The All-Important Book Blurb

I have a contemporary erotic romance coming out in September, and I’ve been stressing over the book blurb. This is probably because I’m a pantser and not a plotter. A plotter would know exactly what the conflict is between the characters, so writing a story blurb would be a piece of cake.

Except relationships are never that cut-and-dried. Not even in fiction.

My heroine has control issues. A difficult childhood has made her determined to control every aspect of her life. She’s deathly afraid of flying, but it’s rooted in the fact she can’t control airplanes (or gravity, for that matter).

My hero also has control issues. While in the military, he lost men under his command, so he’s determined to remain single. He never wants to be responsible for another human life, least of all a wife’s.

The conflict between my characters’ control issues drives the book. But how on earth do you convey all of the above (and throw in a mysterious fortune teller, too) in the standard two or three sentences of a blurb?

All authors know that next to a book cover, the blurb is the most important thing to hook a reader into buying a book. It has to grab a reader’s attention as effectively as the opening line of the story. See? You can understand why I’m stressing.

Some nights I go to sleep vowing to become a plotter.

Except I never will, because I enjoy the thrill of having the germ of an idea but letting my characters tell me their story. That’s why I write.

What about you? Is an entire book easier to write or is the blurb simpler?  I’d love to hear about your process, especially if you’re a pantser like me who loses sleep, weight (and fingernails) trying to write the all-important blurb.

Tell me your secrets!

Leigh



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