The Blurt

I guess it’s called a lot of things: an elevator pitch, a sales pitch, a blurb, but I prefer a blurt. It is the very short paragraph that is intended to interest an agent or a publisher in your book either when you trap the target in an elevator, attend a Pitchapalooza or use it as the centerpiece of your query letter. So how do you describe it?

It’s harder to write to the book itself.

Its effectiveness is highly subjective. (One person’s blurt is another person’s blah?)

If at all possible an army should be enlisted to write it.

Just when you think it is perfect, it isn’t.

If the book isn’t being accepted by an agent or publisher you can blame it on the blurt and start over. Preferably after taking a stiff drink.

After awhile you will be able to recite it in your sleep. And probably will.

Once you’ve sold the book to a publisher they may or may not use it on the back cover.

Once you self-publish the book you will use it on the back cover because you will never, I repeat, never want to write another one for that same book.

Now you may think from all of this that I dislike writing a blurt. I don’t. I hate it.