Why Authors Should Not Write Their Own Blurbs

Help me out by answering the poll!

So, the blurb I wrote for the launch of The Wrecker’s Daughter went over like a lead balloon. They say that authors always hate the blurbs written by the Philistine hacks in the publisher’s marketing department. But there’s a reason publishers employ those Philistine hacks. Their blurbs sell books. Those crafted by authors themselves often don’t.

There is a good reason for this. It even has a name. Psychologists call it “the curse of knowledge.” In my career as a technical writer, we dealt with the curse of knowledge all the time. It is the problem that once you understand something, you can’t imagine how anyone else could not understand it. A lot of being a good technical writer is being able to overcome the curse of knowledge.

Similarly, as an author, you know your book far too intimately to know the best way to appeal to someone who is going to give all of seventeen and a quarter seconds to reading your blurb before deciding whether they are interested in even thinking about buying the book.

This is where, just as the technical writer’s job is to save the engineer from the curse of knowledge, so the Philistine hacks in the publisher’s marketing department save the author from the curse of knowledge. The problem is, I am the Philistine hack in my marketing department. Thus I turn to you lovely and intelligent people (not one Philistine hack among you) to help me over my curse of knowledge about the blurb for The Wrecker’s Daughter.

Yes, there’s a poll coming. But first, here are the candidates.

It turns out that telling people that your protagonist is a murderer may not be an ideal sales strategy. But that’s the blurb I used for the launch and which still currently appears on the book. Let’s call it The Grim (remember the name, you’ll need it for the poll):

The Grim

Hannah Pendarves killed a gentleman, believing him to be the rightful victim of the sea, but when fate places her as a spy in the house of her victim's kindly brother, she is left with an impossible choice between her own people, who feed themselves by wrecking ships and stealing their cargoes, and the man she is coming to admire and secretly, though hopelessly, love. Poldark meets Jamaica Inn in this story of drowned maidens, riotous weddings, fleeing lovers, righteous sailors, and a wrecker's daughter who makes herself up to be the queen of the Falmouth underworld and earns the moniker, The Black Witch of Cornwall.

As one person who saw this commented,

I loved the Poldark novels. I'll take a look at yours, tho' for Hannah to have killed someone is a bit unsettling.

And that’s about the nicest thing anybody had to say about it.

One of my beta readers suggested that I should focus on making Hannah more sympathetic by emphasizing how desperately poor her people were. That yielded blurb number two, The Tragic:

The Tragic

Born into an impoverished Cornish village that puts bread on the table by wrecking ships and stealing their cargoes, Hannah Pendarves lives by the wrecker's creed and proves herself adept in the wrecking trade. But her father is part of a vast syndicate of wreckers and smugglers that is making some high-placed men very wealthy. When the syndicate places her as a spy in the house of a kindly shipping agent, she is faced with an impossible choice between the needs of her own people, and the man she is coming to admire and secretly, though hopelessly, love. Poldark meets Jamaica Inn in this story of drowned maidens, riotous weddings, fleeing lovers, righteous sailors, and a wrecker's daughter who with every step feels the devil snapping at her heels.

However, another beta reader disliked this version a lot, complaining that it got the tone of the book completely wrong, missing the sardonic and absurdist aspects of the story. She thought the comparison to Jamaica Inn was particularly problematic since it is nothing like it in tone. Enter the next choice, focusing on Hannah’s abilities, The Adept:

The Adept

Hannah Pendarves is a wrecker's daughter, able to set a false light or rifle a lady's trunk as well as any man. New opportunities for profit open for her when she discovers that her father is not merely king and defender of the faith of her remote Cornish village, but part of a vast syndicate of wreckers and smugglers that is making some high-placed men very wealthy. But when the syndicate places her as a spy in the house of a handsome and kindly shipping agent, she must choose between the lives of her own people, who wreck ships to win their bread, and the man she is coming to admire and secretly, though hopelessly, love.

Poldark meets Peaky Blinders in this story of drowned maidens, riotous weddings, fleeing lovers, righteous sailors, and a wrecker's daughter who with every step feels the devil, and the syndicate, snapping at her heels.

But another reader found the references in this version too obscure. That led to the fourth version, which tried to strike the absurdist tone a little better but also played up the romantic aspect of the plot. Let’s call this The Romantic.

The Romantic

Welcome to St. Rose, Cornwall, where the merry villagers make their living by wrecking ships and stealing their cargoes, where corpses explode over funeral parties and weddings are interrupted to loot shipwrecked schooners, where the parson is in the wrecker's pay and preaches a wrecker's gospel. Meet Hannah Pendarves, first daughter of the village, who thinks anyone from as far away as the next town is a foreigner and not to be trusted.

But Hannah's father is part of a vast syndicate of wreckers and smugglers that involves some of the leading families of Cornish society. When the syndicate places Hannah as a spy in the house of Francis Keverne, a kindly and upright Falmouth shipping agent, a smitten Hannah strives to keep him from marrying any of the suitable young ladies who call on him, and the biggest threat of all, the wild colonial girl stolen from the sea by Francis himself.

But how is the wrecker's daughter to choose between her father and the man she loves whose great passion in life is to bring down the syndicate and see every wrecker and smuggler hanged?

My second reader liked this better but complained that it made it sound like a romance. But while it has romantic elements, a romance it is not. This led to the fifth version (there were actually many more versions in between, but I will not tax your patience or good will with all of them). Let’s call the fifth one The Riotous.

The Riotous

Welcome to St. Rose, Cornwall, where the merry villagers make their living by wrecking ships and stealing their cargoes, where corpses explode over funeral parties and weddings are interrupted to loot shipwrecked schooners, where the parson is in the wrecker's pay and preaches a wrecker's gospel and Christmas is celebrated with fist fights and pistol shots.

Meet Hannah Pendarves, first daughter of the village, who thinks anyone from as far away as the next town is a foreigner and not to be trusted. But Hannah's small world grows wider when she discovers that her father is part of a syndicate of wreckers and smugglers that involves some of the leading families of Cornish society.

When the syndicate places Hannah as a spy in the house of Francis Keverne, a kindly and upright Falmouth shipping agent, Hannah's loyalties and affections begin to change. But how is the wrecker's daughter to choose between her father and Francis Keverne whose great passion in life is to bring down the syndicate and see every wrecker and smuggler hanged?

My second beta reader loves this version. My first beta reader hates it.

Writing blurbs is hard.

So I need your help. Please vote for the blurb that would make you most likely to pick up the book and at least think about buying it. And if you want to pick apart any or all of the alternatives, please do so in the comments.

Thank you!