How long should a book blurb be?

100–200 words for most fiction, up to 250 for non-fiction where the reader wants specifics. Under 80 usually feels thin; over 300 does not get read.

Should a blurb reveal the ending?

Never. It should not usually reveal the midpoint either. Establish the situation and the stakes and stop — the blurb sells the question, not the answer.

Is the blurb the same as the Amazon description?

Nearly the same text, formatted differently. The online version needs a stronger opening line and short paragraphs, because most readers only see the first three lines before the fold.

Should I write the blurb before the book?

Writing a draft blurb early is a superb structural test — if you cannot say what the book promises in 150 words, the book may not know either. Rewrite it properly at the end.

Do I need an endorsement quote?

Only if the name means something to your reader. An unrecognised name in a quote takes space from the blurb and adds nothing.

A blurb is not a summary. It is a promise about the experience of reading the book, written in the genre's own conventions, ending before the answer. Most self-published blurbs fail by explaining the plot — which removes the reason to read while proving the author cannot tell what matters.

What makes a good book blurb?

The shape each genre expects

These are the actual structural conventions. Writing a literary-fiction blurb for a thriller loses readers who would have enjoyed the thriller.

Genre	The shape	Ends on	Length
Thriller / crime	Situation, threat, ticking clock. Short sentences. Present tense.	A direct threat or an unanswered question	100–150 words
Literary fiction	Voice and theme rather than plot. Longer sentences. Often a comparison to another author.	An image or an idea, not a cliffhanger	150–200 words
Romance	The two people, the obstacle, the tone. Tone is the crucial signal — funny and heartbreaking sell to different readers.	The obstacle, unresolved	100–150 words
Memoir	The situation, why this life, what the reader will feel. First or third person both work.	What the book is really about, stated	150–200 words
Business / self-help	The reader's problem first, then credibility, then what they will be able to do.	A concrete promise, and often bullets	150–250 words
Fantasy / sci-fi	The world, the rules, the cost. Proper nouns used sparingly — two at most.	The stakes of the world, not just the character	150–200 words
Children's	Character, problem, tone. Written for the adult buying it and the child choosing it.	Fun, or reassurance, depending on age	50–100 words

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Three blurbs for your book

Tell us what the book is and we'll email three drafts in your genre's conventions — with a note on which conventions each one is using and why. Free.

Or see how it works first

Promise, not summary

The blurb's job is to make a reader want the experience of reading the book. Summarising the plot does the opposite: it supplies the outcome and removes the reason.

The test: if your blurb could be replaced by the sentence and then this happens, and then this happens, it is a summary. Rewrite so it establishes a situation, makes the stakes matter, and stops.

Stopping is the hard part. Almost every weak blurb keeps going for one sentence too many and resolves the tension it just created.

The four common failures

Too much plot. Three paragraphs of events. The reader now knows what happens and has no reason to find out.

Too many proper nouns. Especially in fantasy. Five invented names in 120 words asks the reader to learn a glossary before they have decided to care. Two is the working maximum.

Author's language, not reader's. A meditation on impermanence means something to you and nothing to a browsing reader. What is it about, in the words a reader would use?

No genre signal. The reader cannot tell whether this is funny or devastating, cosy or bleak, for adults or teenagers. Ambiguity of tone is the most expensive mistake here, because the reader's default is to move on.

Where the blurb is actually read

Not, mostly, on a back cover. It is read as the Amazon product description, on a phone, with only the first two or three lines visible before a read more link.

That changes the writing. The first sentence has to work alone, because for a large proportion of readers it is the only sentence they see. Front-load: situation and hook first, credibility and detail after the fold.

Format for the medium too — short paragraphs, a line break every two or three sentences. A dense 200-word block on a phone screen is not read.

Endorsements, comparisons and where they go

A quote from a recognised name goes above the blurb. A quote from someone nobody knows goes below it, or nowhere.

Comparisons — for readers of X and Y — are genuinely useful in fiction and are used by publishers constantly. Pick two authors your book actually resembles, and be realistic: comparing yourself to a household name reads as a claim rather than a signpost.

For non-fiction, credibility belongs in the blurb itself, in one short line. Thirty years running a family business does more work than any adjective.

What Your Book Pro does here

Your Book Pro is a British book-writing platform. You bring a book — an idea, a folder of notes, half a draft, or a finished manuscript written somewhere else — and it gives you the editorial process a publisher would run: a plan, structured feedback, a simulated beta read, a line edit, a proofread, a cover, a blurb and a print-ready file. You can type it, upload it or speak it. The tools sit in one place and work on the same manuscript, so the feedback compounds instead of arriving as twelve disconnected opinions.

Back-Cover Blurb writes to your genre's actual conventions and gives you several variants rather than one — because the fastest way to find the right blurb is to react to three wrong ones. It works from your manuscript, so it is drawing on what the book actually contains rather than on your synopsis of it, which is often a different book.

It pairs with Generate a Cover, so the front and back are speaking to the same reader with the same tone.

The honest note: a blurb copywriter at £100–£350 is one of the better-value purchases in self-publishing, because a blurb is short, high-leverage and genuinely hard. If you have the budget after the cover, this is where the next hundred pounds goes. Use the drafts here to arrive knowing what you want.

Draft your blurb

Draft a cover to match

Email me the blurbs

Questions people ask

How long should a book blurb be?: 100–200 words for most fiction, up to 250 for non-fiction where the reader wants specifics. Under 80 usually feels thin; over 300 does not get read.
Should a blurb reveal the ending?: Never. It should not usually reveal the midpoint either. Establish the situation and the stakes and stop — the blurb sells the question, not the answer.
Is the blurb the same as the Amazon description?: Nearly the same text, formatted differently. The online version needs a stronger opening line and short paragraphs, because most readers only see the first three lines before the fold.
Should I write the blurb before the book?: Writing a draft blurb early is a superb structural test — if you cannot say what the book promises in 150 words, the book may not know either. Rewrite it properly at the end.
Do I need an endorsement quote?: Only if the name means something to your reader. An unrecognised name in a quote takes space from the blurb and adds nothing.