I'm in the process of writing a blurb /back bookcover text for my book. Genre-wise I've had problems defining it, but so far I think dystopian dark comedy fiction fits the bill, anyway, could anyone please tell me what their general impression is of the blurb below, what needs to be improved/added/removed? Title: The Champion's Manifesto: A novel. E-D, a weed-smoking nihilistic care worker gets fired and there’s no career in sight. To get back at the Babylonian system, she gets deeply involved as a drug dealer, under the guise as an intern for MyStyle Inc; a reality TV-Show. Here she works with Roberto, a flamboyant 90s euro-techno has-been and Sebastian, a fundamentalist member of a transhumanistic religious cult. Can E-D adapt and reject her conscience in a world ridden with narcissism, celeb-wannabees, prostitutes on amphetamine, off-grid-activists, homeless street thugs and rival gangsters? And There seems to be something severely odd about the drugs she’s selling. Structured as a fantasy novel and written with a thrillers’ pace, this book is rude, crude, dark, and philosophically entertaining with a morbid sense of humour. Target audience: Cynics who need a mental bitchslap. (total amount of words: 132)
Its focussed too much on telling us what happens rather than making us want to read the book. also there are way too many adjectives and adverbs, and filter words. Ideally a blurb should start with a hook - a one liner that grabs the reader and makes them want to read the rest of the blurb Then you follow that with several line in which you give them a reason to want to read the book to find out more , before endingon an antihook (the sentence that makes them have to read the book to find out what happens next) Some authorities will tell you to end on a call to action like "buy it now", but that thinking is out of date... instead the whole blurb should be an implicit CTA Also don't tell us that it's structured as a fantasy novel with a thrillers pace or that's its philosophically entertaining... those are subjective judgements that feel really false coming from the author Oh and don't put "a novel" on the end of the title - the fact that its in a novel category on Amazon or wherever will already communicate that.
Seems to be a couple of different things that are not all blurb. And if one does not know what all those oddball words and ideas mean then it wont be useful. I would make it more generic and tell in terms that most folks already know while mentioning the unique worldview it is occuring at. Basically you gave me no reason to want to read the book or even know what it is about without putting out more effort parsing than I care to do with a blurb. There was too much detail in parts which added no real value to a blurb.
There's too much information in the first two paragraphs. I needed immediate backtracking in the first sentence to build a mental image. Incidentally, the whole first paragraph is difficult to parse. I appreciate that you have a potentially very compelling character who is a contradiction in itself (care worker, nihilistic, weed-smoker, drug-dealer, intern), but try to dismantle this flood of information a bit. Editing tip: the word 'get' gets used three times in the first two sentences.
A key indicator that something is wrong was that when i started trying to rewrite the blurb for you, i found that i didnt have sufficient information... the facts that this conveys are ED is a careworker (do we care, is it important?) she gets fired (for being a pot head ?) She get's job at a reality tv show becomes a drug dealer and theres something odd about the drugs That its self is an interesting set up, but not a story and doesn't give me any reason to want to find out what happens. to write a good blurb we need to know where the main story lies... is it with the oddness of the drugs (do they transport their users through a portal to another realm?), or is the story really about ED fitting in at the company ? or is it a romance between her and xyz love interest Using a large amount of imagination to fill in the facts i don't have i'd write a blurb something like this An old lady covered in custard, an angry drug dealer, and a purple chipmunk with an unusual appetite for marajuana, and its only 10am... can ED's day get any worse? Newly fired from her care job, it wasn't her fault that old lady fell in the trifle, honest, ED needs to find a purpose in life and fast. Its a shame the only available job is interning with a reality TV show, oh yes and dealing herb on the side. More used to seeing life through a cloud of Kif smoke, ED now has to deal with celeb-wannabees, prostitutes on amphetamine off-grid-activists, and worst of all her colleagues the flamboyant Roberto and cult member Sebastien. If that wasn't bad enough, there is something very strange about the drugs she is selling. Why do her customers keep disappearing, and where are all these purple chipmunks coming from? ED needs to find out before rival gangster Evil Mcdiesel, Deez to his friends when he had any, finds her. If she fails it may be more than her joint that gets stubbed out.
