There is a misconception amongst some writers that a summary of your book for a query letter is like writing a back of the book blurb. However, while there are some similarities, these summaries cannot be swapped one for another. They have different purposes and a different way of presenting the story. Let’s look closer at each and then contrast them with a real world example.
Query Pitch And Book Blurb Format
The biggest similarity between a query pitch summary and a book blurb is the format. Both should be written in third person present tense. It’s also recommended to keep them between 100-200 words. Book blurbs usually are kept closer to the 100 words, while query pitches can have a higher word count since more details are included. Either way, the story summaries must be concise.
Query Pitch And Book Blurb Purposes
The point of writing these book summaries is to sell the story to someone. You’re trying to get people interested in the book so they invest their time in reading it. However, that’s where the similarities in purpose stop.
The pitch part of a query letter is meant to intrigue agents. The summary is there to prove the story can be a book. As such, the summary needs to list specific details of the plot and character arcs so the agent can tell it has the shape of a story. Your goal is to sell the fact that your story could be a book.
With a book blurb, the purpose is to intrigue readers. The story at this point is already a book so the job of a book blurb is to prove it’s an interesting story. Readers don’t want the story spoiled so there is no need to go into many plot points or a character arc. The goal is to sell that your book is worth purchasing and reading.
Query Pitch And Book Blurb Components
There are five components to these story summaries: hook, character, goal, obstacles, and stakes. While the components are the same, the execution of them are very different. Query pitches need very specific details and must tell what happens, while book blurbs use more generic language and need to evoke emotion. Let’s look at each component and how they differ between query letters and back of book blurbs.
1. Hook
The opening of a good book summary is a hook. In a query pitch, the hook needs to be specific and intriguing. It should center on the protagonist, and it is often unexpected and emotional. For instance, the pitch in the query letter for the YA novel The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf begins with: By the time school ends on Tuesday, Melati Ahmad’s mother has died 17 times. It’s specific (Tuesday and 17 times), unexpected (someone has died multiple times), and emotional (her mother is dying).
In a book blurb, the hook is all about getting readers curious. It’s about creating a mood and getting them intrigued. It doesn’t have to be specific. In the blurb for Alchemy of Secrets by Stephanie Garber, the first line is: It starts with a class in an old movie theater. Readers will wonder what starts in the theater? And the old movie theater gives off retro, spooky vibes. The sentence is too vague to get an agent interested in the plot, but it can stir readers’ emotions.
2. Character
In order for someone to get attached to a story, there must be a good protagonist. In query pitches, agents want a specific protagonist, his or her situation, and the internal turmoil of that character. Because agents need to know if the character can carry a story, they need the character’s personality as well as a hint of the internal arc. In the query for Planetside by Michael Mammay, the protagonist is introduced as: Colonel Carl Butler has won battles throughout the galaxy, but now rides out the end of his career at a desk with a bottle of whiskey in the drawer. We know he’s a colonel about the retire and not loving his life if he’s hiding whiskey at work. It’s a good all-encompassing introduction to who he is and where he is in life.
When it comes to a book blurb, the readers just want one interesting aspect about the protagonist. Typically, an attention-grabbing adjective is paired with the character’s status, age, or profession. This allows readers to get a sense of the person without spending too much time on backstory. For example, Solo Leveling by Chugong has a book blurb that described the protagonist as: the weakest hunter of all mankind. It’s an intriguing contradiction—he’s a hunter but the weakest? It promises fight scenes, but potentially some humor too if he’s so bad at his job. Also, he is set up as an underdog, and that will emotionally pull readers to the story.
3. Goal
Every story needs a protagonist who wants something, who has a goal. Regardless of if it’s the query pitch or the book blurb, the goal must be specific and achievable. In the query letter for The Accidental Demon Slayer by Angie Fox Gwinner, the goal is laid out as: Lizzie learns she’s a demon slayer, fated to square off with the devil’s top minion in, oh about two weeks. We see she must fight the devil’s minion in two weeks, and she only just learned she’s a demon slayer. We have a clear idea of what she must do and the steps she must take to achieve it.
Likewise, in the book blurb for Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller, the goal for Alosa is: retrieve an ancient hidden map—the key to a legendary treasure trove. The goal is to get a map, and we assume the next step is to find the treasure. Whether an agent or a reader, they want to know what the goal of the story is or it will feel directionless.
4. Obstacles
Every good story needs conflict. In the query pitch, the agent wants to know the first few plot points and a hint at the climax. In the query for Under A Painted Sky by Stacey Lee, several plot points are shown so the agent can see how the story progresses. The inciting incident: When fifteen-year-old orphan Samantha kills the richest man in Missouri in self-defense, she disguises herself as a boy and flees to the unknown frontier. The first plot point: She joins a band of young cowboys headed for the California gold rush. The next plot point: She falls in love with one of the cowboys. On the run and hiding the fact she’s a girl, she has a big decision to make at the climax: hold on to her love for the cowboy or risk her own survival. All of these pieces help string together the big arc of the story so the agent can tell there is potential for a book.
For the book blurb, the readers don’t want the story spoiled for them. Typically, the obstacle that’s given is only the inciting incident that kicks off the story. For instance, the blurb for Powerless by Lauren Roberts says: Paedyn’s thrown into the Purging Trails, a brutal competition showcasing the Elites’ powers. If the Trials and the opponents within them don’t kill her, the prince she’s fighting feelings for will if he discovers what Paedyn is. We have the inciting incident that Paedyn is part of the Trails with all its obstacles, but then the obstacles only increase when she falls in love with the enemy. That’s enough hints at what the story contains to get readers interested in picking up the book.
5. Stakes
The stakes of a story are what gives it meaning. In a query, the pitch needs clear external and internal stakes. These are usually shown by stating what the final decision is the protagonist will need to make at the climax. For example, City of Lies by Sam Hawke used these stakes in the query pitch: Betrayed by the Chancellor and the Council, the rebels reject attempts to broker peace, leaving Jovan in an impossible position. Defeating the rebels means perpetuating a terrible injustice, but if the city falls he may lose the things he’s always valued most — family, honor, and his only real friend. The external stakes are the fall of the city or the unjust defeat of the rebels. The internal stakes are Jovan losing his loved ones and his strong sense of honor. With large scale stakes and deep personal stakes, the agent can tell the story will mean something to the protagonist and the readers.
The book blurb stakes are usually vaguer yet emotionally charged. In the blurb for House of Roots and Ruin by Erin A. Craig, the last line is: The ghosts that haunt Verity are not mere phantoms—and their whispers may unravel Verity’s very existence. We have external stakes in that the ghosts may be more than phantoms and could be a physical threat, and there are personal stakes in that Verity herself seems to be at risk. The phrase “unravel her very existence” may feel a bit dramatic, but that’s what readers want in their summaries. They want the theatrics, the emotions. They want to be pulled in with charged words. So while this is too vague for an agent, readers will understand the stakes and feel drawn in by the delivery of it.
Example
In order to actually show the difference, let me put a story’s query pitch and book blurb side by side. I considered writing my own for a book, but I thought readers might enjoy seeing a real example of a published book. So, below is the original query pitch and current book blurb for Cinder by Marissa Meyer.
Cinder’s Query Pitch
Sixteen-year-old Cinder is a cyborg, considered a technological mistake by most of society and a burden by her stepmother. Being cyborg does have its benefits, though—Cinder’s brain interface has given her an uncanny ability to fix things (robots, hovers, her own malfunctioning parts), making her the best mechanic in New Beijing. This reputation brings the prince himself to her weekly market booth, needing her to repair a broken android before the annual ball. He jokingly calls it a matter of national security, but Cinder suspects it’s more serious than he’s letting on.
Although eager to impress the prince, Cinder’s intentions are derailed when her younger stepsister, and only human friend, is infected with the fatal plague that’s been devastating Earth for a decade. Blaming Cinder for her daughter’s illness, Cinder’s stepmother volunteers her body for plague research, an “honor” that no one has survived.
But it doesn’t take long for the scientists to discover something unusual about their new guinea pig. The surgeons who turned Cinder into a cyborg had been hiding something. Something valuable.
Something others would kill for.
Cinder is a sixteen-year-old cyborg who is the best mechanic around, but she is scorned by most people including her stepmother. Right off the bat, we know who she is, why she’s special, and that she’s sympathetic (she’s an outcast). It’s also a good hook since a cyborg retelling of Cinderella is unique.
For obstacles, the inciting incident is that the prince hires her to fix something that’s very important, and her goal is to impress the prince by fixing it. However, the first plot point arrives: Cinder’s stepsister falls ill, and Cinder is forced to be a patient for the experiments trying to find a cure for the disease. Next we see that the scientists realize Cinder’s body is unusual. While this isn’t the midpoint, it is a big discovery that’s unraveled in pieces during the middle of the book.
The stakes of the story are her stepsister’s death if a cure isn’t found, death to herself (she’s part of experiments that no one has survived), and there’s a hint of greater stakes since the Prince is eager to get his device fixed for some important reason. While there are no clear internal stakes listed, we can deduce Cinder’s loss of her stepsister, her only friend, will devastate her.
Marissa doesn’t lay out a clear decision or climax for the story, but she hints at it by saying Cinder hides something people will kill for. While this isn’t the recommended way to write a pitch ending, this just proves that you don’t have to be perfect. The midpoint isn’t listed, and there is no climactic decision. Still, Marissa got offered representation by the agent. As long as you get most of the components, you could still snatch the agent’s attention, but hitting them all makes it more likely.
Cinder’s Book Blurb
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.
The publishers chose a different hook for readers to catch their attention. Instead of starting with a cyborg teenager, they used the societal conflict and a ruthless group of people getting ready to attack. The framing of the book is also different. Instead of talking about fixing devices and being a scientific experiment, the focus is on the intergalactic struggle and a romance between Cinder and Kai. These decisions are most likely based on marketing research and what readers want instead of what’s the most important part of the plot.
Cinder is a mechanic and cyborg. What we know of her now is mostly through emotionally triggering phrases: mysterious past, reviled, blamed. We don’t get many specifics, just feelings.
The obstacle is a hint at the inciting incident. It’s vague but emotional: intertwined with the handsome prince and the center of an intergalactic struggle.
Her goal is to uncover secrets about her past and protect her world. This phrasing can literally be said truthfully about thousands of stories, yet it works for a blurb.
We see the external stakes are the world she wants to protect, and the internal stakes is a war within herself about duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal. There are no specifics, but we get the general idea. She has a lot to grapple with, and the world is banking on her making the right decisions.
Looking at this blurb, it is generic yet emotional. Some of it can be said about any book. So why does it work? Because readers don’t want you to tell them what the story is—they want a feeling. Mysterious past, forbidden romance, and an intergalactic struggle? Readers will either go: “Yeah, that sounds like my kind of book.” or “No, I’ll pass.”
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, the distinction between the query pitch and the book blurb are clear. After reading the Cinder pitch, you could probably guess what the plot line is for the book. But if you read the book blurb, the plot is vague while the language is emotionally charged. Agents need to know the story is solid; readers need to know the story is interesting.
Thanks for reading!
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