Hello everyone! I hope you’re having a great day! I’m doing super fantastic and I’m confident that I don’t need to say why. 🙂 I want to go over blurbs or synopsis’s. I will admit, this is my own personal advice and I’ve not done very many but I think I developed a pretty great one for my first book. (I only know this because several people have told me so.) I want to help you in making a really great one as well.
- Look up other blurbs. I always think this is such an obvious statement, but it’s seriously the best way to know exactly what you’re looking for. Of course, every book you pick up is not going to be the best blurb ever, but I’m thinking most of them will be decent. Look especially at Best Seller titles. There is a reason it’s a best seller. Sure, it might be because of the actual content inside, but that great content would reflect in the blurb, too.
- Keep it simple. Or, Keep it simple, stupid. (kiss) As Michael Scott would say. Blurbs are supposed to be short little hooks to catch the reader QUICKLY. You want to avoid at all costs explaining unnecessary things that the reader won’t really care about at this point. Example: Timothy may be the only one to defeat the large ice breathing dragon who killed his family of five all those years ago after the long war of the elves. This is not the best example, but you get my point. Too many pointless details. If you fill the blurb with too many “extra” words, the reader will get turned off from it and look at something shorter, exciting and to the point.
- Not a summary. This kinda ties in with 2, but you want to avoid making this a section where you just sum it up like a book report. This is anything but a summary. If it sounds at all like you’re explaining things about the story, take it out. The reader wants to know what to expect from the story, not about the story itself, if that makes sense.
- Choose your words wisely. Since blurbs should be short and sweet, the words really matter. I found this website that has lists of really powerful words that will dramatically change the tone of your blurb, and help to hook readers. Also watching grammatical errors like using passive words such as “Was” “Had” can really take the reader out.
- Using the MC’s name. Now, I don’t know if this is absolutely necessary… But I think it helps. Making the main characters name mysterious and unknown is just silly and cliche in my opinion. My first blurb, I remember I put “A mysterious woman…” in the first sentence. This just wasn’t true, and this also makes it feel like it was a mystery novel or something.
Just for fun, this was one of the first blurbs I had:
A mysterious woman who has to deal with her past while finding herself on a journey to save her species that have become a new science experiment for the National Fliers Association (NFA) to get ordinary people to fly. She may be the only one to stop them if she can survive her terrible past and learn to love and trust those she runs into along the way.
Eeeessshhh… I hope I don’t need to explain what was wrong with this. Other than the fact it was a measly 2 sentences long. I know I said be short, but this is not the way to do it. So just for comparison, this is the final blurb:
As descendants of fairies, fliers were an old, forgotten species who appear human but could fly without wings. They lived peacefully amongst humans for several decades until a secret government agency developed new technology that allowed experimentation on fliers and discovered how to make ordinary people fly. Not sitting back and accepting the news, Sydona Wilder and her fairy Raoul, set out to find the agency and put a stop to the capture of the rare species. But Sydona will have to fight her own battles of facing her dark past and learning how to trust people again.
I hope this helps you in making the best hook for your readers! Let me know in the comments your suggestions and advice! ##
Laura Mae 