questions on blurbs, comps, and queries

what details to include in a blurb?

Hi, I’m Kate. Ask an Author is a reader-supported newsletter providing advice and support for authors at all stages of writing, publishing, and hand-wringing. If you know someone this applies to, you can forward them this email and encourage them to sign up. Have a question? Fill out this form and I’ll answer it in a future response.

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News!

• My debut novel Greenwich will be out in July! Adrienne Brodeur called it “A stunning debut…Fast-paced, beautifully written, vividly peopled… impossible to put down.” Greenwich is one of Publisher’s Weekly’s “buzz books” for summer 2025, and on Zibby Owens’s list of most anticipated new releases this year. Hit that preorder button!

• “Care and Feeding” is out in The Rumpus

• “Good Dead Girls,” is out in No Tokens

• And two more pieces are forthcoming! A short story in The Booklyn Review, and an essay in The Bellevue Review. Can’t wait to share more!

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That last post on blurbs and query letters led to a several more questions that I’ll go through below. A reminder that you can search for “query” or “comps” or “synopsis” (or whatever you’re looking for) in the archives and see if it’s been addressed, and then reach out if you still have a question or if what you read there sparked another idea. Nothing in the archives is paywalled — an extra thank you to the generous paid subscribers who let me keep it that way. <3

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Dear Kate,

“For fiction, a synopsis of the novel (no more than two pages) and the opening 50 pages of the manuscript – usually the first three chapters" - my first three chapters only equate to 25 pages - what do I send?

- Kay

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Dear Kay,

If an agent asks you to send “the opening 50 pages,” send the opening 50 pages. The “usually” in those directions is a ballpark, but since they specifically say 50 pages, that’s the part I’d follow.

Some people’s first 3 chapters might only be 3 pages. Some 3 chapters might be 100 pages. If the agent specifically wanted 3 chapters, they’d have asked for 3 chapters (and then I’d be telling you to send the three chapters). I don’t think you’re off in any way by sending however many chapters make up your first 50 p.

For more on what to send, see this post on “What Agents Ask For”:

Sounds like you’re in great shape and ready to start/keep querying — good luck!

Kate

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This question was posted in the comments section of the last newsletter and I wanted to share it here, too:

This is perhaps a silly question, but how do agents define a "page," typically? Is there a standard number of words? I ask because a printed page in a book tends to be about two-thirds of an 8/5x11 page in Microsoft Word.

- Tom

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My response:

Not silly! There’s no standard number (a page of short dialogue, for ex, will have fewer words than a long, dense paragraph) but you don’t have to worry about a manuscript page vs. a formatted book page. Format your manuscript in Word using standard one-inch margins, 12 point font, Times New Roman font. Then however many pages they ask for, go by wherever that falls in the Word document. If they ask for word count instead, then go by that instead of worrying about the number.

It’s all a bit of a ballpark, anyway, and agents know it’s not going to be exact. If they ask for 20 pages, say, and you have a chapter break in there that eats up a page, and some pages with fewer words, and so you wish you could really send 22 pages instead… those “lost” pages aren’t going to make a difference. If they love the book at 20 pages they won’t miss the extra words, and if they aren’t going to request the book after 20 page then they aren’t going to request it after 22 pages either.

If you have a tiny bit of text that goes over the page count but wraps up a chapter/scene, it’s okay to add that extra paragraph or so. Not a lot, so that it looks like you’re trying to sneak in more! (Again, that last page isn’t going to make the difference.) But you can finish the sentence even if it runs over.

[And as Tom notes in another comment, when you copy/paste your pages into the email, there are no page breaks anyway.]

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Dear Kate,

I read your blurb for your novel Greenwich and it was helpful to walk through it line by line. This has made me wonder what details about my characters to include in my own query and whether I have, as you say, too much or too little. When you say that Rachel’s aunt is “oddly spacey” or her uncle is “consumed with business,” how did you pick those descriptors when probably there is other stuff about the characters that we learn in the book, too?

- Jean

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Dear Jean,

I’m glad the analysis of the Greenwich blurb was helpful. [Click here for a recap and scroll down to the discussion of the blurb.] You’re right that there’s obviously more to the characters in the novel than the tidbits I provide in the blurb, but if you read the book (shameless plug, you can pre-order it now and it will be yours come July!) I think you’ll see that they’re pretty dominant traits. Aunt Ellen is oddly spacey — she’s not quite like Rachel remembers from her past visits, and it feels like something is up. Her uncle Laurent is barely around and spends all his time obsessed with a new real estate deal, which is putting pressure on the family. (But note that in the blurb I put “business” instead of specifying “real estate hedge fund,” because the latter is too specific for our needs here and would be distracting.) These characters and their issues play a central role in the plot as it unfolds, which is why they’re important. If I think of how I’d describe them to a friend — how I’d give my friend a sense of the characters without spoiling anything — those are the key pieces I’d choose.

Part of what works about them is that they not only show something concrete about the characters, but they also raise questions in the reader’s mind. Why is Ellen spacey? What’s so odd or unusual about it? What’s behind her behavior? What will Rachel find out? What will she do about it? And what’s up with Laurent’s work? Is Ellen’s spaciness connected to all the time that he’s spending “consumed” with business? How is that going to impact the accident that follows, and the ways this family changes as a result? What are the currents at work, and how is Rachel going to be swept up in these forces? We can tell immediately that Rachel isn’t having the summer she dreamed of — that “But” that starts the sentence “But her aunt is oddly spacey” is doing a lot of work, showing a pivotal turn from Rachel’s expectations to the reality she finds.

A reader might not be consciously thinking all these things at once, obviously. But there’s a sense of action and consequence—that something is at stake and is going to happen in this summer when all these personalities are brought together under pressure. The point is to describe the characters, but to do so in a way that also tells the story. You want to choose details that do essential work. (You always want to choose details that do essential work; writing a blurb isn’t a different writing exercise than writing a book, it’s just more compressed.)

In the blurb, as in the novel itself, these aren’t just random character traits developed to give a sense of depth and dimension to the people. They do that, of course, but they’re also showing something more. I don’t need to say in the blurb that Ellen has a polished French manicure and jewels on her rings. You’d have a picture of her, but so what? That wouldn’t tell you anything about what happens in the novel. Laurent is blustry and broad-shouldered and cue-ball bald but, again, that gives the reader a picture of him in the novel but we don’t need to know all that about him for the blurb. As you go through each part of your blurb, you can ask yourself what those words are giving to the reader. What are the layers of work that your details are doing to tell the reader what happens in your story? Really articulate to yourself why you’re including it — why you think it’s important. If it’s to show X, can you have something that shows X and also does Y? Can you make each word do another layer of work for you?

Another thing you can do is stuff your query with all the details you’re thinking might be important, and then start cutting them back and asking yourself what, if anything, you lose with each omission. If the reader’s fundamental understanding of the story doesn’t change, then you probably don’t need that particular detail. If the reader really needs to know something for the rest of the story to make sense, then bam — you’ve got yourself an essential element you need to include. The blurb still needs to feel alive, so if you get rid of absolutely everything, you risk winding up with something dull and anemic. But that’s where you zero in on what key details make the story feel dynamic and lively—like these are three-dimensional characters with depth and intrigue that we’re going to want to spend some time with—and that also do this double-duty of laying out what happens in the book.

The great thing about a draft is that no one else has to see it, so you can write a lot of versions that practice tackling this in different ways. Write a version with a lot of detail. Write a version with all that detail stripped away. Change a word, change a sentence, and see how it impacts the whole meaning of your summary. At the same time, study other blurbs and back cover copy for your favorite novels and try to take them apart in this same way. What details are they including? Why do you think the author made that choice?

Keep writing, and good luck with your query!

Kate

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Dear Kate,

I've written a book that would appeal to fans of Wiseguy and Casino (Mario Pelleggi). Mine is with a slight sense of humor. Based on fact and truth. It is the biggest and most successful scam ever in Las Vegas and no one has ever heard of it. Also about the entire life of a thief and his loves, how he got to where he was and how he ended up. I need help with comp titles. Sorry but I'm stuck in a place (now) where you can't get a decent loaf of Italian bread and no one I can refer you guys to. Also I'm broke and embarrassed.

- Robert

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Dear Robert,

Check out this post on comps and scroll down to the bullet list of places to search:

I’d look for contemporary titles about Vegas, scams, heists, and thiefs. Your comps don’t need to be about those topics specifically, but can also be similar in terms of tone and voice. If your narrator is looking back on his life, you can look for a book that’s similarly retrospective. If there’s a sense of wit and humor, you can choose a comp that captures that quality. Remember that each comp doesn’t have to cover everything. You’re using these titles to give the agent a sense of where your book fits in the market and what other books it might sit with. Think about the books you like to read. Who do you want your work to be in conversation with? I think you’re thinking about Nicholas Pileggi, so a good starting point is to see who’s writing contemporary novels within the last 3-5 years that share similar qualities with his work.

I can’t find individual comps for you, but the tools in the post, above, are all free and what I’d use to get started. You know your book better than anyone, and you know the community of other titles you want it to be a part of. If you get an agent and then a publisher, you’ll keep having this conversation about comps as your agent pitches it to an editor, an editor pitches it to a sales team, and a sales team pitches it to readers. (Literally my agent just emailed me yesterday to ask if I have ideas for comps for a new manuscript I’ve been working on.) If you self-publish it’s even more important to know your comps, because they share the audience you’ll want to reach. The process never ends, so it’s great to start to feel comfortable finding these books, reading widely in your genre, and developing a sense of where your work fits in — even as of course it has its own qualities that make it stand out.

Good luck, keep writing, and I hope you find some good bread or bake your own!

Kate