If I were given a choice between writing a synopsis and writing a blurb (and believe me, that’s a horrible choice), I’d go with the synopsis. Synopses are basically summaries, and most of us have some experience with summarizing. You’ve got three or four pages for the whole thing, and your main job is to pick out the major incidents of the plot without getting too bogged down in detail. And, of course, you have to make the prose flow without constantly saying And then. They’re not fun to write, but I can usually knock one out in a couple of hours.

Blurbs, on the other hand, suck.

Blurbs are the copy found on the back of print books or at the front of ebooks. They’re also the copy that shows up in ads for the book and on Web pages. While you have three or four pages for synopses, you’ve got three or four paragraphs (at most) for the blurb. And the language has to be sort of “peppy.”

Basically, you’re writing ad copy, and for those of us who have never been in the advertising or marketing business, the process can be excruciating. My first impulse is always to overdo the peppiness. I use many, many exclamation marks!!!!! I may use italics with abandon. If I’m blurbing a paranormal romance, I emphasize danger, danger, danger. And if it’s contemporary romance I usually go for hot, hot, hot.

After I’ve read over the first draft and started to groan, I settle down and try again. This time I try to think about what’s really going on in the book. What’s the real reason a person might enjoy reading it?

The extreme brevity of the blurb means I’m never able to include everything that happens in the book, but I try to suggest the major themes, or at least some of them. Chances are, though, I’ll end up leaving out something crucial just because I have to.

Sometimes publishers rewrite blurbs for better or worse. Back in the Samhain days, they had a blurb writer who was worth her weight in gold. But smaller presses like Soul Mate rely on their authors to come up with the blurbs, for better or worse. So when I wrote the blurbs for my Folk trilogy, I could pretty much know they were going up on Amazon word for word.

When I did the blurb for book 1 in my Folk Trilogy, Away, I wanted readers to know about my main characters, Grim and Annie. And I wanted to set up the basic conflict in the book. Annie’s urgently searching for answers: why did her brother disappear, and why has he come back now? Grim actually has some information that could help, but he’s sworn to secrecy. Yet as the situation becomes more perilous for both of them, he finds that he has to break his vows and tell Annie what’s going on around her. It’s a lot more than she can take in, but in the end their relationship makes them both stronger. Here’s my blurb.

His job is keeping secrets, but she needs the truth.

Grim Morrigan, Guardian of the Ward and part-time private detective, polices the Folk, the clans of fairies who live in the foothills outside Denver. But his main job is concealing their true nature from the mortals around them.

Enter mortal Annie Duran, who hires him to look for her brother Richard, missing and presumed dead for ten years. Annie has seen Richard in the parking lot of the nightclub where she works. Now she wants answers, and Grim’s supposed to find them.

The quest for Richard ensnares both Grim and Annie in a sinister conspiracy involving kidnapped women and outlaw magic. But they also discover their own overwhelming attraction to each other. When Annie herself disappears, Grim’s need for answers becomes even more urgent. With the help of a dissolute prince and a motley crew of unlikely fairies, Grim confronts a rebellion among the Folk. And it may take more than just magic and luck to save both Annie and Grim this time.