The Last Words You Will Ever Write…



The Back Cover Blurb, the BCB, the last words that you will write for your completed manuscript, the most important words you’ll ever write.

So, my novel is done and is in editing, my cover design is done, now I need to write the blurb.  I suck at this.

Those few paragraphs are what will ultimately make someone read your story, it is your sales pitch.  I am notoriously bad at sales.  My husband could sell ice to Eskimos, I, on the other hand, couldn’t sell a glass of water to a man dying of thirst.  That is how bad I am at sales. I am not exaggerating. Truly.

But writing the blurb is an important step and I believe that the person writing the blurb needs to know the story intimately.  I have read blurbs that have inticed me to read the book but when I get half way through, I realise that the story is only loosely related to what the blurb hinted at.  I’m pretty sure that these blurbs are written by people who haven’t even read the book. And it is annoying.

At the same time you don’t want to give away too much of the plot. Another thing I am bad at is writing book reviews.  I am always tempted to rewrite the book, a cliff notes version, and give away too much so that there is no need for you to read it. As you can imagine, this is not the best way to write a blurb.

I have read a few ‘tutorials’ on the subject.  These are my two favourite:

5 Tips for Writing a Compelling Book Blurb

How to Write a Back Blurb

I still haven’t found the magic formula. I have had a couple of attempts and am sort of happy with my final result. Let me know what you think and if you have a few tweaks, speak up!

A cheating fiancé, a business trip to Melbourne, a one night stand, an unexpected meeting and a lost Jimmy Choo…

After sensible, practical, bakery owner, Claire Butterworth, finds her fiancé of five years in bed with another woman, she kicks him to the curb with a face slap, some cathartic personal property destruction and a few choice words, then heads to Melbourne for some well deserved retail therapy and decadent food indulgences. She never expected to wake up in a strange (but luxurious) hotel room with a total blank of what had happened the night before, nor did she expect to spend the following night in the company of  the charming, delicious and swoon worthy  Ben Donovan.  Her short stint in Australia’s food and wine capital has seen her meet not one, but two exciting men who see her as more than the plain and boring Claire she has always thought herself to be.

The last thing Ben expected on his business trip was to meet someone as sweet and sexy as Claire.  From the minute he first lays eyes on her, he knows that this is a woman he will find hard to get out of his head. She is beautiful, intelligent and has a love for life that he has not seen in the women he normally dates.  Never having had the desire for a long term relationship, he has been perfectly happy to casually date the many and varied beautiful (but vapid) women in his social circle.  But as he spends time in Claire’s company, he starts to want more than what his carefully constructed life has to offer.

When Claire returns to her ‘real life’ on the Sunshine Coast, she finds herself torn between two men, on a mission to save her floundering business and the object of affection for an obsessed stalker.  Maybe being a ‘plain Jane’ wasn’t so bad after all.