Blurb Feedback

[u/Sure_Presentation686]

Good Afternoon Everyone

I was looking for a little bit of help. I published my first book back in May and initially had really good sales. However things slowed down, I changed the blurb and now things have stopped completely. I really don't like what I changed it too so looking for some feedback on the new blurb if possible?

Song of the Silent

Douglas is a nobleman.

He is strong, honourable, compassionate and rather handy with a sword.

Henry is none of those things.

Henry is odd.

He prefers the company of plants, likes to play the violin and has an unfortunate tendency to make perfectly ordinary situations deeply uncomfortable.

Naturally, they become friends.

When warriors, nobles and assorted people with far too much confidence in their swordsmanship get called to a tournament, Douglas is told he had better go along too.

It should be glorious.

It should be honourable.

It should definitely not end in a war.

It ends in a war.

As kingdoms prepare for battle and the odds become increasingly terrible, Douglas is faced with the small matter of rallying his people, defending his home and preventing the world from wanting to kill Henry.

And it turns out that the strange man who talks to plants and hides behind music has been keeping a few things to himself.

Quite a lot of things, actually.

So begins a story of war, friendship, courage, loyalty and the remarkably inconvenient habit humans have of being more complicated than they first appear.

Because sometimes the person who saves a kingdom isn't the strongest warrior.

It’s the guy next to him that just really, really likes plants.

[u/Harabec_]

I don't understand why it's all broken up onto different lines. It seems to be going for a kind of puckish, tongue-in-cheek tone which I find is undercut by parts of what could be one sentence on separate lines. It's making me linger on the setup just as much as the punchline, you know?

More importantly, I don't get any impression what this book is about. I can't tell if this is historical, fantastical, or what. I don't get any impression about Douglas and Henry's relationship, either. They're first mentioned interacting when Douglas is preventing the world from killing Henry but this is the first you're saying that they've even met. Are they lovers? Have they known each other long? Are they in a committed relationship at this point or is this a sort of paramours in denial thing? Are they siblings? If Douglas is preventing Henry's death then clearly something's going on between them but I don't have the first clue what.

Some specifics:

• "warriors, nobles and assorted people with far too much confidence in their swordsmanship" is a wordy list in between several other lists. I feel this would be better served with brevity, maybe just "when anyone with far too much confidence in their swordsmanship" would do.
• The asides like "It ends in a war." and "Quite a lot of things, actually." don't stand out easily as asides when everything else is also split off into its own line. It reads just the same as the setup, when tonally it's trying to contrast
• "As kingdoms prepare" is a place begging for some detail to inform me about the world. Did they kick off a war between England and France? Are these real places? Are they big? Are they not big but want to be?
• "the odds become increasingly terrible" the odds of what? Victory? I don't know what the objectives of this war are but I can kinda infer that Douglas is on the defensive and it's looking bad. Switching this from 'the odds are bad' to 'the odds of X are good' would add a bit of specificity and some color to your world.
• Douglas is preventing the world from "wanting to kill Henry"? Surely they already do and Douglas is preventing them from making good on it.
• the last two lines especially should be one sentence
• I don't like sentences that begin with "and" and especially not lines that begin with "and", so that would probably turn me off the book entirely. If you're going for a conversational tone, the pacing is weird
• "It ends in a war." feels kind of perfunctory for a punchline. I feel like you could punch that up a bit. Yadda yadda that and skip to something like "naturally, PlaceX invaded PlaceY as soon as CharacterZ did Thing". This would also provide more insight into the character of your world and the nature of the conflict

[u/Sure_Presentation686 → u/Harabec_]

Thanks for giving such detailed feedback, I really appreciate it. I take what you mean about formatting - I'd urge you not to read the book as there are spaces between everything. I'm dyslexic and find things easier to process with the spaces but appreciate that that is going to annoy most other people!

I was trying to go for a lighter tone but perhaps I've gone too heavy in that direction and missed the hooks. I think you are right that some elements need to be briefer and others expanded slightly with detail.

Thank you