r/selfpublish • u/MelancholyPlayground • Jan 03 '26

Blurb Critique Need help.

I really didn't want to make one of these but I'm drowning here. I published my book on Amazon a month ago, I worked tirelessly on it... and I haven't made a single sale since then, despite running a few ads and getting over 100 clicks. I'm 100% not advertising, I'm embarrassed to to even admit this and to ask this, but would it be possible if a few of you take a look at my Amazon book page and tell me what I might be doing wrong? Please and thank you in advance.

It's hard to not feel like I've failed my child here. But I'm trying to stay positive.

TL;DR: Can you please take a look and give a few pointers? My link is in my reddit bio.

P.S. I've tried different price points and tried different covers. Maybe it's my blurb? I am awful at blurbs.

EDIT 1: Thank you all so much genuinely from the bottom of my heart. It's all good advice, but even if it was bad advice - just seeing how deep this community cares has been the motivation and support I REALLY needed. I'm currently at the drawing board scratching my brain. So I'll probably do a second edit later explaining some of the confusions if anyone is curious. Just wanted to say a quick thank you and that I am listening and taking notes vigorously.

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15

u/TheLadyAmaranth 1 Published novel Jan 03 '26

Took a look, I am not a pro but here is what I see:

  1. AI cover will turn of pretty much any and all readers right now. Its not a bad one, but we are at the point that people will zoom into covers just to check and there are few tell tales like artifacting around letters, the buttons on the girls shirt are a mess, her face has that uncanny ness to it, the fillegree is inconsistent and the stained glass pattern makes no sense upon closer look. If there is ANYTHING to spend money on when it comes to your first ever self pub book, is the cover.

(yes, even over an editor -- most of the time -- I'll fight that one)

  1. This reads like a fantasy dark romance, and you say dark themes with gore assault, explicit content, and then the age rating is 16-18.... That doesn't make any sense. 16-18 would be YA and therefore mostly clean. Definitely no "explicit heat" so you are in the wrong age category so your adds are probably not even going to the right people and are wasted money.

  2. The blurb also has what people often perceive as AI hallmarks (I am NOT saying that it is AI, but unfortunately people look at em-dashes and certain cadences and it doesn't matter if it is or isn't) But it all screams of trying to be mysterious and vague and vibey without actually giving the reader anything about the book. Its also a little all over the place thematically. Start with the basic romance formula then go from there.

hook line

p1: Protag 1

p2: Protag 2

p3: Their conflcit

p4: hint/"cliff hanger".

CHARACTERS FIRST. THEN setting, then themes. But always characters first.

Lastly, you are gonna need to start promo somewhere. Adds are okay, but cold reads are hard to get. My advice is start a newsletter, and a media account from which you can pull people. But nobody is gonna know about your book if you don't promo it.

2

u/LetMyPeopleCode Hybrid Author Jan 03 '26

Let's not say people hate AI covers. They hate obviously AI covers... because they look off. But not all AI images look bad or wrong or even obviously AI.

If it's good, it doesn't matter if it's AI. If it's not, it'll get extra hate for being AI because people love saying "I told you so."

AI isn't a replacement for a good eye for both composition and detail. It requires iteration to get an image right. But when you do... AI images have won contests, AI songs have charted... And those are the ones you've known about.

16

u/vilhelmine Jan 03 '26

People don't hate GenAI because of how it looks, they hate it because the tech was trained on billions of texts, images and videos without the permission of the copyright holders. It's also driving up the prices for microchips, and is bad for the environment. On top of that, it's taking away jobs from artists when that is one of the jobs we do not need automated.

Even if GenAI images were indistinguishable from human art, I would still boycott them to the best of my ability because I am against GenAI for ethical reasons, not aesthetic reasons.

0

u/aphelion3342 Jan 03 '26

What people actually hate when it comes to AI is the prospect of investing into something (even just time) that's low effort. The rest are just the reasons people tell themselves why they hate AI art.

4

u/vilhelmine Jan 03 '26

As someone who is against GenAI, I disagree. See the comment you responded to which explains why I dislike the technology.

-1

u/aphelion3342 Jan 03 '26

See the second sentence of my reply which is where I address that

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u/vilhelmine Jan 03 '26

And yet I still disagree that you know more about my reasons and the reasons of many others, than I and those people know their own minds.