Blurbs - Short and to the point

[Jonny]

Litopia's Huddlers will be familiar with the blurb for Adrian McKinty's thriller - The Chain.

A STRANGER HAS KIDNAPPED YOUR CHILD.

TO FREE THEM YOU MUST ABDUCT SOMEONE ELSE'S CHILD.

YOUR CHILD WILL BE RELEASED WHEN YOUR VICTIM'S PARENTS KIDNAP ANOTHER CHILD.

IF ANY OF THESE THINGS DON'T HAPPEN:
YOUR CHILD WILL BE KILLED.

Commended by @AgentPete for its brevity, starkness and hooky-inny-ness**, it looks like A McK's done it again with his latest novel The Island.

IT WAS JUST SUPPOSED TO BE A FAMILY VACATION.

A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT CHANGED EVERYTHING.

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE CAPABLE OF UNTIL THEY COME FOR YOUR FAMILY.

** may not be literary terminology

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I like that word--hooky-inny-ness! Good blurbs, for sure! My son always bitches because my blurbs are too long--he wants them to be a sentence at most. I've got the blurb for The Dragon Slayer's Son down to three short sentences: Your father was a dragon slayer. You must become one too. But what if dragons aren't the real enemy? It's quite interesting to note that when I changed to that blurb, I noticed my fans started quoting it, saying it to each other, joking about it, etc. It's memorable. The only problem is it did not lead to increased sales. Clearly 'hooky' (at least for the kids), but not enough to convince mums to buy it for their kids.

 

[JohnBertel]

Obviously, I am not arguing against the method of the short sweet blurb, but I don't see how these examples back it up.

For The Island, on the product pages on Amazon for kindle, hardcover, and audio the above 3 lines are followed by a more traditional blurb. 217 words long. The listing for paperback seems weird. Shows the title as "Untitled McKinty 2 of 2" and no blurb.

For The Chain, most of the product pages have a long blurb of 186 words. The audiobook has the short blurb followed by the long blurb. Only the kindle version has the short blurb alone.

 

[E G Logan]

I think what we have here is what I have always known as an intro, and a 'blurb'.

The intro, which is what Jonny quotes here, would go on the front cover of the paperback – maybe also hardback – while the longer piece of text (what I think of as 'back cover copy') is for the back. No idea what the procedure is for Amazon/Kindle, never been involved in that.

That would be why the intro (or whatever other term you go for) is shorter, snappier and spikier, while the back cover text has enough words to be more suggestive, more atmospheric ...

McKinty (or agent/publisher) still writes a sharp one, whatever it's called.