Novel Treatments / Smiler - Back Cover Blurb version 2

works well for me.  i would w/out a doubt at least skip around through the pages.  Wes Guptill’s is the most grabbing, while Grapetooth’s is confusing.  but, in advertising, ‘confusion’ is often a tool used to create interest as well.  great summary, (although i guess that’s an assumption.) good luck!

Here’s my reaction to your action.  You wrote for me and I’ve decided to write back.

A story about two guys who get a wild hair up their asses decide to grab some accomplices and find an enigmatic being.  They don’t know who/what they are looking for and they have no idea where to start, but as Newton’s third law claims – if they begin a search for something, something is bound to be searched out…

Is this a book for children?  If Johnny and Swill are 12-year-old boys and there are pictures of children hopping fences I might be interested in picking this up for my child.  If they are 45-year-old drunks who are looking for the elusive Smiler in their gin while they’re in the pubs and bathtubs, I might not be so interested.  

I would need to know more info before I bought this book.  I might be inclined to read the first page to try to figure it out, but if it didn’t hook me I would have to pass.  When I read the back of a book cover I like to find out what the story is about.  Your book cover is a little vague.  I don’t like to investigate the storyline.  Maybe it’s the couch-potato in me.  There are twenty books on either side of this one on the bookshelf at Barnes and Noble.  I want to get my book and get out.  

I’m sure your book is entertaining.  It sounds like an interesting read.  I’m dying to know what a Smiler is.  Good luck!

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January 16, 2008

by Doogy_Rev_Brothers

personal info reviewer stats

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
398	81.7% (71 votes)	31.3%

Age	Gender	Location	Last Login
33	M	United Kingdom	September 10

Thanks for this – it’s helpful, I’ve struggled with this bit, predominantly because I although I read loads, I didn’t want to write something I felt had already been done and although Smiler won’t be to everybody’s, I felt the back cover blurb should be somewhat in the same vein

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That first sentence is a great hook; very well written, in my opinion.  But the use of “quest” in consecutive sentences seems out of place here; maybe find a way to combine those sentences, or change one of the words?  Also, your quotes from other readers carry what sound to me like internet screen names.  If this is only going to be electronically published, that might work, assuming these names should be widely known to people in the know of such things.  Otherwise, all they are is random people saying they liked the book, and lack credibility because I personally don’t know them.  But their quotes were pithy and clever, and made me think it might be worth a glance.  

Other than that, I may have to use the “linky thingy” and check this out.  

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June 19, 2007

by Doogy_Rev_Brothers

personal info reviewer stats

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
398	81.7% (71 votes)	31.3%

Age	Gender	Location	Last Login
33	M	United Kingdom	September 10

Cheers for the review – you make some good points and although I agree fully that the quotes lack credability, I’m never gonna get a quote off the New York Times or similar – not just yet anyway, so the quotes are really only there to be pithy and clever and just perhaps to make people think that maybe Smiler is worth a few seconds of their time to check out.

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O.k., I see this is a blurb, I guess I need to go read some more of your other entries, but it sounds like a good book.

Got to go searching now…

Yes, there are maybe one or two many quotes.

No, it would not.  Up to idiot savants, you had me but then lost me with the word cohorts and that rambling rhyme.

You had my interest until it became obvious you were trying to rhyme…and doing it badly.  ”Deviant pants” come on.  And it went bad from there.

Your choice of quotes does more to capture my interest than quoting Newton at me, wasting precious words on the limited space of a backcover.

Who knows?  Maybe your book is good.  But your blurb does nothing to capture my interest.  My suggestion, fill the backcover with quotes from people who’ve read your book…or get a professional to write your backcover.

I’m not being mean.  You want to sell your books, right?  Get some help.  You’re a writer, not a marketing genius.

Grapetooth is one word, you anal breath from the last grudgefuck of the hounds of Tindalos.
That’s all I have to say.  Your mother doesn’t exist.  Nor do you.
Kuzzah!
Hope you hate my writing honestly, because to misunderstand sincerity purposefully is a foul, banal thing…
You wouldn’t be envious, now would you?  Of course not.  No critic ever made a dig at a finished piece of work to alienate it, did they?  No, critics are all good cops.  I think so.  I do.
Double Kuzzah!

I like your opening sentence but I think it needs to be chopped up a bit. Too long.

Same for the last. But that aside, it certainly makes me want to read the story.

The first line does absolutely nothing for me.  It runs on and I had to read it several times to fully understand what it was saying.  Some internal punctuation would help “Swill, the idiot savants, get”

I would steer clear of “by attempting to write a” as I would not want to read an attempt, especially not one that promises to be a potentially pointless romp.

I might crack the book open and take a look inside, but I’d be more than likely to not continue past the blurb.

It is effective, though the grammar needs to be cleaned up a bit before publication.    However, it did work enough for me to copy your link, so bravo- I do want to read this!

The writing is much to choppy. The quotes did more to sell the story than the jacket blurb did, because it would make me wary about the quality of the writing inside. I’m not a big fan of the “deviant ants in their pants” thing. As I’ve mentioned before, you still haven’t told us who these guys are, why is this a project? Are they P.I.s? The second part switches from talking about the characters to talking about the book in a very awkward way.
Is the “life, the universe and everything in it” thing meant to be so strongly Douglas Adams?
All in all I wouldn’t pick the book up for this, I would suggest starting from scratch. But that’s just me, and I’m pretty b*tchy.