It can also be called a back cover blurb or a book description. It’s a short description of the book’s main character and conflict and is usually between 100 and 200 words long. It’s usually found on the back of a book or the inside cover.

The blurb is the second thing, the first being the front cover, that a reader will look at before deciding whether or not to buy your book. The cover catches the reader’s attention, the blurb is what sells the book.

If you’re a self-published author, you’ll most probably write your own blurb, and I know a lot of smaller publishers in particular will ask for the author’s input when they’re putting together the blurb, or might even request they write it themselves.

Here’s an example of one of my own blurbs. It’s from my contemporary romance, Starstruck:

‘When newly divorced Kate finds school friend, now super famous rock star Joseph Wild, on her doorstep, her whole quiet, ordinary life is thrown into disarray.

Joseph has broken up with glamorous actress Genevieve Moore, and needs somewhere to retreat to until the paparazzi interest in his marriage calms down. Kate agrees to help him out and drawn to his simple, self-effacing charm, soon finds herself falling in love.

But can she cope with the problems a relationship with such a high profile celebrity brings? What happens when he jets back to his regular life of stardom in L.A.?

And how will Genevieve react when she finds out Joseph has moved on? She can’t possibly allow anything to sully her ever-so-carefully crafted public image.

Falling in love with a rock star is tougher than you’d think…’

I think it gives a really clear idea of the story’s genre and what it’s about, and the use of questions draws the reader in and makes them feel involved.

Remember, the blurb should intrigue readers into wanting to read your book, it should leave them wanting more, and it should fit with the story’s genre. A good blurb provides a short summary, but it doesn’t give anything away. 

My video on this topic can be found on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKJKt8kmDXrWQAGkTV1VHMQ

If you’ve never heard of a synopsis, it’s a brief summary or general survey of something. As a writer talking about writing, the type of synopsis I’m referencing here is a synopsis of a book manuscript, which is basically an outline of what happens in your book. 

Publishers and agents may ask you to send them a synopsis, often along with the first chapter or first 3 chapters of your manuscript, so that they can get a feel for your work and quickly decide if they’d like to read your whole manuscript. It can also be requested before you’ve actually written the manuscript by an agent or publisher you’re working with so they can tell if your story’s on the right track before you go ahead and write 40,000 words of a book which doesn’t fit what they’re looking for.

Authors, including myself, can spend hours, even days, tearing their hair out about writing a synopsis, but hopefully these tips will make the whole process at least a little bit easier.

1: Your synopsis should not only tell the reader what happens in your book, but also make them want to read it, for this reason it must be well-written and not just a list of bullet points. It must showcase your ‘author voice’ meaning it must read like your writing. It must show the story’s full progression or ‘narrative arc’ and it must include the ending. 

2: Keep your synopsis to the correct length. This is usually 1-2 single spaced pages, or 2-5 double-spaced pages. Some authors recommend keeping it to about 500 words. Individual publishers and agents may specify how long they want a synopsis to be, make sure you send them what they want.

3: Your synopsis should be written in third person, present tense, regardless of the tense or point of view of your actual book. This helps the story to be told smoothly. 

Right now, it’s time to actually write the stupid thing…

4: Start at the beginning and when you get to the end stop. Start typing what happens in your manuscript from beginning to end. This does not have to be beautiful prose, just spew it out and make sure you keep events in chronological order.

5: Now, go back through what you’ve written and emphasise the important plot points, such as the inciting incident which sparks the conflict in your story, the climax and the resolution. Emphasise any plot twists – readers love a good plot twist.

6: Next, add character motivations at the beginning and end of the synopsis. Why did the character decide to do what they did at the inciting incident? Maybe your heroine has been looking for her long lost brother for years and the reason she gets on a plane to Venice is because she sees a man she believes to be him boarding it. That’s her motivation. The end of your manuscript should resolve this motivation: maybe the man boarding the plane wasn’t her brother but he helps her find him and they fall in love along the way. (That’s not actually a terrible story idea, I should be making notes on this).

7: If your book is told in the first person, say at the beginning of the synopsis who this is, e.g: The book is told from the point of view of a… whoever it is.

8: Make sure your storyline is clear and to the point – now is not the time to be vague and intriguing.

9: Edit out any excess words to get it down to the right length – take out any information and details that aren’t necessary. Check for word repetition! Look and just are my two overused words, I bet you’ve got a few.

10: Read your synopsis out loud to yourself. This is the best way to be able to see if your writing flows. It should read like a good book review – one of a book you’d really want to read.

Ta-da, that’s it! With any luck you now have a fantastic synopsis to send off to interested publishers and agents. I’d love to know of any which result in a contract!

x

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Or have you ever forgotten that the back door is through the kitchen in chapter 3, but is exited via the utility room in chapter 10?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone! This kind of thing used to happen to me all the time, and it’s a real pain to correct them in later drafts of your work as they may have repercussions for later scenes.

Thankfully, I’ve come up with a little trick to help: what I now do is I draw a little map of the homes of each of my main characters in the back of my writing notebook.

I start a new notebook for each of my romances, and it must be A4 sized and with fairly narrow lines. Ideally it should be hardback, but let it not be said I won’t accept the right softback, especially if it’s a Moleskine. The back few pages are full of basic layouts of my protagonists’ homes – including any important pieces of furniture, such as favourite chairs, and where windows are, and, sometimes, what can be seen out of them if that’s relevant to the plot. I keep it very roughly to scale, so I know, for example, what room is above what other room. 

Here’s the sketch I did for a manuscript I’m currently working on, it’s my heroine’s tiny London flat. Obviously, this is a very simple home so there’s not much involved in drawing it out, especially as it’s all on one floor, but you get the idea.

This tip really doesn’t take very long, but it’s made a huge difference, saving me editing time, and having the drawings in the back of my writing notebook makes them super easy to check.

Of course, you could always take it one step further if there was a particular town or village which was going to feature heavily in a book or book series, and draw a map of the area. I really wish I’d thought to do this for Tonnadulais, the fictional Welsh town which features in my romances ‘The Green Hills of Home’ and ‘Snowed in for her Wedding’ – it would have made things a lot easier when I returned to it!