Top 3 Tips to Writing a Powerful Book Blurb (& selling more books)!

your books blurb AKA this description on the back of the book is extremely important to successfully selling books in fact I would go so far as to say that besides the cover it's the second most important thing you can ever do that can make or break sales so no pressure this is going to be a really chill video because it is 8:50 and I finally got my little guy to go to sleep it's been a rough day okay I don't know what's going on he had a rough day so I had a rough day which means that we're just going to do this really casual and talk about writing book blurbs and I'm going to be really honest with you I have put off doing this video for years honestly because I'm not an expert I'm just somebody who's had a lot of practice and so I realized that you know what I have actually picked up a lot of tips along the way I have learned a lot of really valuable things that I can share with you such as what a typical word count might be and what tents to write the blur in and the three like I guess you could call them like crucial elements to a blurb that grabs the reader's attention and makes some want to read and I guess kind of some things that do the opposite as well I think honestly as writers we struggle to write blurs because this is a very small amount of words when we're used to writing a lot more than that so it's just not the same skill set you know what I mean but that doesn't give us an excuse to get lazy because again this really does make or break sales I'm not actually being extremist here this is something where if a reader started reading the first bit of the book and they're like yeah I'm not that interested they'll very likely click away versus if you grab their attention make them need to know what happens it could be a oneclick buy that's how valuable and important the blurb is and again I'm calling it a blurb because that's just kind of the common word for it but you can call it a book description back of the book it's kind of an interchangeable word but we're going to go with blurb because I just say that by habit I've got notes here cuz I really want to make sure that I don't miss anything so we're going to talk about three things that a great blurb should do which is hooking the reader with a really attention grabbing first line teasing them with the initial story problem sharing just enough to to make them interested without giving everything away and number three ending with a cliffhanger that makes them want to know more or better yet need to know more I'll give you a few examples of that and then I actually have five other tips that I wrote down as well that I want to make sure to touch on so let's just get right into it here is the hook It's usually the first line or short paragraph it's the most important part of the blur no pressure again but on a lot of online vendors this is literally all a reader even sees unless they're tempted by it enough to click the read more button trust me I have made mistakes I've learned the hard way that this is not the space to talk about the world or List out a bunch of character names unless you're somebody famous if you've seen that before they can get away with it if they're more famous just FYI but that is not what's going to hook a reader a good hook makes them want to know more by bringing up something they need to know the answer to let me give you a few examples of hooks that I love the cruel prints is one of my favorites and the first line is of course I want to be like them they're beautiful as blades forged in some Divine fire they will live forever that gives me chills I just love that um another favorite book of mine if you haven't read this I highly recommend it it's called The Thief by Megan Wayan Turner eugenides or eugenides I never know how to say his name the Queen's Thief can steal anything or so he says right there is setting up the type of character he is as well in a very very distinct way and I love it in just one line last but not least the stolen Kingdom which is my book and I worked very hard in this first line so I thought I'd include it to give you an example from somebody who's not famous but hopefully did a good job hopefully how can she protect her kingdom if she can't protect herself okay let's apply this to one of my upcoming books the Queens rise this one is actually a bind up of three books that I've already published so it's kind of weird but I technically have three different blurbs for this one book and so I have a bunch of different things that I've already brainstormed that I can pull from but I wanted to point out that it makes more sense to lean on the beginning of a book and again that initial problem than to try to reference things that happen later on that don't make sense until you get to know the character and all that so typically one of the tips this is like a bonus tip is to lean on more beginning information and beginning knowledge I guess same thing we'll see what happens but right now my first line okay this is my attempt at a hook so far and again I tweak these all the way up until release day and after but right now I have this how did the dark fairy and every fairy tale become the villain maybe she started out as an innocent Jenny girl with a dangerous shape-shifting ability that breaks every rule in Jin all right the next really important element of a successful blurb after the hook is something I'm going to call the initial story problem or conflict if you're being more writerly than me so that initial conflict okay you can call it the um oh inciting incident that took me way too long to remember so basically the reason I say inciting incident or the initial conflict story problem whatever you want to call this the first big thing that your character has to face a lot of us writers try to cram all the problems that they have to face into the story and again hinting at things that come later on in the book tends to get very confusing very quickly not to mention there's not nearly enough space we're going to talk about how long a typical blurb is in a little bit but the goal for this section is to to four paragraphs and honestly the shorter the better now that said just keep in mind when you're first drafting it don't worry about the word count right away the more you can just get it out on the page and get a bunch of ideas out the better but when it comes to the final blur you're going to have to edit that down quite a bit because typically blurbs are on the shorter side the shorter the better in fact this is the best place to put it so I'm just going to go with it a typical blurb is less than 250 words that's really short if you are struggling with this trust me you are not the only one this is extremely difficult for most writers because we have the habit of writing 50k or more novels like we write a lot of words right typically way more than 50k for our novels so then to suddenly only write 250 and to try to cram all the story into that which again is not actually the goal we should have but sometimes it feels like our goal that is just two very separate things and honestly like I said earlier they're two different skill sets but the positive spin to that if you want to put it that way is just like writing a novel is a skill set that you learned and got better at you can get better at writing blurbs too and I speak from experience I have written some terrible blurbs in the past and I'll talk more about that when we get to the other tips but before I go on to the last one let me give you an example from the Queen's rise because again this is technically three separate books right so I could be very very tempted to try to squeeze some feature or facet from each of the three books into this one blur and I was actually tempted to do that but I just kept it focused on that initial story problem in book one so let me give you an example of that here Jezebel is forced to keep her gift secret or risk having her ability severed stolen from her completely that's that initial problem despite the danger part of her is desperate to embrace her power that's her initial reaction to the problem right and then the reaction continues in the next paragraph when Jezebel's friends discover a portal to the human world she follows them in unable to resist the temptation to explore her gift where no one will see except someone does someone Jezebel thought she could trust and then I put in big parentheses here all caps the problem just grew worse so it's the same problem right we're just expanding on it and making it clearly get worse his betrayal comes and Whispers at first but all too quickly those Whispers become demands and he'll stop at nothing not even blackmail to use Jezebel's power for himself then put in parenthesis the problem is even more severe obviously like dun dun dun is kind of the vibe you want to go for here and this is obviously not the whole story because that would be a really short book you know what I mean but you can see how I took that initial problem and I just ramped it up and made the reader want to know more hopefully let me know what you think because again writing is subjective I'm just doing my best so let me know if I accomplish that and I honestly think it's probably a percentage like we're all working for 100% of readers being like I have to know what happens but I think it really depends on the person as well so like some people might be intrigued and some people won't but we're just going for as many people as possible the Cliffhanger is next and I almost want to say this is more important than the hook it's really really a tie honestly because this is like that one last line or last paragraph It's usually pretty short it's almost like the Barb on the hook where they like try to pull away and then they're like oh I can't I have to know I have to know what happens that is what we're going for here that feeling that emotion in your reader raises a question that the readers want to know the answer to it doesn't have to be an actual question but you'll notice if you read a lot of blurbs that it often is okay I'm using the queen's rise as an example again and don't worry I'll put this all together so you can see it all in one but here is an example of the Cliffhanger I currently have for the Queen's rise one dark decision leads to another until Jezebel stands to lose something she can't live without either her Freedom or her innocence and the question this hopefully brings up is which one is she going to choose and how is she going to choose if she literally can't live without either one like how the heck is she going to choose right and again that might Intrigue some people more than others so you have to keep that in mind too and sometimes that means getting outside opinions so I'm actually jumping into one of my tips right off the get-go which is to get feedback get outside opinions because this Cliffhanger is not the one that I started with it's not even my second or third or fourth this is one that I got while brainstorming with one of my critique partners and she pointed out I think I origin Al had something that just wasn't that Cliffhanger she's like well why would the reader care about that what what should the reader actually be caring about and it led to this Cliffhanger which is way stronger and that kind of goes hand in hand with my second bonus tip which I already kind of mentioned and that's to revise and revise and revise again like if you're going to do it for your novel do that for your blurb too because it's so short it's really not that hard in fact because it is so short I've actually gotten into the habit of attempting to write three or four totally separate versions and then trying to meld together my favorite parts of those versions CU that way I have a lot more to pull from and a lot more ideas and sometimes that fourth or even fifth attempt at the blurb is where I really find the attention grabbing things that I didn't think to mention right off the bat if that makes sense my third tip is to write in the present tense and this is surprisingly hard to do if you typically write in past tense which I do although I really like present tense and I kind of want to switch to that in the future but typically almost always actually this used to be a pretty hard and fast Rule and it's been broken one or two times but almost always it's present tense third person I have seen the third person side of this broken a little bit more often in recent years specifically in ya because ya often is written in first person not third person that said the typical rule so to speak is that even if your book is in first person typically the blurb itself should be in third person cuz it's saying you know Jezebel and the Jenny Prince not I am blah blah blah blah blah I think because it's just disorienting essentially third person is just easier for a reader who's brand new to the book never heard of it before to be like okay I understand what's going on here so typically third person is what you're going to see and then present tense is simply to make it more active which makes it more interesting so again your book does not have to actually be present tense none of my books so far have been present tense although again I'd like to try it but all of my blurbs are present tense and you will see or you should see every single book on your shelf is also present tense that's an pretty much an industry standard just something to be aware of and you might find yourself writing a blurb in past tense and you don't even realize it so again going back to my tips it can help to get feedback have other people read through it and maybe catch some of those verbs but also you can read through yourself and watch for any verbs that accidentally slip back into past tense it's pretty much all in the verbs and that leads to my next tip which is really really really strong verbs make that your focus because there are so few words in a blurb those verbs this is rhyming in a really weird way the verbs are really really really important and the stronger you can make them the better so one of the rounds of revision that I typically do for a blurb is I literally take a look at every single verb or even every single sentence and I see if I can strengthen the verb in that sentence maybe move things around maybe get rid of some adverbs but I typically try to add in stronger verbs with with each round of revisions and that has helped me a lot as well I keep I keep putting the book down and then picking it back up because the next tip I kind of already said this but I wanted to include it one more time in the tip section just in case you missed it earlier is that your typical blurb is going to be less than 250 words the Queen's rise blurb which is the one we've been using in this video as an example is 146 words if you count just the story blurb itself but I also have extra blurb content which is going to be my next tip and so just let me add in that really quick and see what it comes out to Total with that 191 including all my extra blurb content on top of the story blurb itself okay let's talk about this extra blurb content because that is my last exciting tip is to consider adding in a few extra things that are like they're still technically the blurb or the stuff that goes on the back of the book so it could be considered the book description but it's not the story description it's other elements for a lack of a better word so let me break down a few examples for you A lot of times famous authors will put things like their credentials so like New York Times bestselling author brings to you or this such and such book was like I should actually go look it up I've seen a couple today Cinder this is a great example this book is breaking the hook rules because they're actually using credentials as the hook hey if you're famous and you have something like the New York Times as a credential that's a fantastic hook for a reader to see honestly so it says the first book in the number one New York Times and USA Today best-selling lunar Chronicle series by Marissa Meyer the second thing you could consider which is also in this Cinder review I know there's an actual word for it but when an author or a credible source is kind of like blurbing something for you so for example right here they cited Entertainment Weekly an interesting match up of fairy tales and science fiction a cross between Cinderella Terminator and Star Wars and then they had another credible source that they cited that is the Wall Street Journal Prince Charming among the cyborgs I love it so author credits and those like citations SL blurbs from credible sources gosh I don't know what to call that number three is something that was kind of in there by accident but it's something you could do intentionally yourself as the author without needing someone else to do it for you is to mention your inspiration or your comp books as they're often called so comp book just means comparison Book You'll see almost all famous books do this so I always found it odd when people question it like are you allowed to say you're like this other book because yeah it's literally called a comp book it's used in marketing by literally every Publishing House ever let me give you an example from the Queen's rise Series so I actually did this in two different ways so the first one is this the Queen's rise series is inspired by your favorite fairy tale villains in Snow White Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast so that's the inspiration then I also included the comps like this if you love fairy tale retellings like The Lunar Chronicles and Supernatural abilities like the Graceling series then you'll love the Queen's rise series and obviously you want to be accurate for this so don't just throw out comps like oh this book is famous so I'm just going to include them that will hurt you in your reviews readers will be like they said it was this and it wasn't you do not want that but if you can find comp books that are very similar to yours especially if it's a fun like kind of blending of two books they can be on the more well-known side or they can be a little less known I don't think there's any hard and fast rule but I would say that the upsides to the more well-known books are more readers are going to be like Oh I like that and so I want it but the downside would be that if it doesn't exactly match up to a really famous book that might lead to some disappointment if they're like I really wanted a copycat and that's really not what we want to do so I doubt your book will be a copycat and that might let readers down so sometimes it can be nice to find kind of a happy medium But ultimately like whatever inspired your book and whatever is similar to your book is what it is I will note that not everybody likes to do comps so it depends on the author you do not have to do this at all this is just something to consider some authors don't like comps because they're worried that it might turn readers off if there are readers who are like I don't like The Lunar Chronicles or I don't like Graceling they might decide well I don't want to read Bethany's book either but for me I feel like the pros outweigh the cons like that's there's more likely that people will give it a chance than that it will turn people away so I love to use comp books I have a couple more left you can also include early reviews if the book's not out yet or five-star reviews if the book has come out and you've had some really amazing ones or even better if possible you could include reviews from fellow authors especially authors in your genre if they happen to have read it and that's almost more under the blurbing or the um credible Source where if you happen to have some authors like I have some great author friends who if they leave a review I will put their review and then I'll put their name comma author of XYZ book and that I think includes more credibility as well you don't have to do this again this is just something to consider you could pull from your Arc reader team and if they're leaving reviews for you on Goodreads then you could copy that review put it in your description then you could take just like a oneline excerpt from their review I wouldn't go too long usually reviews are long so you might just want to take a piece of it then you can just put like five star review and in parenthesis Goodreads reviewer or something like that or your Arc team transfers their Goodreads reviews over to Amazon like they're supposed to which is amazing and I'm always so thankful when my team does that then you can just change the good reads review like parentheses to say Amazon reviewer instead and you can even quote their name if you want to then you literally have credibility where if people were to scroll down they would find that review that you're referencing and be like oh cool it's right there another one that I do nowadays because people used to be like I thought I could read at any point in the series is I started including a reading order for the series and so it's like okay book one book two book three book four like read in this order and I feel like it's self-explanatory and if authors write Standalone they almost always will say this book can be read on its own right which include that as well if you're writing a standalone then you could say this book can be read on its own or something like that but I did I started including the reading order because I was just like I guess it's not clear so why not I have the room I have the space and that leads to my last tip which is feel free to be creative I would say balance this with being professional right so you don't want people to ever read a blurb and be like oo this is awkward this reads like a journal entry you want it to stay professional stay like a a a product description right so keep it to describing the product but you can get creative and include some of those things that give you credit that make the readers want to know more about the book that grab their attention hook them all of those kinds of things can actually be really valuable and only enhance your blurb but again coming back to all our other tips just continue to revise continue to get feedback continue to make sure it's not too long keep it on the shorter side if possible and I think you can do great things if you want to see this in action I'm going to put on the screen here the final blurb for the Queen's rise series you can pause this video and read it if you're interested and hopefully see these things in action again I'm not perfect at it but I hope you can see that there's a hook there's an initial story problem there's a Cliff Hanger all under 250 words present tense third person with some of that awesome extra blurb content like the inspiration and the comp books and normally there would be a reading order here but since this is just the Omnibus I'm probably going to craft something I didn't do it for this video cuz I just thought of it now but I need to create some kind of on liner that says let's see if I can think how to say this something along the lines of the Queen's rise is a bind up of three full novels in the Queen's rise series and then I'd list out the books The Secret gift the secret shadow and the secret curse by Bethany anada and the whole purpose of that cuz it might be like why why include that why is that necessary but it is to prevent readers from getting upset if they buy every book from me ever but they already bought those three books they already read the story that helps them know hey these books have been previously published this is like a different format and I also might craft a note oh how am I going to do this I will want to make it very clear that the Omnibus has exclusive bonus content as well and obviously the gorgeous character art cover but hopefully that will be clear that'll just give you a sense of other things that you might want to consider including anything that's going to help your reader understand what they're getting into and make them want to read your book that's really your underlying goal okay good [Music] luck [Music]

Channel: Bethany Atazadeh - YA Fantasy Author

Views: 3,106

Keywords: how to write a novel, bethany atazadeh, self publishing, how to write a book, writing advice, authortube, authortuber, writing a fantasy novel, writing fantasy

Id: RsEsMcWS20s

Length: 22min 20sec (1340 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 29 2024