IN A WORLD WHERE CIVILIZATION HAS CRUMBLED AND CRUMPETS ARE KING, ONE WOMAN MUST STRUGGLE AGAINST THE TERRORS OF THE TOASTERS AND FREE HER PEOPLE.
a blurb no one will ever pay me to write
For six months – from January 2019 all the way through June 2019 – I operated a fiverr account. I wouldn’t say it was a particularly successful account; but I received enough orders to put money towards my groceries while I was volunteering as an English Teacher in Moldova – and that was a badly needed blessing.
Here’s the two gigs I offered:
- I would write the back blurb of a book
- I would provide plot outlines/story ideas if you were in the middle of a block
THE RISE
I’ll never forget the first order I received. I was home for the holidays, I was excited and … I had no idea what I was doing, only that I was going to be totally professional and very, very awesome. So awesome. The awesomest.
Reader, I read the whole book in order to write a blurb. The. whole. book.
Don’t be like me. Never assume that you need to read the entire book in order to write a blurb. It will leave you despairing of an impulsive decision to be a FREELANCE WRITER! (woot woot!)
You can be sure that I learned my lesson. Trial met error and eventually I worked out what, er, worked.
He was alone, and he was scared … would he ever pay his mortgage in time?
Genre? Horror. Book? Unwritten.
THE GOLDEN ERA
I stumbled upon how to do it correctly – worked out how long a gig would take me to do, tweak the descriptions, made my own bio just quirky enough to grab prospective customer’s interest.
I wrote blurbs, some very interesting, some highly unusual. I wrote blurbs for a comic series, for an album (well, my roommate helped me with that one. I don’t have the first clue about music really, other than: huh, this sounds nice), for books that were factual and works of fiction.
I wrote outlines for stories (ACT ONE, ACT TWO, ACT THREE, a list of characters – helpfully labeled ‘A, B, C etc’) – I sat on my bed or on the windowsill in-between planning lessons or writing my own book, and forced myself to get on with it. To write blurbs that made me giggle, blurbs that were for books that seemed so personal to the author, blurbs that were to replace other blurbs and so on, and so forth.
For a dedicated procrastinator, I’m proud that I managed to get everything done on time. (It’s been long enough now for my memory to conveniently blank out any failings.)
It gave me satisfaction, it was entertaining, but most of all – and less romantically speaking – it put some money in my pocket.
THE INGLORIOUS END
I came home from Moldova and kept going … but then gigs were taking longer to fulfill, the hole that fiverr was filling wasn’t as gaping or anxiety inducing anymore. I put the price up to deter customers (when someone purchases a gig on fiverr? You can’t refuse it.) The freelance work dribbled, it drabbled, it gave a cough and a splutter and then I called it quits; I had a full-time job. It was time.
In total, I had done 70 orders, studied blurbs (THE SCIENCE OF IT! IT IS A LEGIT SCIENCE) plotted books I’ll never write, worked out that I was terrible at setting prices, and mainly had a very interesting time of it.
I know – I should break this post in two – it’s getting long … but HA, I’m not – let’s talk some do’s and don’ts:
DON’T READ THE ENTIRE BOOK TO WRITE THE BLURB. DANG IT. JUST DON’T.
If you want to write blurbs, don’t read the entire book. Ain’t no one got time for that. You can, if you want – but let’s face it, some of these books aren’t going to be your cup of tea. This is business. (Oh yes. I took myself seriously.) I asked for the following criteria:
- details about the book – its genre, length, setting etc
- the book summary
- key info about the characters
- things that the author was excited about in the book
Using this info, I was generally able to write a blurb that satisfied the customer. It was like a puzzle, attempting to understand the heart of the thing, and then how to put in a way that would leap out and grab any prospective readers.
Lost, far away from home, and cast into the dark depths of despondency by the loss of her One True Love, Hunter ManlyMan, Leena must wrestle with a terrible choice – tea … or coffee?
No one paid me to write this one either. A true shame.
DO BE REALISTIC
Be realistic about how long something is going to take you – and communicate with your customer. Always. Be realistic about the price – if you are getting a load of orders at a certain price, perhaps – when you’ve received enough reviews – you can put the price up.
But, like, my dude … maybe don’t take my advice on this one? I was generally:
- insecure BECAUSE WAS MY WORK … WORTHY? OF THIS PRICE? (give yourself a stern talking to if you’re worried about this one.)
- impulsive … research into the ‘market’ was really daunting so I winged it. Yeah. Maybe. Don’t do that? Or do?
DO MAKE BOUNDARIES
Writing blurbs for erotica wasn’t quite my thing. So. I learned to write on the gig’s description exactly what I was willing to write blurbs for. Or rather, what I wasn’t. There were some narrow brushes, but after one unfortunate … er, blip (or blurb) … I learned my lesson, set my boundary and cheerfully got back to plotting a book series out and writing a blurb about trees talking to us (genre? Factual.)
DON’T LET IMPOSTER SYNDROME SEIZE YOU
Imposter syndrome, feeling a fraud, ‘not good enough’ – I think this afflicts a lot of us. It afflicted me. How do you get past it? My friend – you fake it. Don’t feel confident? To heck with that! Write your bio, your descriptions, your interactions as if you are Maria belting out:
I HAVE CONFIDENCE IN SUNSHINE, I HAVE CONFIDENCE IN RAIN, I HAVE CONFIDENCE I CAN DO THIS STUFF AGAIN AND AGAIN.
legit lyrics from the sound of music
And then? You back that up. You say you’re dope? You can write tip-top blurbs or outlines? You do your best. Your very best. And then you send it to your customer and keep going.
(That’s the secret – keep going. No matter what doubts beset you.)
DO TRY TO HAVE FUN
Be professional but don’t strangle your quirkiness . Experiment with what works and what doesn’t. If you dislike something – it’s going to shine through. I always tried to be enthusiastic about what I was writing – attempted to be a maybe-reader and try to grab my own attention. Yeah. It was meta.
I have a full-time job now, but for those six months, I desperately needed something extra to keep going; and my brief brush with freelance writing definitely helped. I don’t know if it was a brilliant run – it certainly wasn’t enough to live on – but it helped. It really did.
And as a bookworm? It was hella interesting.
happy reading/writing etc etc
of words & books 