Blurb Help Please (NA romance)

699 Views 14 Replies 7 Participants Last post by Kirkee, Mar 11, 2015

Crystal_

Discussion Starter · Mar 10, 2015

I am working on the blurbs for a steamy NA romance trilogy. They're getting there, but they're not perfect yet.

(Note: no warnings about how romance readers hate cheating please. I am *very* aware of this. It's what's in the book and it is what it is).

Thanks in advance!

Book 1
Alyssa never thought she'd cheat.

She has no time for the kind of passion that inspires such a tryst. Her priorities are clear-get healthy and get back to her acting career-and that means staying with her workaholic boyfriend, Ryan. He may not be the most attentive guy around, but she needs someone to keep her from falling down the rabbit hole of bulimia.

Enter Luke.

He's not the kind of guy who gives up on what he wants, and he wants Alyssa. He sees something in her, a loneliness he wants to take away. He knows she's with someone else, and he knows she should be off limits. But there's no way in hell he can resist someone who calls him on his bullshit and blushes at the mere brush of his fingertips.

It starts off as flirting. Friendship even. Until it's more. His touch is electric. Together, they're white-hot. There's no turning back, even if this might destroy both their lives.

Book Two

Falling in love was the easy part.

Luke is over the moon. It's been three months with Alyssa, and every day is better than the last. She fills his life with color and warmth. And when they're together, it's like he could float. It's a tough time for her-her life is still turned upside down-but he's determined to help her through it. To make her realize this should be forever.

Things are almost perfect when a phone call rips through their lives. There's someone else who needs Luke. His ex-girlfriend.

This is the worst possible time. Alyssa's show is about to premiere. She's buried in stress. Closing off. Shutting down. Ready to lock him out forever.

But this is a debt he has to pay. Even if it puts everything at risk.

Book Three

Love is supposed to conquer anything.

Life for Alyssa and Luke is as good as it gets. Great jobs. Beautiful house. Near perfect relationship. It's been a year, an amazing year.

But something is missing. There's space between them, even when they're three inches apart. They're busy. Stressed. Tired. Things should get better soon.

Then Alyssa is offered the role of a lifetime. The lead in a Broadway play. In New York City. Three thousand miles away.

It means six months apart. Six months alone. Six months to let the space grow until it rips them apart.

This could be the step that cements their relationship or the thing that destroys it.

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Sever Bronny

· #2 · Mar 10, 2015

I actually like them all and have no suggestions, but thought I'd comment to bump the thread for you, Crystal

Maybe people can try tackling one blurb per person so Crystal can get some help?

Crystal_

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 10, 2015

Thanks Sever. I think putting up multiple blurbs scares people

Sever Bronny

· #4 · Mar 10, 2015

Absolutely. But your blurbs are strong anyway, IMHO. They're paced well, tell the story clearly while leaving something to the imagination, and above all, they're snappy

Silly Writer

· #5 · Mar 10, 2015

Crystal,
I was going to give one a try, but I can't find anything wrong with them! Very interesting, well-written, and books I'd love to read (if I only had the time.)
Sorry... But I think the blurbs rock as they are

Atunah

· #6 · Mar 10, 2015

NA seems to be more accepting of the cheating thing. Heck I read "Thoughtless", the 1st in a trilogy and the "heroine" bangs one guy and then jumps from literally one bed to the current boyfriends bed without a clean up in between. :-X

:-X

It was a pretty big and successful trilogy. Not that I'll ever pick up another part of that trilogy, but many did.

Can't help you with the blurb as I can't write myself out of a paper bag though. Everything always sound fine to me.

kathrynoh

· #7 · Mar 10, 2015

They are really strong blurbs. Just a couple of nit-picky things

- in the first one, do you need to mention the current boyfriend's name? I think it'd flow better without it and I'm not sure it's really necessary.
- Book 3 - I don't think you need to say that Broadway is in New York

I think you deal with the cheating well. You let the reader know it's there so they can decide if it's going to turn them off upfront but also that it is justified.

Crystal_

Discussion Starter · #8 · Mar 10, 2015

Atunah said:
NA seems to be more accepting of the cheating thing. Heck I read "Thoughtless", the 1st in a trilogy and the "heroine" bangs one guy and then jumps from literally one bed to the current boyfriends bed without a clean up in between.
It was a pretty big and successful trilogy. Not that I'll ever pick up another part of that trilogy, but many did.

Can't help you with the blurb as I can't write myself out of a paper bag though. Everything always sound fine to me.

My only regret is not making my hero a rock star like in Thoughtless. That can't hurt sales.

Everytime I see a thread about how cheating is sacrilege in romance (I didn't know when I started writing this forever ago!), I slowly drift towards panic. I need to chant Thoughtless, Thoughtless, Thoughtless. It would scare everyone around me.

Atunah

· #9 · Mar 10, 2015

Crystal_ said:
My only regret is not making my hero a rock star like in Thoughtless. That can't hurt sales.

Everytime I see a thread about how cheating is sacrilege in romance (I didn't know when I started writing this forever ago!), I slowly drift towards panic. I need to chant Thoughtless, Thoughtless, Thoughtless. It would scare everyone around me.

I don't seek out romances with cheating. I don't totally exclude them either.
But, and here is the big but, I need to have groveling, I need to have motivation. For me Thoughtless was just too selfish so that is why I never continued. The characters were just too selfish and so unlikable to me that there was just no way to see any future. I have read romances where it was done well, but boy is it difficult to find those. One of the best groveling to me was Lady Gallant. But that is a little older historical romance. I read even older ones and there used to be some cheating in them. But it has to be believable to me.

NA isn't really my thing anymore for various reasons. But it certainly has a bit of a different audience now and cheating is not automatically a no no. Its not really for me either. It all depends. Other romance reader auto exclude cheating. But again, NA romance seems to have a bit of a different audience that loves the drama lama like that.

And I thought rockstars are out now and MMA fighters.

Whats the current occupation for the NA heroes?
If you get the emotions right, the cheating isn't going to be an issue for the NA readers. You lay it out so readers can make a choice.

The blurb to me reads short to the point. No dragging on. So thats always a plus for me. But like I said, I am not a writer so I won't try to get into that part.

These trilogies do seem to be very popular with NA romance readers. So good luck.

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Jack Krenneck

· #10 · Mar 10, 2015

Crystal_ said:
I am working on the blurbs for a steamy NA romance trilogy. They're getting there, but they're not perfect yet.

(Note: no warnings about how romance readers hate cheating please. I am *very* aware of this. It's what's in the book and it is what it is).

Thanks in advance!

Book 1
Alyssa never thought she'd cheat.

She has no time for the kind of passion that inspires such a tryst. Her priorities are clear--get healthy and get back to her acting career--and that means staying with her workaholic boyfriend, Ryan. He may not be the most attentive guy around, but she needs someone to keep her from falling down the rabbit hole of bulimia.

Enter Luke.

He's not the kind of guy who gives up on what he wants, and he wants Alyssa. He sees something in her, a loneliness he wants to take away. He knows she's with someone else, and he knows she should be off limits. But there's no way in hell he can resist someone who calls him on his [bullcrap] and blushes at the mere brush of his fingertips.

It starts off as flirting. Friendship even. Until it's more. His touch is electric. Together, they're white-hot. There's no turning back, even if this might destroy both their lives.

This isn't my normal genre, but I do have some comments.

They're all good blurbs. That being the case, I'll restrict my suggestions to book one because, as the funnel, it's the most important.

The tagline is great. It establishes genre and acts as a hook all in the space of a few easy-to-read words.

I suspect the next paragraph is loaded with issues that many women can identify/empathize with. If so, that's a very powerful hook. The paragraph, along with everything else, is written in clean, crisp and easy to read prose.

After that, the blurb swaps to the male interest. I'm not a fan of this because it diffuses the empathy and tension built up for the first character, but (apparently) it's a common technique in romance blurbs. If so, there's no need to fix what isn't broken.

The last paragraph brings both point of views together. I think it's a great wrap up too - until this bit: even if this might destroy both their lives.

The last line is trying to deliver a strong hook, but the problem is (in my opinion) that once again empathy is diffused. It's harder to care about what happens to two people than it is to one. The fate of one person can really drive a hook home. The fate of two is harder to identify with and therefore reduces the hook's power. Also, it's fairly clear what could destroy Alyssa's life. But what about Luke? What's at stake for him except lost love? That's not quite the same as "destroy his life."

For these reasons the hook at the end (which is pretty critical real estate) isn't as powerful as it could be.

Hope that helps.

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Crystal_

Discussion Starter · #11 · Mar 10, 2015

Atunah, thanks for the feedback. I don't think rockstars will ever be out. They're rock stars you know. There are a lot of college proffesors, billionaires, bikers, and athlete heros in NA for sure. I've been religiously studying the top 100 NA on iTunes and I am yet to find the secret to success. If only it were that easy! The only really consistent thing I see is buckets of angst.

Jack, that is something to considsr. Heroine POV then hero POV is the standard romance blurb but the tag could possibly be stronger.

kathrynoh

· #12 · Mar 10, 2015

I thought the new big thing in NA was step brothers!

Atunah

· #13 · Mar 10, 2015

Crystal_ said:
Atunah, thanks for the feedback. I don't think rockstars will ever be out. They're rock stars you know. There are a lot of college proffesors, billionaires, bikers, and athlete heros in NA for sure. I've been religiously studying the top 100 NA on iTunes and I am yet to find the secret to success. If only it were that easy! The only really consistent thing I see is buckets of angst.

Jack, that is something to considsr. Heroine POV then hero POV is the standard romance blurb but the tag could possibly be stronger.

Ah yes, lots of angst. Or how I call it, drama lama or emo.

.
Everytime I read one of them and the hero acts like a emo crybaby I always think of this video of the boy band "Take That" Back for good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2ICtCO8TCw

Down on his knees in the rain in front of the heroine, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. I wuv you. Take me baaaaaaack.

You know what I mean.

. Drama and angst is really big now in NA. Didn't really start like that when I still read more of it, but its whats popular now. I can only take so much teenage angst and often these NA aged college aged characters are written like teenagers.
And sometimes they read like candy. You want to scream and yell and just keep on turning pages. There are huge threads dedicated on romance forums to NA books like that.

I like me some rockstars, but the ones I read and find are contemporary romance, not so much NA romance.

I think secret to success is getting picked up by those hordes of readers that love to talk about it on the sites and so that is how it spreads. I hang around many romance sites and I see it all the time. That is how I read my very first NA romance way back "Easy". It was just talked about everywhere. Goodreads feed, amazon romance forum, now also booklikes, romance big blogs like dearauthor, SBTB. Word of mouth and reader spread can be really really huge. And often I see the author tapping right into the momentum with givaways, funky fan pages on sites, etc. Prolly a combo of word of mouth and then grabbing that momentum and being a marketing genius.
No clue, I just read.

But I do know that I find many many reads from other readers on those sites and right here of course in the book corner of KB.

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Crystal_

Discussion Starter · #14 · Mar 10, 2015

I like the angst, but I do need to be in the mood for it.

There have been a few step brothers but I think that is on its way out. Not my thing so I'm not sure. I like heroes who are more nice than alpha a-hole, but I've noticed that NA tend to have heroes who are intense (could be caring or rough but always intense). It's all very intense and breathless which is fun but it's easy to overwrite.

I grew up with emo pop (which I hear is not true emo), so I had crushes on quite a few sensitive emo musicians. May be inspiration for my next series.

Kirkee

· #15 · Mar 11, 2015

Agree with Sever, Jack, (a couple of real sharp guys who helped me with my
own blurb) and, of course, the very capable L.L. Akers.

You seem to be on top of things, Crystal.
Break a leg, hon.

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