Romance novel blurb help

We’ve talked to a lot of romance authors, and the one thing they all have in common is that they HATE writing blurbs. And when they finally finish the horrible task, many of them aren’t thrilled with the results. Why? Because writing a novel takes an ENTIRELY different writing skill set than writing a blurb, which is basically just a marketing and sales tool designed to sell your book in a few short paragraphs. Just because you’re a great author doesn’t automatically make you a great blurb writer.

So, who do authors usually go to for blurb help? The wrong folks, in our opinion. Authors, especially indie authors, usually seek out the help of other authors when they’re struggling with their blurbs. And what’s wrong with that?

Glad you asked.

Authors supporting their fellow authors is a beautiful thing, and we’re not trying to say that other authors don’t have valuable feedback to provide. But in most cases, your fellow authors aren’t your target audience. What you really want to know is whether or not a reader would buy your book based on nothing but the blurb. And the readers that all romance authors want to attract the most—the Holy Grail of readers—are the super readers who go through five or more romances a week.

And guess what we are here at Romance Rehab? Yep. We’re super readers. We’re your target audience. If your blurb appeals to us, chances are it’ll appeal to a huge chunk of the romance reading audience. (And that’s a HUGE reading audience, folks. The romance industry is a BILLION dollar a year industry.)

So what can we do to help? Again, glad you asked. 

We offer two tiers of service to authors regarding romance novel blurbs: 

Tier 1: Romance novels blurb critique

For $12, we’ll provide a line-by-line review of your blurb. We’ll tell you what we like about it, and what we don’t like. Basically, we’ll tell you if we’d buy your book based on your blurb. And if we wouldn’t buy it...well, chances are that other super readers of the romance genre wouldn’t either. (*gulp*) 

Want to see some examples of past critiques? You can check ‘em out right here. ​

Tier 2: Romance novel blurb renovation

(Formerly called blurb “clean-up service”) For $45, we’ll take your blurb’s first draft (or rough synopsis) and polish it/rewrite it to the best of our ability to make it: a) Succinct, b) Appealing to romance genre super-readers, and c) Include keywords and phrases (when possible) that we know romance readers are searching Amazon for monthly. We’ll also do our best to use as many of your words as possible so that your unique writing voice is preserved. 

Care to see a few examples? Come on, you know you do! They're right here.
Now, because we know you’re a smart authorly type, we realize you have questions. That’s cool. But we’re smart, too...so how about you let us guess and see if we can answer your questions before you even ask them? This’ll be fun!!

How does the whole thing work?
​THE CRITIQUE SERVICE: Your $12 guarantees you a critique within 7-business days. It will be emailed directly to you, not posted on the site. (Unless you’d like it to be posted. If so, that can be arranged.) Note: Your $12 fee covers 1 complete blurb critique. If you want feedback on revised drafts, that's great—but you will need to resubmit through the form below and there will be an additional $12 charge per critique.  (Make sure to read the "what else do I need to know" section below for more specifics.)  

As an added bonus, anyone who pays for a critique and dazzles us with a blurb that is just perfect as is will win a FREE digital ad placement (1 month) on our site. (You will be notified if you win, and specs will be provided at that time.)

To submit your blurb for critique, simply fill out this form, click the Submit button and then click the "Pay Now" button to pay the $12 fee through PayPal.

THE RENOVATION SERVICE: Your $45 fee guarantees you a blurb in 7-10 business days. Sometimes we can get it done a lot faster than that...but sometimes life just has a way of slowing us down, you know? We’ll get it back to you as quickly as possible, though. Pinky swear! If you need a quicker turnaround time, email us and arrangements can be made. (Additional charges for rush jobs will apply)

(Make sure to read the "what else do I need to know" section below for more specifics.)  

To submit your blurb for clean-up, simply fill out this form, click the Submit button and then click the "Pay Now" button to pay the $45 fee through PayPal. (IMPORTANT: If you checked the box to receive a book cover review as well, make sure you select that option from the PayPal drop down menu BEFORE clicking the "Pay Now" button.)  

What makes YOU qualified to do this for ME?
Well, I can’t say that I appreciate your tone on that question, but I’ll allow it. (*smile*) As we’ve stated, here at Romance Rehab, we’re super-readers of the romance genre. We read 5-10 books a week. We ARE your target audience. If we’d buy your book based on your blurb, it’s safe to say that most other romance readers would, too. So we know what works in a blurb and what doesn’t. And if THAT doesn’t do it for you, we’re also marketing experts with over 25 years of experience with producing effective sales copy. We even have a bestselling author at our disposal when we have questions or need publishing/authorly help. Not to mention the 250+ blurbs we’ve critiqued and renovated in the past few months... (Blurbs that when revised, according to our clients, have been known to increase the authors’ revenue substantially.) Long-story-short: we’re qualified. 

What happens if I pay you for a critique and I don’t agree with your opinion?
That would be a real bummer. But what you’re paying us for is our opinion. We’ll give that to you. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and you’re under no obligation to take our advice. We’ll do our best to provide you useful insight, but if you don’t agree or don’t like what we have to say...well, we’re sorry, but there won’t be any refunds.   

What happens if I pay you for a renovated version of my blurb and you aren’t able to make it better? 
One thing we’ve learned about authors is that they’re often a little insecure when it comes to writing a blurb. That can lead them to question their skills and sometimes think their blurbs are awful, even when they aren’t. If your blurb is so great that it can’t be improved (hey, it’s happened before), we’ll let you know and we’ll refund your money. (Note: That refund applies to the renovation service only, not the critique service.)    

Now, that said, if we are able to provide you with an updated version of your blurb that we feel will better connect with readers and you don’t like what you’re given, we’re afraid there is no money-back-satisfaction guarantee. You’re under no obligation to take our advice. You can revise what we’ve given you as much as you’d like. It’s your book, and no one is the boss of you.  

What else do I need to know?
  1. As is generally the case in life, we can’t offer you any guarantees. Using our services won’t guarantee you more book sales, ads that convert better, shiny hair, or a slimmer figure. All we can do is our best work, which we always promise to do. 
  2. The $12 fee for the critique service and the $45 fee for the renovation service are one-time fees. We don’t offer additional rounds of revisions. Sorry to be hard asses about it, but if we offered multiple rounds of revisions, we’d never be able to get anything else done in a timely manner. 
  3. For the renovation service, we might have some additional questions for you before we can start work. Sometimes plot points aren’t as clear as we’d need them to be, and if that’s the case, we’ll email you to straighten everything out. Make sure you’ve added Romance Rehab’s email address (jennifer@romancerehab.com) to your approved senders list so that we don’t end up in your junk folder. 
  4. For the renovation service,  we’ll do our best to make sure the renovated version of your blurb is free of typos and grammatical errors. But we’re only human. Typos happen. Ultimately, Romance Rehab is not responsible for typos that may end up in the blurb you eventually post on bookseller sites.   
  5. We reserve the right to turn down any renovation or critique request. (We’ll refund your money if that happens, of course.) Our reasons are vast and mysterious and too complex to explain here. Plus no one is the boss of us, so there’s that... 
  6. Our services are only offered on romance novel blurbs. That’s what we know; that’s what we’re good at. So if you send us your blurb for a literary novel or a book of poetry, we can’t help you. (And frankly, you wouldn’t want us to.)
  7. You can submit a blurb for an already published novel, or an unpublished novel. Part of the beauty of being an indie author is that you can change your blurb whenever you want! It’s never too late to polish an existing blurb.
  8. Submitting your blurb for critique or renovation does not mean Romance Rehab will feature or promote your book in any way. (But if we REALLY like your blurb, we might end up reading and reviewing it. Who knows?)
  9. Besides blurb help, we also offer a few other services especially for romance authors including: beta reading, social media graphics, and book cover rehab. Want to find out more? Awesome, we've got all the deets here.

Who do I contact if I have more questions? 
Well, you’re an inquisitive sort, aren’t you? We dig that! Contact Jennifer with any questions you might have: jennifer@romancerehab.com. She’s always happy to talk romance and blurbs. 

Let’s start rehabbing the romance genre, one blurb at a time!