board.
MENTION YOUR MAIN CHARACTER’S NAME

This is probably common sense, but you’d be surprised how many writer’s fail to mention their character’s name. Don’t get so caught up in the plot that you’re too busy talking about events than the character that will experience them. Your MC will be your reader’s guide, whether it be the narrator, a girl, a boy, a couple, a group, whatever. Name them. Name them in the blurb.
CREATE MOVEMENT IN YOUR BLURB

Just like in your book, you want to grab and hold your reader’s attention. In this case, this may determine whether or not a reader buys your book or not, so you want it to represent your book in the best way possible. So, in approximately five sentences, you have to grab a reader. Mention your character’s name, then, without giving away too much info, put them through hell (or heaven. Depends on how your book goes). Make the reader want to see and support your character through their journey. What about your book excited you? What part had you crying along with your character? What scared your character? If it elicited an emotional response from you, it’s probably worth adding to the blurb.

These are just a couple of the many things you can do, but I think these are key to making a great back cover book description-thingy. What do you think? Anything you’d like to add? How do you create your back cover blurbs? Let me know and comment below!

Thanks for reading!

-Lissy

Filed under: Writing Tips