[–Pam Uphoff–]
Blurbs. The bane of many an author’s existence.
They aren’t a brief synopsis, they’re a teaser. A hook. Something to get the potential reader to at least “look inside” if not just hit the buy now button.
I’m pretty bad at them.
So I just put up a book, with my usual last minute blurb. My process goes something like this:
Karl Traeger has a problem.
His elderly father has died, and given that he’s a few weeks shy of seventeen, he’s going to be at the mercy of his very unsavory relatives.
And there’s no telling what they’ll do to his antique business.
But maybe if he moves fast, before anyone knows his father is dead . . .
No, wait, I need to let the readers know that it’s pretty short, and which of my series this is in, not that that ought not be obvious, but . . .
A Novella in the Fall of the Alliance Series
Karl Traeger has a problem.
His elderly father has died, and given that he’s a few weeks shy of seventeen, he’s going to be at the mercy of his very unsavory relatives.And there’s no telling what they’ll do to his antique business.
But maybe if he moves fast, before anyone knows his father is dead . . .
But what about the rest of his family? He’s as worried about them as he is his business . . .
A Novella in the Fall of the Alliance Series
Karl Traeger has a problem.
His elderly father has died, and given that he’s a few weeks shy of seventeen, he’s going to be at the mercy of his very unsavory relatives. And powerless to help his nice relatives.
And there’s no telling what they’ll do to his antique business.
But maybe if he moves fast, before anyone knows his father is dead . . .
But wait, this doesn’t really show the depth of the problem . . .
Or anything about the setting . . .
In a brutal cross dimensional Empire where everything is about ownership and control, and the strongest mentalists rule . . .
Karl Traeger has a problem.
His elderly father has died, and given that he’s a few weeks shy of seventeen, he’s going to be at the mercy of his very unsavory relatives. And powerless to help his nice relatives.
And there’s no telling what they’ll do to his antique business.
But maybe if he moves fast, before anyone knows his father is dead . . .
A Novella in the Fall of the Alliance Series
Head? Meet desk. HELP!!!!!!
Mad Genius Club 
Always fun.
“Karl Traeger has a problem.
His elderly father has died, and given that he’s a few weeks shy of seventeen…”
Here’s my first problem. I have to reread the first bit, because the closest prior match to the “he’s” in the second line is his “elderly father:”, and so for a moment I contemplate the father as under seventeen, before I realize my mistake.
It’s not that this is a big deal, but ANY flaw in a blurb is also a test of “do I trust the skills of this author?”
I would instead say:
“Karl Traeger has a problem.
His elderly father has died, and given that Karl’s a few weeks shy of seventeen…”
——-
“he’s going to be at the mercy of his very unsavory relatives. And powerless to help his nice relatives.
And there’s no telling what they’ll do to his antique business.
But maybe if he moves fast…”
Here’s my second problem.
Look, I’m fine with sentence fragments used rhetorically, but if you have too many of them, it feels like a hail of unexpected bullets instead of an emphasis.
I would instead say:
“he’s going to be at the mercy of his very unsavory relatives, powerless to help his nice relatives (and there’s no telling what they’ll do to his antique business).
But maybe if he moves fast…”
——-
A nit for flow… “nice ones” feels smoother than repeating “nice relatives”.
A nit for spelling… It’s “antiques business”, not “antique business” (unless the business itself is really, really, old).
A nit for flavor… “moves fast” is slang diction rather than (current) formally correct “moves quickly”. I have no problem with the choice to convey that flavor, as long as it’s deliberate. Else a blurb reader might take it for an error instead.
As it happens, I have recently downloaded and read the first dozen or so of the Fall of the Alliance books (of which I assume this one is an entry). So my experience of reading your blurbs and deciding to buy is still fresh.
One comment — I was not at all clear that the books would not be connected to each other by sharing characters in some form (friends, descendants, etc.), though that is true for some of them. I think of that as a sort of default in a long series. Instead, the unifying theme seems to be the various worlds/time periods. (And perhaps I’ve got that wrong — it’s still a bit confusing for me. It’s why it’s taken me this long to actually start buying them.)
Each individual book is an enjoyable book, and some are tied in a sequence together, but “The Fall of the Alliance'” seems to be the only unifying theme. Nothing wrong with that, but I felt whipsawed when a novel length’s investment in a character was gone by the next book — it wasn’t what I had expected.
Part of the confusion I had was also the way events in prior series entries related to later entries. There were some connections by character, and some references to prior events/other worlds elsewhere, but I couldn’t connect most of those dots and had to take the books independently. I’m NOT saying there’s any issue with the books themselves (necessarily), but the blurbs, at least, didn’t seem to give me a structural framework for how events in one book related to another. Perhaps this is more of a wish for a Foreword, or Introduction, rather than a blurb or main content issue.
This matters, because I had a hard time feeling the “ooh, I have to get the NEXT one” after each one ended, because I couldn’t tell if the next entry continued (in some sense) the “same” story, or was set someplace completely different, and the latter was less compelling to me. So I had to dig a bit to figure that out each time.
All of this is a natural consequence of the stories you want to tell in the Fall of the Alliance world. I’m not at all suggesting you tell different stories (your stories are fine), just to give some technical thought for how to present the structure of how those stories are related.
For comparison, I think of the Nathan Lowell “Solar Clipper” series entries, where he has sub-bundles:
>> Trader’s Tales from the Solar Clipper (1-6)
>> Seeker’s Tales from the Solar Clipper (1-3)
>> Shaman’s Tales from the Solar Clipper (1-3)
>> Smuggler’s Tales from the Solar Clipper (1-3)
Each shares a very broad universe (and there’re even some references to characters/things from his other series), but the ones with the detailed sub-head are more closely associated with each other (though not necessarily with the same primary (or even secondary) characters).
(I hope this is useful…)
Out of curiousity, did you read all the other Wine of the Gods books first? Or any of them? Or did you jump in with the Fall of the Alliance sub-series?
One thing Pam’s been trying to figure out for a few years is how to entice lots of new readers to try a series that has dozens of books.
I ran across Homeworld (Book 0 in the Fall of the Alliance series) from a relatively recent ad or blog reference and liked the in-isolation setting, so I bought it. Then I picked up and read a lot of them (in sequence). I haven’t read any of the Wine of the Gods series yet (and didn’t know it was related).
My series are truly sequential, rather than various-stories-in-the-world-of, and therefore I think I can only run permanent ads on Book 1’s of the series.
That doesn’t mean individual series entries might not be compelling, but I (for one) am resistant to picking up a mid-series book in isolation. If the blurb is good enough, I might buy book 1 of the series, and then the rest up to that point, but that doesn’t happen often.
I’ve tried to make mine all free standing, but sometimes two or three really need to be read in order. I really need to push Empire of the One as a good place to start.
I began with the Empire of the One, and had no trouble following it. Of course, then I had to totally rework my mental images of Xen, et al., when I went back and read the earlier books. 😁
The heal-everything zivvy dissolver is the Wine of the Gods. 😁
I believe you, of course, but other than the fact that it’s the same author and the covers are in similar styles, how would I know that without already suspecting?
“From the author of The Wine of the Gods” is not a sufficient clue (for me). “In the world of The Wine of the Gods” in a blurb would be…
That’s the sort of thing that my “Nathan Lowell — Series Titles” example above uses to help clue in a reader.
C. J. Cherryh has a similar issue with her “Alliance-Union” universe. The Chanur series is set in that universe, but it focuses on the 5 Chanur books as a stand-alone sub-series (vs, say, Alliance Space or Regenesis or The Deep Beyond which are in the larger version of that universe [as I recall…] )
And then there’s the Directorate series . . . the first spinoff. I keep thinking about going to all omnibusses . . .
You’re in for a treat then, meeting Xen before he turns into the Master of the Multiverse, his family. Later, meeting the Oners (known as the Enemy in the Alliance series), and then setting up Embassy. All sorts of fun stuff. And tantalizing side hints that minor characters are off following their own adventures that alas we never get to see.
Terrific, but what is the actual recommended reading order for all the books in this universe?
I tried, and mostly succeeded in publishing and numbering them in internal timeline order. Start at book one, Outcasts and Gods. After book 28, the Directorate series branches off to follow a bunch of the younger characters though college. It parallels the main series and occasionally intersects it.
After book 56, I branched off to take a look at the Bad Guy’s Alliance from the inside, and sort of got trapped there.
Oh, and there’s a missing number, where I removed a short story and added it to the end of book 2 where it belonged. One of these years i’ll write the story that fits there and get things straightened out.
Sigh…
I know. My writing does not resemble a business-like enterprise. But there is a lot of it.
If you’re looking to convey urgency, I’d ditch the “powerless to help his nice relatives” part – I assume the reader will figure that out pretty quickly as they go. I think it will ramp up the tension a little more.
Drop the ‘given that’. ‘He’s only 17 and at the mercy of (adjective(s)) relatives.
This is still narrative wriing rather than essay or reflection to frame the scene.
Questions I have as a prospective reader:
1) How exactly is Karl going to be at the mercy of his relatives? Are they gaining custody of him, or is this a battle over the estate?
2) Why is the antiques business important? Is it because it’s his father’s legacy, or is there money in it?
3) What is Karl going to do if he moves fast? The cover makes me think Weekend at Bernie’s, but the blurb doesn’t give me much to work with.
4) What does any of this have to do with a cross-dimensional Empire or mentalists? If they’re important to the story, I’d like to know how. If they’re just the backdrop, casually mentioning something sci-fi in the blurb should be enough.
I also second the recommendations about dropping “given”, cleaning up the sentence fragments, and clarifying where this fits into the series (“A Standalone Novella”?).
Just to make this concrete, here’s my take on it:
“Karl Traeger has a problem.
His elderly father has died, and under the laws of the Empire, Karl’s unsavory relatives gain custody of him until he turns 18[?]. Even worse, there’s no telling what they’ll do to his father’s beloved antiques business.
But for now, no one knows his father is dead. And if Karl moves fast, he might just be able to keep it that way…”
“In a brutal cross(-)dimensional Empire where everything (what exactly is everything, here?) is about ownership and control, and the strongest mentalists rule . . .
Karl Traeger has a problem. (Does this serve? Or would it be better to just state the problem?)
His elderly father has died, and given that he’s a few weeks shy of seventeen (took me a minute to figure out why this was important), he’s going to be at the mercy of his very unsavory relatives. And powerless to help his nice (“nice” seems like a bit of a weak word here) relatives (a little distant/unspecific?).
And there’s no telling what they’ll do to his antique business.
But maybe if he moves fast, before anyone knows his father is dead . . .
A Novella in the Fall of the Alliance Series”
My suggestions as a fellow author who has no idea what they’re doing with a blurb:
In a brutal cross-dimensional empire where survival is contingent on ownership and control, and the strongest mentalists rule . . .
With the untimely death of his father, Karl Traeger will soon be at the mercy of his relatives. He’s a few weeks shy of seventeen, so everything his father owned will be claimed by the vultures–what will happen to the antique business? Who will take care of his cousins?
But maybe if he moves fast, before anyone knows his father is dead . . .
A Novella in the Fall of the Alliance Series
You guys are so good!
In a brutal cross dimensional Empire where everything is about ownership and control, and the strongest mentalists rule . . .
Karl Traeger has a problem.
His elderly father has died, and sixteen-year-old Karl going to be at the mercy of his very unsavory relatives.
And since he’s the oldest of his generation—ahead of his cousins in the line of inheritance—he knows his uncle will never Present him: allow him to demonstrate his fitness for the title of Lord. No. He’ll be one more brain-chipped servant.
But maybe if he moves fast, before anyone knows his father is dead . . . he can save himself, then get to work saving the people he cares about, and maybe even save his budding antiques business.
A standalone Novella in the Fall of the Alliance Series
Good! Tiny change suggestions…
“brutal cross–dimensional…” [HYPHENATE]
“sixteen-year-old Karl IS going to be at the mercy of [kill “his”] very…”
“ahead of his cousins [kill “in the line of inheritance”]–he knows his uncle will never Present him [kill “colon”] COMMA TO allow him …”
“No [kill “period”] COMMA he’ll be one more…”
“…cares about [kill “comma and”] —maybe even [kill “save”] his budding antiques business.”
(Since he’s only 16, what could his antiques business be but “budding”? Still, you might consider “nascent”, “brand new”, “resurrected”, etc.)
I like this one.
That last one is not bad. The main problem I had with many of the earlier ones is that it wasn’t clear whether it was the nice relatives or the unsavory ones that would alter the antiques business.
The first question I had is how do the family dynamics play out? He’s 17 but his father is elderly?
That implies that either dad married late in life OR our hero is the son of a much younger trophy wife whom his older half-siblings loathe.
That’s clear in the book, but probably doesn’t need to be in the blurb. He’s the son of the third wife. Rejuv is only available to the lords, so this is typical.
The evil uncles are the much younger half brothers of the deceased. Also not untypical.
Inheritance goes by generation, oldest to youngest, then jumps to the next generation, oldest to youngest.
Thank you!
“Karl Trager has a problem” => “On the edge of manhood((/adulthood/his majority)), Karl Trager faces the loss of everything: his patrimony, his freedom, and even his very self, at the hands of ((thesaurus trawl)) (name or identify relatives)”
Does anyone else have a blurb they want critiqued? Just toss it in here.
I’d love to have mine critiqued!
Gifts of the Auldtree is a world of mythology, glamor, mud, blood, civilizations in conflict, and hints of distant powers. In the center of this is the mysterious Starlight Jewel of Minalav.
Axly, the Starlight Company’s premier seductress-thief and assassin, will do whatever it takes to keep her human brother hidden. The secrets of his origin could tear their world apart, and keeping them has driven her to lies and murder. Her people, the sprygan-human hybrids that live under the city of Minalav, aren’t keen on allowing their most skilled asset to roam free. A job with a human offers a chance to get her brother out of danger, but it comes at a price. Divided loyalties, duty, romance, and the twisted hands of fate intertwine in this epic fantasy adventure.
How about leading with the hook?
Axly will do whatever it takes to keep her human brother hidden. The secrets of his origin could tear their world apart, and keeping those secrets has already driven her to lies and murder.
Axly is the Starlight Company’s premier seductress-thief and assassin and her people, the sprygan-human hybrids that live under the city of Minalav, aren’t keen on allowing their most skilled asset to roam free.
Npw, a job with a human offers a chance to get her brother out of danger, but it comes at a price. Divided loyalties, duty, romance, and the twisted hands of fate intertwine in this epic fantasy adventure.
Gifts of the Auldtree is a world of mythology, glamor, mud, blood, civilizations in conflict, and hints of distant powers. In the center of this is the mysterious Starlight Jewel of Minalav.
That makes more sense!
[Book 1 of The Affinities of Magic]
Magic without understanding, and a wizard’s guild with no members.
Young Rush has bent the rules and managed to become an apprentice in wizardry to his uncle, but neither of them is qualified to revive the Torch & Scroll guild, and there is no one else left. Neglected for generations, the mother house is in ruins, soon to be sold off by the Star Watch, the wizards’ council, as the only guild ever to have expired for lack of heirs.
But this clever and deep-thinking young man may have puzzled out some of the fundamental principles underlying all magical practice, and this discovery will change everything, if only Rush can stay alive long enough for his plans to work.
First impression: Interesting, and I’d probably hit the ‘look inside’ button if I had time.
The “if only Rush can stay alive long enough for his plans to work” caught me a bit by surprise. The rest of the blurb makes me think that the point is saving the guild from death by bureaucracy. (Magical equivalent of all the ‘save the dying church/school/other org’ stories out there.) More of an intrigue than mortal peril style story.
The powers that be play rough (some of them)…
The shortcut version is that the hero starts the Industrial Revolution of Magic, complete with multiplying businesses, industrial perils, and competitors.
Maybe something like this?
. . . and this discovery will change everything. But the Star Watch doesn’t like change. Rush may have to fight to stay alive before he can put his plans to work.
Alternative suggestion for the first sentence: “Young Rush has bent the rules and managed to become an apprentice in wizardry, but neither he nor his master is qualified to revive the Torch & Scroll guild, and there are no other members left.”
For everyone’s amusement:
Nereida was the beloved youngest daughter of the Sea King until she fell in love with the human Prince Karl. Nereida gave up her tail, her voice, and everything she had in order to be with him. But Karl didn’t feel the same way about her, and when he married the princess of a neighboring kingdom, Nereida’s life was left in shambles. Trapped on land with no way to return to the sea or regain her form as a mermaid, Nereida must make her way through the world, from small country inns to great cities, finding friends and enemies as she learns what it truly means to become human.
If Karl is not a major character in the present tense of the story (and by that I mean more Disney’s Eric than the chap in the Hans Christian Anderson version), I don’t know if it is necessary to name him. The blurb makes it sound like this is more Nereida’s journey to get past being stuck on him.
“Nereida was the beloved youngest daughter of the Sea King until she fell in love with a human Prince. Nereida gave up her tail, her voice, and everything she had in order to be with him. But he didn’t feel the same way about her, and when he married someone else, Nereida’s life was left in shambles. Trapped on land with no way to return to the sea or regain her form as a mermaid, Nereida must make her way through the world, from small country inns to great cities, finding friends and enemies as she learns what it truly means to become human.”
Thanks!
Karl is probably somewhere in between Eric and the HCA prince; the goings-on at his court are a relatively important subplot, but I’d say he’s probably, story-wise, the third most important member of that court behind his sister and his seneschal. He doesn’t particularly need to be named in the blurb.
Better than becoming sea foam.
My philosophy is that she’s a teenager whose first crush ended up with someone else. She’s not going to DIE from that, even if, at sixteen, she might think she is.
Well, in the original story it was part of the spell making her human that she would die if she failed to “get him”.
A day late and a dollar short as usual:
The Spiderstar must be destroyed, but Jetay’s new allies may not be up to the challenge!
Jetay has freed himself and his brother from slavery, and joined the Partisans in their interstellar war against the evil Red Knights. Unfortunately the Partisan military is an undisciplined, poorly led force, and the Red Knights grow ever closer to their goal of unleashing the ancient, deadly weapon known as the Spiderstar. Lady Lanati has a plan to destroy the Spiderstar, but it would force Jetay to choose between love and duty. Even worse, he might even have to use the same memory removal techniques which were once used against him….
Only major question is, “Who is Lady Lanati?” She seems to be thrown in without any explanation for people who haven’t read the previous book, and a short phrase giving her role and relationship to Jetay might be useful.
Jetay has freed himself and his brother from slavery, and joined Lady Lanati and the Partisans in their interstellar war against the evil Red Knights.
Unfortunately the Partisan military is an undisciplined, poorly led force, and the Red Knights grow ever closer to their goal of unleashing the ancient, deadly weapon known as the Spiderstar. Lady Lanati has a plan to destroy the Spiderstar, but it would force Jetay to choose between love and duty.
Even worse, he might even have to use the same memory removal techniques which were once used against him….
A story of honor, loyalty, psionic warriors, and old doomsday weapons in a decaying Interstellar Empire
Nice!