[gmw]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Yeah, that new blurb had a lot of telling and a hyphen instead of a dash here (fruit-until). The paperback blurb is a novel. Eight characters. And the Secret Service agent is demoted to protecting the President??? What was he doing before that was more important?

Well, it doesn't actually say demoted, just punished. And I can relate to that part. I mean we're talking about moving from the right end to the wrong end of the gun.

But the example offers a few things of interest.

Firstly, that shorter blurb tells the potential reader pretty much everything they need to know about whether this is the sort of story they want to pick up.

The longer blurb is way too long - or would be for an online blurb, which is presumably why they don't use it.

The shorter blurb, as a big lump of text with unnecessary quoting, is difficult to read. Just looking at it makes me want to move on to something else.

The first sentence, indeed the first paragraph, of the longer blurb is interesting. As noted above, I don't think the paragraph seems all that relevant/useful (now I've read half the book), but it does offer a hook - a reason to keep reading the blurb. (It's a shame they printed it in hard to read blue on black.) ... Actually, I think the first sentence of the second paragraph (cut to start at "A group of...") would offer the same hook in a more succinct form.


This subforum has often spoken about the importance of first sentences in a story, but as much as we might love great first sentences, most readers will give you at least the first page of a novel to get them interested (or at least not put them off). But when it comes to blurbs the reader is almost certainly skimming. You have to grab them as they go past. eg:

Make the first sentence count. Keep the entire first paragraph short, this will encourage people to actually read it.

Preferably keep all blurb paragraphs short. The first is critical, but the others are important too. People tend to skip dense blocks of text.

Try to ensure that the blurb can be read quickly and easily. If necessary break it up to aid reading at skimming speed.

I make it sound so easy, so why is it I can't seem to do it for myself?