Personal Theories On Blurbs

Adapted from a 8/18/05 rec.arts.sf.written post, where it possibly made more sense in context:

The point of a blurb is to interest the casual reader, and one of the best ways to do that is to compare the book in his hands to another, better-known book. (It, of course, helps if the two books have something in common, but the tastes in reading of any particular human being can be well-nigh inscrutable.) Blurbs such as "Yet Another Generic Fantasy Trilogy" or "A Pleasant-Enough Way To Waste About Six Hours" or "Want to Stave Off the Boredom of Waiting For Death? Try This Book" don't move many copies. If someone is writing an Eddings-ish epic fantasy, then by all means say so. Readers spent close to twenty years looking for "something else like The Lord of the Rings" without finding anything really comparable, before The Sword of Shannara. And then they got it in bucket-loads, with comparison blurbs to match, over the next decade or so.

I don't think I've personally compared anything to Tolkien, probably because that sounds silly now. I did once write a blurb comparing A. Bertram Chandler to E.E. "Doc" Smith, though, which is probably a similar sin. I usually try to write about specific aspects of the book, because that's what, in my experience, hooks readers. (But I'm dealing with a captive, self-selected audience to begin with.)

For example (and from memory, since it's at work), I said something like this about Deadhouse Gates by Steve Erikson: "Something like a Black Company novel written by George R.R. Martin in which every other character is Elric. Erikson pushes a lot of epic fantasy buttons, and jams them several feet behind the dashboard." That's how I think a blurb should be done; specific and relatively detailed, with a couple of good hooks for the reader.