Book Blurbs That Grab Readers

By Glenys O'Connell

Some days the words just don't flow. Usually, being a journalist, if you give me any subject and ask for 500 words, I'm right there. Done.

Yet this month, out of the blue, I looked at the lovely list of topics posted for this month for the Roses blog and - zippp! - my mind went blank.

That's an experience similar to staring at the blue screen of death when your computer crashes.

Help!

I tried all the usual things: extra strong coffee; refusing to leave the office chair until I'd written; moving out to the patio with a notebook hoping a change of scene would spur some neuron activity; taking a walk; eating chocolate - none of the tried and true tactics worked.It got worse as I watched my fellow Roses coming up with all kinds of clever blogs on the themes while my screen remained - blank.

I don't know why....

And when I did start thinking in a writerly fashion, it turned out I was way off topic. I was actually thinking about book blurbs, the short descriptions on the back cover that hope to hook you into buying.

So instead of something fascinatingly informative and witty about frogs or history or Easter, here are my thoughts on book blurbs:

If you are anything like me, you are attracted first by the title and cover, and then by the back cover blurb. 

According to the people who study these things, writers have something like 30 seconds to impress you once you, the potential purchaser, pick up the book. Getting you to open the covers and read the first few lines is crucial! If the book doesn’t grab you then, you'll quite likely put it back on the shelf. So the major part of that battle is to capture your interest enough to get you to actually pick up the book and open the covers. Which means you’ve got to have something pretty special in the back cover blurb.

Tough, but not as hard as it is in movies,where scriptwriters put together a one or two line pitch or ‘logline’ in order to grab a filmmaker’s attention. In classes, I ask students to write a ‘blurb’ about their story in just a couple of sentences and that usually evokes some pretty loud groans, although once they’ve mastered the art, most writers think it’s a real benefit. Distilling your story down to its very essence in a couple of sentences clarifies it for you; it also tells you pretty quickly whether you’ve got a strong idea or not.

Using these few sentences to describe your story can make an editor-grabbing beginning to a query letter! In this stripped down story line, you need to have the names of the main characters, something about their motives, the challenge facing them, and their reactions. The Who, What, When, and Why. You can keep the How part a secret for now – it’s good to leave the reader hungry to know the ending of your story and the fate of the protagonists.

Here’s the blurb for Marrying Money, my soon to be in print romantic comedy release from Red Rose Publishing

Diana, Lady Ashburnham, needs to find a rich husband, and fast.She’s the last of an aristocratic line stretching back 500 years, and she’s broke. The family fortunes have been eaten up by the crumbling mansion and impoverished estate. Not wanting to be known as the ‘Ashburnham Who Lost The Lot’, she refuses to sell off heirloom jewellery or let the estate be auctioned off to a dot.com millionaire or heavy metal rock star.That’s when Diana has her Great Idea – she’ll follow a new take on the way her ancestors raised money – by marrying money! So Diana corals her best friend, Sally Barnes, into joining her on a trip to Ireland to try to net a – preferably titled – millionaire.

See – an entire short novel condensed into six lines. Yet those lines tell the reader a lot about the story, the characters, motivation and setting, without giving away the whole plot.

Another way writers capture a reader’s interest is to have a few lines from a well-known author – or at least someone better known than yourself – praising your story. That’s not so easy to get until you’re fairly well known or you have made a point of making lots of writer friends who now feel indebted to you.

There are dangers inherent in this, however. Groucho Marx is supposed to have written the following note to an author who had requested some kind words to put on the back cover of his novel: ‘From the moment I picked up your book until the moment I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.’ Uhmm, when you think about it, not really much of a recommendation!

Then there’s the equally obscure comment from a Victorian English Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, himself the author of several books: ‘Dear Sir, thank you for sending me a copy of your book, which I shall waste no time in reading.’ That’s a double meaning I wouldn’t want on my back cover!

One last thing – have you ever wondered where the word ‘blurb’ came from? (No? Okay, maybe it's just my mind that goes off at these tangents)You must admit it’s a bit of a weird word and doesn’t seem to have any scholarly Latin or Greek roots. According to an article in the Toronto Globe & Mail newspaper about this very topic, we can thank a writer named Gelett Burgess for the phenomena. It seems, according to the Globe, that Burgess wanted to grab attention for his funny book, ‘Are You a Bromide?’ published in 1907. He did so by putting a picture of a pretty young woman on the cover. This fictional young lady’s name was Miss Belinda Blurb, and she assured would-be readers that Burgess’ book was ‘…a terrific read.’

So, readers and fellow authors, what back cover blurbs have grabbed you? Do you like humorous ones, or those that hint of something dark and deadly? How important is the blurb to you when deciding to buy a book? Please share some of your thoughts in the comments column!

Glenys O’Connell is hard at work on a blurb for her next book, Saving Maggie, a romantic suspense/paranormal, and Naked Writing:The No Frills Way to Write Your Book.. Meanwhile, for those who like a lot of humor with their romance, her latest release is Marrying Money, a romantic comendy set in the UK and Ireland,currently an ebook and scheduled to be released in print later this year.

Confessions of a Dating Rebel!

By Glenys O'Connell

 There are lots of traditional mores that now seem outdated: once upon a time, women were not allowed to own property, vote, hold down a job (except poor women could do something menial, like being a servant).

In fact, right up until a few years ago, women teachers in Ireland (and possibly other countries!) were expected to leave their jobs if they got married. One brave soul had to go all the way to the higher courts to insist that she and all other women teachers had the right to work in their chosen profession and at the same time be a wife and mother. She won her case and a judge ordered her reinstated, but whether she actually returned to work in a school that had caused her such unhappiness, I don’t know. I doubt things would have been pleasant for her in the staff room.

Yes, there are many things that women weren't supposed to do in the past that they do now without even having to stop and think. For example, I can remember when I was in my teens, you were considered a bit 'fast' if you asked a guy out on a date. Well, not being one to stand on ceremony, I bravely invited three boys out on dates. Not all at the same time, you understand.

One turned out to be a total jerk. So much for my feelings of being sophisticated in the ways of dating. But never mind, if at first you don’t succeed….

The next turned out to be older, but also a member of the minor aristocracy, and I learned a lot from him – his lifestyle provided lots of insights for a girl from a working class background! But he was looking for a long-term relationship which was more than I was ready for. 'Nuff said.

The next guy I met and asked to accompany me to a party turned out to be a real gem – and we're still together many years and four children later.

So Phssst! to social mores!

You're probably wondering why I'm telling you all this. Definitely not to prove what a rebel I am! I'm pretty sure my own very modern daughters wouldn't be impressed by this bit of 'forwardness' on their Mom's part. And the idea of proposing – well, that went way beyond me!

But hey, girls – it's a Leap Year. You know, the one year in four when February has 29 days.

And if you're too young to know this bit of old folk lore, this is the one day every four years when it's considered okay for a woman to propose to a man. Wow!

If you're in love and he's a bit shy (or, as we used to say, a bit backward on coming forward)       today's the day you can pop the question with good luck on your side.

I'd love to hear about your own adventures in setting the running in a relationship – whether it's making the first move - or even proposing!

Lady Diana, the heroine of my romantic comedy  Marrying Money, was tired of there being a dearth of eligible (and wealthy) husband material in her life. So she decided to go out and find herself a rich husband to save her impoverished estate. Here's an excerpt:           

“I have definitely got to do something about the state of things. We can’t go on this way, what with money leaking out left right and centre and the east wing needing a new roof and…….“

Sally raised an eyebrow at me over her pint mug of lager and lime. It’s her way of saying: “Get on with it.“ and I don’t think she has any idea just how badly her eyebrows need plucking. Raising one like that makes it look like a caterpillar is crawling up her face……

Where was I? Oh yes. “I made a decision this morning, after going over the accounts one more time with Jim Chatterton. After realising that I don’t actually have a pot of my own to piss in, as your dad would so charmingly put it, I've decided on a course of action."

"Ohh, get you. 'I've decided on a course of action.' Well, if that ain't just the lady of the manor, an' all," Sally said before honking loudly and banging her forehead on the table.

"Stop it, will you – everyone's looking," I hissed at her. "Anyway, I am the lady of the manor. And I'm going to get married."

                I should have waited until Sally had swallowed that mouthful of lager and lime. That way she wouldn’t have sprayed it all over the vicar when I made my marriage announcement.

                "You're not serious! You? Get Married? Never!"

                People really were staring, now. The Reverend Morrison was edging quietly away from our table, although I wasn't sure whether he wanted to avoid another lager spray or was afraid I’d ask him to conduct the service. The vicar and my dear nutty Aunt Kay, the family witch, have had a few spats in their time. I think it once involved an exorcism.

                "You're not really going to marry Larry the Lettuce, are you?" Sally's eyes were wide.

                "Well he's as good as any other option around here. And he's got money. It's simple: He gets me, and the Ashburnham Estate gets his money."

                Which is actually only a variation on my ancestors' behavior. Whenever the estate was down to its last few hundred thousand, out would go a hunting party to bag a nice rich bride and dowry. I couldn’t see any difference between my bagging Larry the Lettuce and my great Great-Great-Great-Great--Grandfather, Lord Ralph, aged 70, bringing home pretty little fifteen year old Alice de Clancy and her accompanying gold dowry.

Glenys O'Connell swears she has never proposed to anyone in her life. This blog is the last confession of this sort she intends to make - even under threat of removal of her chocolate stash! You can read excerpts from her books on her web page at Romance Can Be Murder

    

Introducing another Roses of Prose author: romantic suspense writer Glenys O'Connell

I'm delighted to join the talented writers at Roses of Prose, but I hate it when people ask me to introduce myself. I mean, I'm a writer – that's about the closest you can get to multiple personality disorder without being in a psych ward. Really.

Let's see, here's the mundane stuff. I'm a wife, mother of four, and slave to two spoiled felines. I'm a country girl at heart and I live out in what my kids call The Middle of Nowhere in Ontario, Canada. It's actually a beautiful area of lakes and forests, you know, the kind of place where even the poorest locals feel sorry for the 'summer' people who own the very expensive lakeside cottages – after all, we get to live here all year round, while they, poor things, just get to visit!

That said, I've lived in some big cities, too, and they're all reflected in my writing: Toronto, Canada; Dublin, Ireland; Leeds, Yorkshire, England; Cambridge & Bedford, England. I adore Italy and France; could wander around Rome for hours, although the traffic in Paris scares the…whatever out of me! But I'm at my happiest back in the Middle of Nowhere, tending my garden, feeding the birds, sitting out on the patio and writing (see the pic). And in my spare time, I'm a counselor and enjoy poking about in other people's minds.

That's the boring part. There's another part of me, too – the Woman in Jeopardy part. I've been a Canadian wildlife artist, loved by two powerful men and stalked by a killer (Judgement by Fire). I've been a struggling female Irish private investigator, making a living by testing the seducability quotient of husbands and boyfriends for the insecure woman in their lives while coping with a jewel thief, a crazy grannie and a homicide cop who writes sexy romances (Winters & Somers). I've been a British special crimes task force detective, framed by a gang of thugs and stalked by a psycho killer (Resort to Murder). Still in Britain, I've been an aristocratic lady, broke and determined not to be the last of the 500 year old line, so I've gone off with my BFF to snare an Irish millionaire (Marrying Money). I like a bit of mystery and the odd – with the emphasis on odd – murder with my romance.

I've also been a lonely little boy whose best friend is a magic talking pebble (the Pebble People Save the Day, The Pebble People Make a Garden) but we won't talk about that now.

In my next incarnation, I'm a counselor living in a small Ontario village. However, because characters are drawn from real life, no matter how we try to disguise them, I guess I'll have to move far away before that one hits the book stores.

And, in order to lure other unsuspecting would-be novelists into my strange world, I teach a quirky online creative writing course titled Naked Writing: The No Frills Way to Write Your Novel. Soon to be made into a book by the same title.

So that's my introduction, my life in a nutshell. I hope you're still awake and you'll come and visit the Roses of Prose often – especially on the 8^th and 29^th of each month. Those are my blogging days, and I don’t want to be all alone out here….

Glenys O'Connell is currently working on a romantic suspense series about a counselor who attracts more than her share of nutzoids, and a book on creative writing coming in September. Her work has been published by The Wild Rose Press and Red Rose Press (what is this with roses?) She also writes non-fiction, with her latest book, PTSD: The Essential Guide,  also due out in September. If you still want more, you can find her at her web site: Romance Can Be murder, www.glenysoconnell.com; on Twitter at http://twitter.com/GlenysOConnell; Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glenys.oconnell. She also hangs around other blogs while trying to escape the voices in her head.