Does this blurb lack essential elements? Too many elements?

[Alex]

My novel End Man, a speculative/Sci-Fi mystery, will be published in October 2022. The story contains some dark satire, and I want that to come across in the back cover blurb. Does it? Am I missing any conventional elements? Is it too long? Is the inciting incident clear? Should I add a sentence with the setting: "A resident of Los Angeles in the 2030s Raphael . . .

Raphael Lennon suffers from dromophobia, the fear of crossing streets. Fortunately, his dromophobia is limited to four streets; unfortunately, the four streets intersect to form a rectangle—roughly a square mile—out of which he cannot escape. Within his confines, Raphael skateboards, dodges Digital Luddites out to destroy technology, paints a massive mural that depicts his life within his square mile, and works a nine-to-five at an oddball company headquartered within his boundaries that tracks and markets the online remains of the deceased. Hug Your Dead Mother on a Norval Portal. Free One-Week Trial!

Employed in the Department of Marketing Necrology, Raphael specializes in unearthing "possums," people faking their deaths. The company goes to great lengths to keep the database pure. When Norval’s founder, Geo Maglio, assigns Raphael—the best possum hunter in the company— to a fresh case, Raphael must set aside all other work to investigate Jason Klaes, a maverick scientist with boundary-pushing theories on AGI and entanglement. Did Klaes commit suicide or is he alive and in hiding? Raphael uncovers messages sent by Klaes after his supposed death—threats to people who have died under suspicious circumstances. As Raphael digs deeper, he receives his own message from Klaes, an exhortation to pursue the truth even if it means sacrificing his own life. The fate of humanity hanging in the balaance, Raphael must break out of his phobic prison to solve the Klaes Case and thwart his company's entry into a chilling spin-off of its product.

[WJ]

It's a bit long. I'm no expert, just a passionate amatuer writer. I'd recommend cutting most of your first paragraph and distilling the remainder of the blurb so that we know the stakes and the main conflict of your story. at the moment the stakes are lost in too much world-building crammed in.

[Angela]

Before I say anything I'm going to preface this by saying I have no other professional qualifications other than the fact that I like to read.

^ I agree with what WJ said regarding the stakes; I feel like it's not explicitly clear what they are. I also think most of the first paragraph could be cut in favor of adding more information about the story itself. This is just a thought but maybe you could hint about the why behind his dromophobia? If it's a mystery it could spark more interest in the reader.

As for your questions — firstly I think the setting is perfectly clear. The tech elements integrated into the blurb make it obvious that the story is taking place in a futuristic setting. If you want to make it known that the story takes place in LA I would add only that part but I feel like it would be fine just introducing that in the novel itself.
The inciting incident is clear (I see it as when Raphael gets assigned the new case). Two things that are a no for me are the length and the satire — I think the size could definitely be cut down a bit for clarity and the dark satire elements aren't really coming across in the blurb for me.

These are just my thoughts!! Obviously, the one person who is going to know what's best for your story is you.

[J.R.]

I'll come at this from a different angle since you've already gotten some criticism on the content. In terms of writing back cover copy, say your front cover does its job, and the reader picks up your book and flips it over. They see two dense paragraphs of text staring back at them. White space - and brevity - is your friend. I would try to break up the text into at least 3-4 paragraphs and keep the copy to 200 words or less. You want your back cover to be skimmable, and white space & being brief aid with that.

(Plus, you only have so much space on the back cover depending on your book's trim size, and you might want to put something else back there, like a review snippet.)

[A.M.]

Okay, I stumbled on this at 3:30 am and thought I'd have some fun. Here's what I came up with which is not perfected in anyway, but it gives you an idea.


Raphael Lennon suffers from Dromophobia, the fear of crossing streets. Unfortunately, his life is limited to four streets, which intersect to form a rectangle—roughly a square mile—out of which he cannot escape. Within his confines, he works nine-to-five at an oddball company that tracks and markets the spiritual remains of the deceased. Hug Your Dead Mother on a Norval Portal. Free One-Week Trial!

His specialty is unearthing "possums," people faking their deaths. When his boss assigns Raphael—the best possum hunter in the company— to a maverick scientist with boundary-pushing theories on AGI and entanglement, he drops everything to investigate. Did Jason Klaes commit suicide, or is he alive and in hiding?

Raphael might know the answer to that question when he receives a cryptic message from Klaes after his supposed death, an appeal to pursue the truth even if it means sacrificing his own life. Raphael must break out of his phobic prison to solve the Klaes Case and thwart his company's entry into a chilling spin-off of its product. Or the fate of humanity might never recover.

Or words to that effect. I put spiritual at the top because it made more sense to me. I might be missing something. Also your version reads that the dead man sent a message asking Raphy to pursue the case? I took out the line before that about threats etc. because it contradicted his asking Raphael to find the truth at all cost, even his life. Hope it helps. It comes in at 186 words.