Today’s question comes from QSFer Hank T. Cannon: “What goes into a good blurb? Are there different types of blurbs? What kind should be used for promotion? What kind should be used for submissions?”
I hate writing blurbs. I hate writing summaries. Blurbs and summaries are like the Muzak of the fiction world. They take a (hopefully) vibrant, living story and wring out every last bit of life and color from them to create a sad approximation of a plot.
When I have to write a blurb or summary, I always end up feeling like my story is the saddest, most derivative, least original thing ever written.
So my questions today: How do you feel about summaries and blurbs? How do you write your own? What makes a good blurb, and how do you write them for different purposes?
It sounds cynical, but I don’t think of a blurb as a summary so much as marketing copy–not in the “false-advertising” sense, but definitely in the sense of attracting potential buyers. It really helps to think about how people who read your genre choose books–obviously it helps if you read a lot in it yourself and can think about why you choose a book. You are trying to help people who read your genre recognize that this is a book they might like. Think of books you’ve really liked and look at their blurbs–how were they able to highlight the aspects that appealed to you.