Blurb writing is an essential skill you need to develop if you're going to be able to sell your work and make it attractive and interesting to people!
What IS a blurb? Well it's a short little summery of your webcomic (or anything else), it's positive, descriptive, tempting, has teasers but no spoilers. They're surprisingly hard to do! Especially for your own work. You have to crystallise it all down to just a few interesting points, you have to sum up your entire story and the characters in just a couple of lines…
How to write them?
Over the years I've had to write a LOT of them for the featured comics and so I've come up with some techniques:
1. - First you summarise the premise that the story begins with: “In a devastated city…”
2. - Next up you tell us who the main players are: “Kathy and Cain were about to find their lives changed forever!”
3. - What's at stake? “They must protect their people from the ravages of the evil warlord…”
3. - Tell us the genre and style: “A hilarious Scifi, drama, romance…”
4. - If you have enough room tell us about the art: “Full colour digital artwork…”
5. - Lastly, you can tell us what the work reminds you of to give people something to relate it to: “Much like Maus, it tackles the heavy subjects in a serious manner”
-Remember to be positive!!!!
mistakes
Some of the common mistakes people make when writing blurbs are:
1. - Being too negative: Don't do that. You're talking about the best stuff ever here. You want people to read it not ignore it.
2. - Giving spoilers: Don't tell us about all the characters and plot points that will be introduced in your story over the course of 100 pages and other things you have planned and haven't even written yet! You should only really tell us about the first few pages… Let the reader discover the rest for themselves, or else what's the point of them reading if you've already described it all?
3. - Being too mysterious: People aren't going to bother to find out about your work at all if you're too cryptic or just don't say enough.
4. - Selling your work the wrong way: If you tell people your comic is a slice of life comedy and it's really a drama porno then readers aren't going to like that. Please be honest.
I hope that helps!
I'd love to know your tips for writing a good blurb!
Here are the blurbs Kawaii and I write every singe week - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/comics/featured/
Blurbs!
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Dec. 1, 2017
3 likes!
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Ozoneocean at 6:00PM, Dec. 1, 2017
LOL!!!XD
bravo1102 at 1:43PM, Dec. 1, 2017
@tantz: sounds like 'Allo 'Allo.
Tantz_Aerine at 1:04PM, Dec. 1, 2017
"Without Moonlight is a hilarious vintage slice-of-life comedy about friends and culture shock with very dedicated tourists. Shenannigans ensue!" How'd I do maestro?
usedbooks at 10:11AM, Dec. 1, 2017
In regards to selling something the wrong way, I got conned into going to see The Relic because the movie trailer tried to sell it as a dark comedy. The trailer contained the single joke from the movie. It was terrible. (Btw, I suck at blurbs, so thanks for this insight!)
bravo1102 at 6:09AM, Dec. 1, 2017
And tag lines can help. "Topless gladiators in desperate combat " One piece of what you're doing or have planned that will grab a reader by the lapels and scream "read this!" "Aliens turned them into faceless monsters to destroy--"
bravo1102 at 5:32AM, Dec. 1, 2017
Think: How can you summarize your magnum opus into one sentence? How would you pitch it to an investor in an elevator in five minutes? The infamous elevator pitch. Some producers give aspiring writers just such an opportunity. If you can do it you can make a sale. Same with blurbs. It starts somewhere with selling a reader with that blurb.