There are several ways to get people to read your book. The title, cover art, and book reviews quotes are just a few ways to hook the readers. One of the best ways to get them to open the book is the blurb you put on the back cover.
These book blurbs serve as a summary of what promises lay inside. They are not the same type of summaries you write for agents, editors, and booksellers. Those people want to know everything inside the book so they can turn around and sell it to someone else. The point of a summary on the back of the book is to intrigue readers. Don’t tell them the story so they feel like they already read the book. Just give them a taste. There is a common saying in sales that sums up the idea perfectly.
Sell the Sizzle Not the Steak
In other words, don’t sell the object—sell the experience. Appeal to the buyers senses and emotions to make them want to buy the object for what it promises to do for them. In a book, that experience is usually an emotional reaction. It can be fear, romance, adventure, or any other feeling you can build in your readers’ minds.
There are five key aspects to writing a good book blurb, and, if you hit each one, you will have people opening your book for a closer look.
1. Hook
The first sentence of your blurb has to be a hook. It needs to intrigue a person to read the next sentence. The hook must elicit a strong emotion and promise something interesting yet to come.
Let’s look at some examples.
The hook can be as simple as Pierce Brown’s opening line to his summary of Red Rising: “The Earth is dying.” It’s simple and makes a person read on simply to find out how the Earth is dying.
Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game has a slightly longer hook: “Andrew Ender Wiggin isn’t just playing games at Battle School; he and the other children are being tested and trained for war.” Not only does this intrigue any strategist, it has the fascinating twist of children being trained for war.
2. Character
You will need to introduce at least one main character in your blurb. While the premise of a story will intrigue readers, they stay for the characters. Give them someone to latch onto and cheer for in the story. In Red Rising, it was Darrow and his fight to escape oppression. In Ender’s Game, it’s Ender and his struggle to survive the cruelty of those around him. Name a character and give a peek into his past, present, and future. If you make a compelling character, the reader will want to know more.
3. Goal
Once you give the reader a character, you need to identify the main goal. Is he trying to avoid a problem or gain something he wants? Every person has something they are striving for, and you need to make your character’s goal relatable to a wide audience. Darrow wanted revenge. Ender seeked to prove his self-worth. Boil the character’s goal down to a basic human need, and you’ll pull the reader into your story.
4. Obstacle
Every good story has conflict. In your book blurb, you need to hint at what the obstacle is that stands in your character’s way. Is it a person? Laws? A social status? For Darrow, it was society. Ender had to overcome bullies—both human and alien. The bigger the conflict, the more intriguing the story.
5. Twist
The last element in a good book blurb is a twist. Leave your readers with a gripping idea that makes them want to know more. You should hint at a bigger conflict yet to come.
Red Rising mentions in the last sentence of the summary that Darrow isn’t the only one at command school with an agenda. The reader is left wondering not only if Darrow’s plan of revenge will work, but also what other plans his classmates have that could effect him.
Ender’s Game ends the summary with the idea that Ender’s two siblings are manipulating the destiny of Earth in the event that Ender can save the planet from destruction. This begs the question that, if Ender does succeed, will the planet be doomed anyway in the hands of two ambitious children?
Final Thoughts
These are the five main parts of a successful book blurb. If you go through independent publishing, you’ll need this information for when you publish. You may not have to write your own back cover summary if you go traditional publishing, but it’s a good skill to practice. You can easily turn a book blurb into a pitch for an agent or simply use it to tell potential readers about your book. In either publishing route, being able to summarize your book effectively is an important skill for writers.
Thanks for reading!
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