[Z. Rider]

So I've been working on a blurb for ages, and now I have this cover that it has to live up to.

As if writing blurbs wasn't hard enough already. So here's what I've got. It probably, at this point, makes no sense, but I can't tell because I've gone cross-eyed:

Dean is Becoming.

The night before his band goes on tour, Dean Thibodeaux tries to score some weed. The drug deal ends in a brutal attack. Stiff, bloody, and sore--but alive--he lies to his bandmates about his injuries and boards the tour bus the next morning as planned. The band is the only thing that's ever mattered to him. But Dean is no longer what he thinks he is.

Carl Delacroix's sister was murdered two years ago. Two thousand miles and every penny of savings later, he arrives at a bar in the dead of night with a gun in his waistband and nothing to lose. When he hesitates in pulling the trigger, his sister's killer gets away.

Dean's attacker--Carl's sister's killer--cannot leave loose ends. The rule is you never leave them alive. He's coming after Dean. And Carl is coming after him. And Dean--

Dean is Becoming.

In the future, I think I'm going to write awesome blurbs first, then write the books that go with them. Doesn't that sound much easier

 

[ShayneRutherford]

Ooh, when will it be up? I want to read it.

 

[cinisajoy]

One little typo.  Please change lose to loose.

 

[ShayneRutherford]

One little typo. Please change lose to loose.

That's not a typo, Cin.

ETA: I was looking at the wrong 'lose'. Sorry. My bad.

 

[Z. Rider]

One little typo. Please change lose to loose.

Thanks for the catch - that second lose is a typo.

 

[Z. Rider]

Ooh, when will it be up? I want to read it.

October... ~hides~

 

[ShayneRutherford]

October... ~hides~

Whaaaaaaaat?! That is just plain cruel.

 

[KL_Phelps]

really like that cover

 

[Z. Rider]

Whaaaaaaaat?! That is just plain cruel.

I know! I'm sorry! It's terrible.

 

[Z. Rider]

really like that cover

It was, I think, the fifth completely different version Damon Za did this time around (thank goodness for his patience). All my fault too, because I could have done better with the cover brief, but you know how sometimes you're just too close to things? This version showed up this morning (without the car), and I started bouncing. After I sent him the photo of the Mercury Cougar and got it back, I was like "YES! YES! That's it. We're done here." He's working on another one; hopefully I did a more useful cover brief for that one.

 

[Stewart Matthews]

Dean is Becoming.

The night before his band goes on tour, Dean Thibodeaux tries to score some weed. The drug deal ends in a brutal attack. Stiff, bloody, and sore--but alive--he lies to his bandmates about his injuries and boards the tour bus the next morning as planned. The band is the only thing that's ever mattered to him. But Dean is no longer what he thinks he is.

Carl Delacroix's sister was murdered two years ago. Two thousand miles and every penny of savings later, he arrives at a bar in the dead of night with a gun in his waistband and nothing to lose. When he hesitates in pulling the trigger, his sister's killer gets away.

Dean's attacker--Carl's sister's killer--cannot leave loose ends. The rule is you never leave them alive. He's coming after Dean. And Carl is coming after him. And Dean--

Dean is Becoming.

I like that you mirrored the opening and closing line. That's a really cool touch that works pretty well here.

My biggest criticism is that I had trouble figuring out how paragraph 2 (The night before his band goes on tour...) and paragraph 3 (Carl Delacroix's sister was murdered) were related. I expected that you'd go into a little more detail about Dean in paragraph 3, so switching to a new character was a tad jarring.

 

[Z. Rider]

My biggest criticism is that I had trouble figuring out how paragraph 2 (The night before his band goes on tour...) and paragraph 3 (Carl Delacroix's sister was murdered) were related. I expected that you'd go into a little more detail about Dean in paragraph 3, so switching to a new character was a tad jarring.

Yeah, that's a thing I've been having trouble with. I have another version that uses a tag line of sorts to kind of break it up (with the hope that it makes the transition a little easier?). Mr. Rider suggested this one (mostly, I think, because he's partial to the original closing I had; he's been jockeying to get that back.) Let me know what you think:

When guitarist Dean Thibodeaux tries to score some weed the night before his band goes on tour, the drug deal ends in a brutal attack. Stiff, bloody, and sore-but alive-he lies to his bandmates about his injuries and boards the bus in the morning as planned. The band is the only thing that's ever mattered to him. But Dean is no longer what he thinks he is.

The rule is you never leave them alive.

Carl Delacroix's sister was murdered two years ago. Two thousand miles and every penny of savings later, he arrives at a bar in the dead of night with a gun in his waistband and nothing to lose. When he hesitates in pulling the trigger, his sister's killer gets away.

The rule is you never leave them alive.

Carl can't rest until his sister's killer is dead. The killer can't rest until Dean's dead. And Dean's choice to board the bus-now that he has something growing inside him-puts everyone who's ever mattered to him in mortal danger.

One man is hunting evil; the other is becoming it. Salvation for both lies in the crossing of their paths.

 

[Kate.]

That's a gorgeous cover, and a fantastic blurb. The only thing I would change is the last line, which I found hard to understand:

Dean's attacker--Carl's sister's killer--cannot leave loose ends. The rule is you never leave them alive. He's coming after Dean. And Carl is coming after him. And Dean-- Dean is Becoming.

Dean's attacker and Carl and Carl's sister's killer and Dean again and Carl and the killer and Dean...! Yikes! There were too many names, and I had to re-read it to understand that Carl was coming after the killer, not Dean.

The other version, though:

Carl can't rest until his sister's killer is dead. The killer can't rest until Dean's dead. And Dean's choice to board the bus--now that he has something growing inside him--puts everyone who's ever mattered to him in mortal danger.

One man is hunting evil; the other is becoming it. Salvation for both lies in the crossing of their paths.

That works really, really well for me. It tells me more about the conflict and ties the two main characters together. Two thumbs up for that version!

 

[Z. Rider]

Two thumbs up for that version!

My husband will be thrilled to hear he got a vote.

 

[Stewart Matthews]

I like that version better too, Z.

 

[SBJones]

When guitarist Dean Thibodeaux tries to score some weed the night before his band goes on tour, the drug deal ends in a brutal attack. Stiff, bloody, and sore--but alive--he lies to his bandmates about his injuries and boards the bus in the morning as planned. The band is the only thing that's ever mattered to him. But Dean is no longer what he thinks he is.

The rule is you never leave them alive.

Carl Delacroix's sister was murdered two years ago. Two thousand miles and every penny of savings later, he arrives at a bar in the dead of night with a gun in his waistband and nothing to lose. When he hesitates in pulling the trigger, his sister's killer gets away.

The rule is you never leave them alive.

Carl can't rest until his sister's killer is dead. The killer can't rest until Dean's dead. And Dean's choice to board the bus--now that he has something growing inside him--puts everyone who's ever mattered to him in mortal danger.

One man is hunting evil; the other is becoming it. Salvation for both lies in the crossing of their paths.

Ill give it a go.

Six paragraphs is too much. Half your blurb will get truncated if you do it like this and a customer will have to click a link to see the full blurb. This will hurt you far more in sales than being clever with formatting.

Get rid of "when" This is setting up backstory like a prologue would. It's a poor and slow way to drop the reader into Dean's world. "Dean is no longer what he thinks he is" Scrap this, your talking to the reader as a narrator here.

The rule... Who's rule? Broken rules have consequences but we don't have any here. I know what you're trying to convey but this isn't working.

We need something more in the Carl paragraph to link him to Dean. They way you have it now they don't hook up until two paragraphs later and it's completely coincidental.

"Something growing inside him" Avoid using THINGS. Something, anything, everything. They are vague and overused. Tell us what's inside him from Dean's point of view. A hunger, a desire, a throat burning fire. Be specific and avoid false details.

The last line... A lot of people don't like catch phrases, but I don't mind them. A blurb's job is to sell the book after the cover intrigues them and a good catchphrase can do that if it's well written and fits. The Salvation part needs to go. You're spoiling the story here. Overall I think you have a decent start. There seems to be a lot of bits that don't mean much. Getting on the bus the next day. Does this matter? hes on tour. Bus rides are expected. Maybe try invoking the transition of the "Band being everything" being overcome by "Something growing inside him". Also I don't know who your main character is. Is it the guitarist or the guy on his last buck with a gun?

 

[smikeo]

I like both blurbs, and both catchphrases. I actually don't agree with SBJones, I think that "The rule is you never leave them alive." is very clear. However, I do agree with him that it is better to use a shorter blurb. You can even use the first blurb, attaching the "Dean is becoming" in the first paragraph to the second one, and attache the last "Dean is becoming" to the paragraph before it, just to make it shorter.

Two sentences chafed me a bit:

1. Two thousand miles and every penny of savings later - Maybe "Two thousand miles later"? The savings thing is not critical, I think, and it didn't flow well for me.
2. he lies to his bandmates about his injuries and boards the bus in the morning as planned - Again, I'd simply say "he boards the tour bus as planned", and lose the less critical info.

BUT - Generally the blurb is fantastic, and your cover is pure gold.

 

[Z. Rider]

Thanks guys. I'll take another look at it after I've had my coffee.

 

[Z. Rider]

I don't know if I'm getting closer or further away, but this is what I've come up with now.

(Also a note: Dean and Carl are both main characters, kind of like James S.A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes, where Holden and Miller are in different places with different problems and are ultimately brought together by the fact that their problems are part of one big problem.)

When guitarist Dean Thibodeaux tries to score weed the night before his band goes on tour, the deal ends in a brutal attack he wasn't supposed to survive. Stiff, bloody, and sore-but alive-he boards the bus with the rest of his band, determined to keep the one important thing in his life on track. Getting out of town may be the smartest move he's ever made-at least it gives him a head start.

Carl Delacroix failed his sister. And in the dead of night, with a gun in his waistband and nothing left to lose, he fails her again when his hesitation lets her killer get away. Short on sleep, short on cash, and determined not to make a trifecta out of his failure, he takes off after her attacker. And finds himself chasing a tour bus.

Dean Thibodeaux is sick. He's changing. And the thing that caused it is coming after him, intent on fixing its mistake.

One man is hunting evil; the other is becoming it. Salvation lies in the crossing of their paths.

 

[HAGrant]

Spectacularly creepy cover. The blurb looks great, too (I prefer the original last line, for what it's worth -- it seemed to have more punch, plus it tied the two victims together).