How to Write a Brilliant Blurb for Your Book

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Blurbs are the second most important selling tool you have for your book, so you want this short description to grab the reader’s attention. Learning to write a short blurb for your book can be fun, but it is also a helpful practice for writing promotional short articles of any kind, especially for online copy, which should be always short and concise.  
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Writing a blurb for your books’ back cover is not the only way you can make use of it:

• as part of a proposal for a publisher
• for your e-books online sales page on Amazon, Kobo, B&N etc.
• as content for your website page or your blogs’ “About” page
• for your submission for a contest
• for your application as a “Writer in Residency”
• editors or journalists need a blurb for an article on you and your book
• as your book blurb for the person introducing you in an interview or a writers’ panel

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Remember the blog article about the “elevator pitch“, You Never Get a Second Chance…the 30-60 second description of your book?  Writing a book blurb or a very short synopsis of your book is almost the same task of explaining your book in a few short sentences.
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What is the difference between a book blurb and a short synopsis?
A books blurb does NOT have a spoiler! It stimulates interest and curiosity and wets the readers appetite to buy / read the entire book.
A synopsis is a summary of the whole story – the beginning, the middle and the end: What happens throughout the story, at the end, how everything is resolved.
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What’s in for your reader? Tips on writing a blurb

Blurbs can range from a few lines to a few short paragraphs. A book blurb does not provide answers, but rather spark the reader’s curiosity.

• First, you must determine the market for your story.
• Most of your success will depend on your opening line, the hook or the headline.
• Write your blurb in a way that shows your potential reader how you will deliver.
• End with a reason for the reader to buy / read your book. It can be in the form of a statement or a provocative question.
• Study lots of back cover blurbs in your own or a library’s shelves.
• If it’s a novel, it should promise a fabulous, entertaining read.  A Non-Fiction or self-help books blurb should promise a solution or appeal to the reader’s interest.
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Blurbs for Fiction
Book blurbs tend to pitch to the emotional side of fiction readers. The character’s experience is “spooky, utterly devastating or heart-breaking”. The blurb might talk about a mystery to be solved. Add questions into your novel’s blurb.
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Blurbs for Non-fiction
These book blurbs promise answers and strategies, such as “chock-full of information“ or “gives you the solutions you where looking for.”
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Five basic elements
American Bestselling Author and writing teacher Mike Wells writes in his blog:
Each and every story is composed of the same five basic elements: a (1) hero who finds himself stuck in a (2) situation from which he wants to free himself by achieving a (3) goal. However, there is a (4) villain who wants to stop him from this, and if he’s successful, will cause the hero to experience a (5) disaster.
Read his worthwhile blog where he explains in detail how to write a synopsis of your book, under “Advice for Writers“.
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Writer short and shorter
How to shorten what has already been trimmed and trimmed and more trimmed? Learn it from Marilyn Byerly.
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Get testimonials
Once you mastered writing your own book blurb, you might want to get testimonials from celebrity writers in your genre. How you can achieve this, explains Marcia Yudkin and offers great tips on getting testimonials.
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Phrases with instant appeal
Sarah Kettle, copywriter for Penguin: “Note words and quotes and phrases with instant appeal, atmosphere, an air of mystery, a sense of character, a sense of place and put them all together in a coherent and exciting way.”  So, whoever picks up the book and reads the blurb, thinks “I must read this book”.

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $159 for three months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

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What Do You Have Friends For?

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How friends and family can help to improve your Amazon Ranking will be a reminder today, short before the holiday season starts.  They indeed can help you so much – they even don’t need to buy the book (again). Amazon can give a great book a big boost to “be discovered”.  These little features take only a few seconds, but can make a big difference in your Amazon ranking – and subsequently in the success of your book.
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Ask all your acquaintances, friends, family to:.

• Write a REVIEW of your book.
  Even if the book already has lots of reviews already. As more reviews as better for the author and as more potential buyers can see the popularity of the work. Amazon rules are against family members’ reviews.  So ask only the ones with a different name/address for a review. They need an Amazon account and at least made previously one purchase of a physical or digital item.
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• LISTMANIA:
  Amazon allows all account holders to create a “list” of their favorite things…such as books and it is called, Listmania!  So if you have written a book, your friends and even you can create a Listmania! list, and certainly include your own book
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• “HIGHLIGHTS” in your book
  Just another item in Amazon’s algorithm list for book popularity: If you friends have a Kindle, let them highlight some wise or fun quotations from the book. If enough people share their highlights, they’ll show up in your e-book. Amazon will display these “Popular Highlights” by combining the highlights of all Kindle customers and identifying the passages with the most highlights.
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• Good old-fashioned word of mouth.
  Let your friends and family brag about your books, or mention it in their blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ sites or in their emails with a link to your site or your Amazon page. To help them send regularly images and info about you or your books that they can copy/paste into their social media sites.
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• Help with “blurbs”.
  Your friends or family members might have websites and blogs. Ask them to consider sending out a short note about your book, which can help you sell more books. If they allow you to use their words in your “praise” section on your author website.
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• Rate useful reviews: This is an important one!  
  Amazon asks readers “Was this review helpful to you? YES or NO?Rating the existing reviews as “helpful” or “unhelpful” makes a significant impact. Reviews with the most “helpful” votes appear on the BUY page “Most Helpful Customer Reviews”.
  By voting for the most informative and helpful reviews, your friends have the power to get them moved to the head of the line. Raising the position of the most descriptive reviews is especially helpful if the publisher missed to give the book an impressive blurb.
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How many reviews did YOU write?  It’s a give and take…
Compare two books with identical sales numbers: the one which has been promoted with these features is much higher in the (intern) ranks, which means it will be more featured on Amazon and subsequently will sell better in the future.  However, don’t be too worried about your books’ rank: Just like being popular in high school, it may not mean all that much in the real world.
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Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 1,140 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email?  There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

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