Blurb? What's that???

blurb  
–noun
1.a brief advertisement or announcement, esp. a laudatory one: She wrote a good blurb for her friend's novel.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

Blurb. It's a funny little word, but it has the power to spark the interest of an editor or a reader. From a one or two sentence description of the story to the back cover of the book, a blurb gives a quick overview to a reader. That reader may be an editor looking over a query letter or a customer standing in a store, perusing the shelves for a book to buy.

A blurb is a hook. It’s short, it’s sweet, and it doesn’t tell the whole plot, simply the setup of the story. Pull out an old TV Guide for ideas, because those short descriptions of shows are blurbs. Surprised? Don’t be. Go for high concept, much like those TV show descriptions. Focus on the GMC (Goal, Motivation & Conflict) of one or both characters, add some strong nouns and descriptive verbs, and you have a blurb that can be used in a query letter or even in a face to face pitch to an editor.

It may take some time to get the hang of writing blurbs. It isn't always easy at first. But once you become more comfortable writing them, blurbs can be your best marketing tool.

For more information on blurbs aka high concept pitches aka hot premise and how to write ones that will make an editor sit up and take notice, check out Alicia Rasley’s article, "The Promise of the Hot Premise".