How do you write a book blurb that sells?

What is a blurb for?

A blurb makes the right reader want your book, and it does that for three audiences in turn.

• Agents and editors: include your blurb in every submission package. It shows, in a few lines, that you know what your book is and who it’s for.
• The publisher’s own team: an editor who loves your book still has to win over colleagues who haven’t read it. A clear blurb gives the editor words for meetings and the sell sheet, and helps the book compete for marketing attention.
• Readers: once the book is out, the blurb appears on the cover, on retailer pages and in catalogs.

A reader meets your blurb only after finding your book, so it does little for discovery. Its work is helping someone who’s already looking decide that this book is for them.

“Blurb” is also widely used for an endorsement, a quote of praise from another writer or a publication (source). Here, it means the selling description.

How is a blurb different from a synopsis?

A synopsis explains your whole story, ending included, while a blurb sells the opening situation and keeps the rest back. Agents ask for a synopsis to check that the plot holds together, so it gives everything away by design.

A blurb sets up a character and a problem, makes the reader care, and leaves them wanting the answer. It runs on curiosity, so it has to withhold.

That’s why a blurb written as a short synopsis falls flat. Squeeze a whole plot into 150 words and you get a list of events with no room for feeling. If your draft reads like that, start again from the character and the problem.

What goes in, and what stays out?

Put in a character, a problem and the stakes, and leave out almost everything else.

What goes in

• One character: usually your protagonist, with a detail or two that makes them specific.
• The problem: the event or pressure that sets the story moving.
• The stakes: what your character stands to lose, ideally something personal.
• Genre and tone: within a line or two, a reader should know what kind of book this is.
• A hint of what’s coming: enough to promise a payoff, and never the payoff itself.

What stays out

• Plot summary and backstory: those words will always do more good elsewhere.
• A crowd of names: one name, and maybe a place, will usually do.
• Spoilers: hint at a twist if you like, and stop there.
• Piled-up adjectives: calling your book gripping and unforgettable tells readers how to feel. Show them the situation instead.
• Comparisons to classics: “in the tradition of the great Victorian novelists” invites a comparison few books survive.
• Your biography and extracts: your bio has its own place, and a lifted passage means little to someone who hasn’t read the pages before it.

An invented example

Here’s a blurb for a fictional thriller, written to show these principles at work.

Nell Okafor has kept the Calder Island lighthouse burning for eleven years, and kept her past to herself for just as long. Then the supply boat stops coming. With the radio dead and winter closing in, she has to work out which of her eight neighbors knows why. One of them does. Another knows what she did.

It uses one name and one place. The problem arrives in the second sentence, the stakes tighten in the third, and the last two lines promise more without giving anything away.

How long should it be?

Aim for about 150 words on a retailer page, less on a crowded back cover, and keep a much shorter version for tighter spaces. Each place has its own conventions.

• Retailer pages: Amazon’s self-publishing guidance suggests about 150 words of short, easy-to-scan sentences, with a strong first one (source). Its limit is 4,000 characters, far more than a blurb needs. Make your opening lines able to stand alone, since a browser may read no further.
• Back covers and flaps: a paperback’s back cover shares its space with endorsements and a barcode, so the copy has to be tight. A hardback’s flaps give you more room, which is no reason to fill it.
• A short version: draft one of about fifty words as well. It’s handy for catalogs and social posts, and cutting that far shows you which words were doing the work.

What mistakes do agents see most?

Agents see plenty of blurbs that simply retell the plot, and plenty of submissions with no blurb at all. Without one, the agent has to work out the book’s appeal alone. These are the other common failings.

• The buried blurb: in a query letter, a pitch mixed in with biography and housekeeping is hard to find. Set it apart.
• The closing question: “Will she find the courage to face her past?” works only if the reader already cares about the answer.
• Self-praise: “a gripping page-turner” is a verdict for readers to reach. Coming from the writer, it carries little weight.
• Vague stakes: “nothing will ever be the same” could describe any book. Name what’s actually at risk.
• The rushed draft: a strong blurb can take days. Read it aloud, sleep on it, and try it on honest readers, ideally ones who aren’t related to you.