One of the most difficult things to do is to write back blurbs.
What is a back blurb, you ask?
It's the teaser on the back of a book or on Amazon and Barnes and Noble as the description of your book.
Here's an example from my latest series-
Confessions of a 16-Year-Old Virgin Lips: First Kiss
VL. Virgin Lips. You may not have heard of it, but where I live, it's a thing with a card, even if it is a figurative card. I was Brooklyn Hamlin, certified virgin lips, and I planned on clinging to that figurative card with all I had--while dating as many of the hottest guys at school as I could.
Maybe that's a bit strange. I mean, what teenage girl isn't interested in kissing? Locking lips definitely interested me, but the drama that came with it didn't. No kissing, no drama. Simple.
But on my sixteenth birthday, on my first real date even, the drama found me. His name was Luke Graham--cute, funny, and bad news for the whole female race.
Maybe that's a bit strange. I mean, what teenage girl isn't interested in kissing? Locking lips definitely interested me, but the drama that came with it didn't. No kissing, no drama. Simple.
But on my sixteenth birthday, on my first real date even, the drama found me. His name was Luke Graham--cute, funny, and bad news for the whole female race.
And the second episode: Stolen Kiss
With my VL card gone, my flickering light of hope lay with Ryker, someone else who'd caught my eye. Only he could erase the memory of Luke, the boy who lip-raped me. Unfortunately, Luke was determined to keep me, or at the very least, ruin me.
*As you can see, length has nothing to do with impact.
After the cover art, it's the next thing in line that makes people drool over your book.
It's so important to get it right.
That's why you need a lot of eyes to look at it and help you get it right.
I write my blurbs, then I send them to a bunch of writers to examine. Once I think I've got it as good as I can, I always send them to Rachel to help pump them up and make them amazing. She's got the touch for sure.
The great thing about Rachel is that she not only does back blurb help, she also does complete manuscript editing-which is also a must in this business.
I thought you'd like to meet her.
So, I interviewed her. She rocks.
What's your favorite genre to read?
Fantasy closely followed by Sci-fi. But I also love historical fiction and dystopian. In reality I enjoy anything with a great story that is well written. I love to read and have since I was a kid.
What's your favorite genre to write?
The kind with words. I have so many stories rolling around my head and I enjoy challenging myself to write in genres that I’ve never done before. That said I’m the best at writing Fantasy and Sci-fi.
How did you get into editing?
I really wanted to be the best author I could be, so I took a few years to learn the craft creating what I like to call my “practice stories.” I’d focus on one specific thing I wanted to learn and practice it while I wrote an entire book. By the end of the book I’d gotten pretty good at it, but I still was sending it out to critique partners and critiquing their work in return. It took a while but I slowly started to realize that I love critiquing as much if not more than I did actually writing my own stories and because I’d spent so much time studying the craft I actually knew what I was looking for and how to go about fixing certain problems with the story. It was then I decided to look into becoming an editor and what I needed to know to make it happen. Before long I had people asking me questions on everything from grammar to story structure and dialogue. Shortly after that I started my own business as a freelance editor. My site iswww.fantasyediting.com but I do a lot more than just fantasy.
Do you wear socks to bed?
Never. I have some touch issues and socks to bed rates right up there with being licked by a person.
Favorite sinful treat.
Molten chocolate cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Yum! If you haven’t had one of these you should definitely try it.
Are you a chef, baker, or do you tend to eat out?
I hate cooking, but eating out isn’t my favorite either. My dream is to one day have a chef who will cook good food for me. (My daughter likes to cook so maybe I can convince her to be the chef once she gets a few years older.)
If you could disappear to anywhere for a week,
where would it be?
Either a quiet cabin in the woods near a stream and mountain so I can write in peace, or someplace where I can learn a whole lot of new things. Flying or skydiving would be awesome. Really anywhere that isn’t familiar and provides fun new experiences.
And a bit from her fun bio.
You can never get enough of this girl.
Rachel Hert is an aspiring author, with a list of WIPs too long to list. She writes because she would go insane if she didn’t. Somewhere on the road to learning the craft and the thousands of hours spent honing skills, she realized she enjoyed editing almost more than writing. So she set out on a quest to learn everything about it.
She has been critiquing and editing manuscripts for over 3 years now and loves it more every day. When she doesn’t have a manuscript in hand she loves to read, hike, play with her children, and learn new things.
Rachel has an intense eye for detail, like noting the door closing twice in a scene when it never reopened (this happened in Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix) or realizing a character mentioned in passing shouldn’t be in the scene because he’s currently in jail (the person had twelve people go through it before it came to her and no one ever noticed).
She loves fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian, paranormal, and anything with a voice she can fall in love with.
How do you write your blurbs and who helps you?
