Now that I’ve got a cover for The Silver Trumpet, I have to write the blurb for it, which I did this afternoon.
Somehow I always find it a difficult task–sum up the whole novel in 150 words, and do it in such a way as to make someone want to open it up and read it. This always leaves me wondering if I should’ve kept it to 150 words in the first place.
Which brings me back some 30 years to my days as a horror novelist for a major New York City publishing house. They wouldn’t have dreamed of letting the book’s author write the cover blurb.
See that one up there? The cover copy on the back was written by someone who hadn’t read the book, or at best only skimmed a part of it. What you read on the back cover only slightly resembles the content of the book. I would have liked to complain, but that would’ve only made them laugh.
So Storehouse Press has me writing the cover copy for my own books, and the cover artist actually reads the book before he creates the cover, and everybody’s happy.
Next time you feel a book as given you a bum steer, please try to remember it’s probably not the author’s fault.
Some cover blurbs may show a familiarity with events in the book, but entirely miss the point of what is going on. Movie reviews are just as bad, at times.
Well, I write all my own. And I guess that’s for the best.
It’s the only way to go.
I just read the blurb on the back of your first book. If your latest blurb is anywhere as good as the first one it will be a winner. I don’t see how a young person could resist reading “Bell Mountain” after reading its blurb.