A Tale of Two Blurbs

Some authors love to write the blurbs for their books.  Notice that I said some, because most of us don’t, at least among the authors I know.  I’ve heard writer friends say they would rather write the entire book than the blurb, or the synopsis, another task that sends cold shivers down writers’ spines.  So, imagine my surprise when the blurb for my just-released romantic suspense, The Private Concierge, popped into my head before I’d written a word of the book.  I had to grab a pen and paper and scribble madly just to get it all down.

Here, with just a bit of tweaking and a few added flourishes, is that very first version of the blurb:

She was a runaway who was forced into the oldest profession at a tender age.  He was the vice cop who posed as a customer, and put her in juvenile hall.  He’s been haunted by her ever since.  And she will never forget the humiliation of handcuffs, police cars and jail cells.  Or the man who changed the course of her life.

Today she is a new woman and legitimate business tycoon.  Her private concierge service is prized by high-profile clients across the country.  Today he is a ruined man.  And destiny is about to put them on another collision course.

His best friend, an all-star pitcher, dies mysteriously and scandalously, and three other prominent personalities are embroiled in scandals that ruin their careers and their lives.  The police dismiss the incidents as unrelated.  But he sees what the police cannot.  The one thing that links them is her … The Private Concierge

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t totally taken with the idea at the time.  It was all I could do not to start writing the story immediately!  But my life was complicated at the time.  My mom was ill and I was on deadline for three contracted stories.  There simply was no time.  So, I tucked the blurb away and eventually forgot all about it.  You know what they say about out of sight, out of mind.  I didn’t rediscover it until years later when I was going through a laundry basket of odds and ends to file.  Yes, you read that right, a laundry basket.  My filing system needs some serious work.

As it happened, I was on a break and between contracts, so I quickly wrote up a story proposal and submitted it to my editor.  I was thrilled when she bought it.  But there were many challenges ahead.  My beloved mother took a turn for the worst and passed away while I was working on the story.  So, of course, everything was put on hold, including the book’s delivery date.

Mom was just two months from her ninetieth birthday and we were all consoled by the knowledge that she had lived a good long life and was ready to go, but these things are never easy.  Between the grief of losing her and the exhaustion of being her sole caretaker, I needed time to heal and recover.  My publisher was wonderful about that, and with the pressure off, I soon realized that I really wanted to get back to writing, that it would help ease the loss and fill the hole in my life.

I threw myself into The Private Concierge, and as they say in that great Calgon commercial, let it take me away.  I was transported, right along with my hero and heroine, Rick and Lane, and I really did lose all sense of time.  That probably explains how, once again, I forgot about the blurb that started it all …  until I received a copy of the book’s cover with a blurb on the back—and it was not the one I’d written.  In shock, I realized I’d never told them that I wanted to write the blurb for this story.

So, there I was with not one but two blurbs for my soon-to-be-released novel—and you can probably guess which one I was partial to.  But I could definitely see the merits of the publisher’s version because by the time I finished the story it had changed and grown into something bigger—and I hope even better—than I originally imagined.

You’ve seen the original blurb.  Here’s the one the publisher sent me:

THERE’S NOTHING PRIVATE ABOUT MURDER

L.A.’s rich and powerful rely on Lane Chandler’s company, The Private Concierge, to anticipate their every whim…and to guarantee unparalleled discretion.  But then one of Lane’s celebrity patrons is found murdered in the most undignified manner imaginable.  In rapid succession, three other prominent clients become embroiled in separate scandals, thanks to what looks like a security breach of TPC’s communication systems.

As word gets out, clients drop Lane like last week’s gossip.  She’s bent on keeping TPC’s name out of the papers, but when former LAPD vice cop Rick Bayless starts nosing around, she has much more to worry about than bad PR.  Rick knows about Lane’s shadowy past, and he’s certain she’s hiding new secrets.  With no other options, Lane must face a dangerous conspirator who knows more about her every move than she does.

So, what to do?  I had an embarrassment of riches, two blurbs, and I loved them both.  I couldn’t seem to decide and my writer friends were divided too.  Eventually, I realized the wisest move would be to leave it up to the people who make the ultimate decision where it really counts, in the bookstores—the readers.  So I held a blurb contest—smartypants me!—hoping to end my dilemma.  Little did I know that even the readers would split down the middle.  Half liked the original blurb and half liked my publisher’s version.  Big help they were, lol.

Of course, the simple solution would be to go with the publisher’s blurb.  It was already there on the back the book, ready to go.  That’s when it hit me.  There was no reason I couldn’t let the book go out as it was and use the original blurb—the one that written itself and sparked an entire story—in the promotional material I was planning for The Private Concierge.  Sometimes life’s “accidents” are better than our plans!  Also, there would be no losers in the blurb contest.  Everyone who entered was eligible to win, no matter which blurb they voted for.

If you’d like to see who actually won that contest and what the prizes were, please check out my web site at www.suzanneforster.com.  All the winners are listed there.  And if you’d a like chance to win a signed book from my backlist, just leave a comment on this blog.  Thanks for letting me share my tale of two blurbs with you.  Best of luck in the contest, and of course, happy reading!

Suzanne Forster

Read Full Post »