Into the Fire

The second book in the Love in Andauk series has a cover. And it has a description. We all know how I feel about covers. Here’s how I feel about writing a description. Arghhhh!

I need to take a story of thousands and thousands of words and boil it down to about two paragraphs. I need to introduce the two main characters without explaining how they end up together. I need to tell some of what happens in the book but not give away anything that happens in the book. I’m a little frustrated just thinking about it.

The blurb is how the book is marketed, and marketing is all about managing expectations. I need to sell it without overselling it. The book needs to meet or exceed expectations or people will be disappointed. But I can’t be too bland in describing the book or no one will want to read it in the first place. How do you say the book is really good but not really good? While also trying to avoid subjective adjectives altogether.

Even if I manage that, people are different. The exact same description will provoke different reactions and expectations from the various people who read it. So I need it to sound really good but not really good to the people who will like it just a bit better than they expected to like it. How is this accomplished?

I don’t know. Here’s what I do instead. I write a brief description of the book. I come back to it a few days later and change a few words. A few days after that, I delete the second paragraph. I think about it longer, then rewrite that second paragraph. I immediately add a word to the first sentence that I think makes all the difference. A few days after that, I change that word. Then I sit and stare at what I’ve written for a while. That doesn’t help, by the way. I delete a sentence and let the blurb sit a few more days. When I come back, I decide that sentence was actually good but don’t remember the exact wording. I start over and end up writing something pretty close to what I had before I started over. That’s when I figure I’ve done the best I can.