Welcome back to another blog hop, with #OpenBook. Here’s this week’s prompt.
Don’t forget to click the purple button to see what everyone else has to say on this week’s subject. It’s at the end of my post.
We’ve talked blurbs before. Do you have any tips for writing blurbs?
Oh no! The dreaded blurb topic. There are some things in my writing journey that I hate with disproportionate venom.
The blurb is one of these things.
Do I have any tips? No. I wish I did. No matter how I word my blurbs, it never seems to make a difference to the low number of sales I get.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to make them better. Those of you who know me will tell you that I don’t give up and hate to be beaten by anything. But blurbs have me beaten so far. Over the last ten years, I’ve taken advice and read many books on the subject of writing better blurbs. I’ve even paid people to write blurbs for me.
All to no avail.
As far as I’m concerned, writing an 80,000-word novel is so much easier than writing a 150-word blurb for that novel. Writing a blurb that encourages someone to buy, without giving too much away or making it sound boring isn’t easy, as my lack of success shows.
I’ve lost count of the number of times the blurbs for my novels have been changed to try to make them more appealing to browsers and those who click on my ads. My documents folder contains hundreds of attempts at making my story sound like something you should buy, NOW!
Because I have no idea what to try next, I’ve sort of given up, at least for the time being. The blurbs are at their present iteration and that’s where they can stay. I think they’re the best they can be, I’m just waiting for everyone else to catch up.
Until next time.
Let me know what you think about this week’s subject.
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Darlene Dale Foster
I so agree, Richard. It is easier to write a full-length novel than to write an effective blurb. There doesn’t seem to be a magic formula.
Richard Dee
That could be a fantasy quest. My ten year search for the magic words.
Jack Eason
you know me and my work. Like gaudy covers, blurbs are also pointless. Only the intelligent among our readers will ever buy our books, let alone read and review them. Why we feel the need to pander to the lowest of the low by giving them pretty pictures and an extremely short precis beats me! With one or two exceptions all the reviews my stories have attracted are written by fellow writers, not the great unwashed…
Richard Dee
I will not write to market, I write what I want. I try to make it sound interesting in the blurb, clearly I’m not succeeding.
P.J. MacLayne
I once paid someone to write a blurb for me. Let’s just say, I only used parts of it.
Richard Dee
Yes, I fell for that one, too.
Daryl Devore
I hear you loud and clear! Blurbs are so frustrating.
Tweeted.
Richard Dee
And very time consuming.
Samantha J Bryant
LOL. I said something similar in my post–I’d rather write another novel than a blurb. Such a high-pressure little set of words. @samanthabwriter from
Balancing Act
Richard Dee
It’s something I never considered would be a problem, before I had to do it.