Category Archives: Everything Else

Echoes is published by Brilliant Flash Fiction.

When Raphael was born his mother took him to church. His father, not being inclined to such things, held the boy in his lap and read him the newspaper.

When Raphael was five, his mother took him to choir, and his father took him to play-school.

“Such voice,” said the priest.

“Such brilliance,” said the teacher.

“It is clear he has a calling,” said the priest.

“It is clear he has a gift,” said the teacher.

And Raphael’s mother and father smiled, and congratulated themselves, and basked in the radiance of their offspring.

Except…

Linky: Echoes by Filip Wiltgren

I’ve written several hundred blurbs, for myself, for other authors, and for non-authors, mainly academics.

That’s right, there are blurbs in academia. They’re called abstracts, posters, or one-slide presentations, but if it works like a blurb, and functions like a blurb, it is a blurb.

That’s my view. Don’t tell it to any academics. Also, when I say “blurb,” I mean “back cover copy.” That’s the correct term. Nobody I know uses it (OK, some pundits in the self-publishing sphere do, but most of us just say “blurb”.) I’m going to say blurb. So there.

Anyhow, blurbing (which is five characters shorter than “blurb writing” and I’m a lazy bastard) is not a writing skill. It’s marketing, and while you use your keyboard for both, they’re essentially different skill sets. And no, one of them won’t leave a trail of slime on your pristine, artistic soul.

Let me explain why, and how you go about writing an effective* blurb.

(* Please note the “effective.” The key point of a blurb isn’t style, information capacity, or ego, it’s effect – unless you’re writing to stoke your own ego, in which case feel free to skip the rest of this post…)

Oh, and this is a bit longer than my usual posts. As in “about 1500% longer.” Yeah, it needs a table of contents: Read More →