When I talk about blurbs, there are two meanings–the endorsements you get from editors and fellow authors, and then the actual description of the book that goes on the back cover, but also in the book description sections in online stores meant to entice the reader to read your work.

Today I’m going to talk about what goes on the back cover, because I’m dealing with this right now–trying to write the blurb for The Step and the Walk.

Here’s the blurb for The Name and the Key as a reference:

Some doors are sealed for a reason—and some names should never be spoken aloud.

At thirteen, Lily Bellamy finds her mother’s body in the marshes. What haunts her afterward is worse.

A corpselike spirit that looks like her mother follows Lily through every reflective surface—mirrors, glass, still water—whispering for Lily to open the door and let her out. Lily has no idea what the door is, how to stop the visions, or whether saving her mother is even possible. The haunting stretches into her young adulthood, eroding her sanity and dragging her closer to a breaking point she can feel but cannot escape.

When Lily is eighteen, Andresh Zatavier returns—the boy who once knew her better than anyone, and perhaps still does. Changed by years overseas, Andresh confesses his study of dark magic and forbidden knowledge beyond human limits. He believes he knows the key to Lily’s curse—and how to end death itself.

But every secret Andresh carries comes at a cost.

As Lily is drawn deeper into a world of dark gates and dangerous names, she must decide how far she is willing to go to save the woman she lost… and whether opening the door will free her mother—or unleash something far worse.

Kristina Elyse Butke launches a chilling new dark fantasy series with The Name and the Key, weaving grief, forbidden magic, and aching connection into a story where love tempts fate—and some doors should never be opened.

I did not write this one. I wrote like three or four separate ones for my publisher to choose from, and all of them were bad. Not enticing enough. Plus, not calibrated for good AEO, which is something all of us at OHB are focused on when it comes to crafting a blurb.

AEO stands for “Answer Engine Optimization.” This is different than SEO, “Search Engine Optimization.” With the advent of AI being used in a ton of places, the goal is for every question like “Hey Chat GPT, recommend me a book with enemies to lovers set in ancient Egypt” for a specific book–your book–to be the answer.

Today, readers no longer just type keywords into Google. They ask questions directly inside AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and AI-powered browsers. Instead of showing ten blue links, these tools usually deliver one clear answer.

That’s where AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) comes in.

AEO is how you structure your content, so AI tools choose your explanation as the answer.

–Cherrlyn, “AEO for Authors: How to Become AI’s Preferred Answer“

Here are some more thoughts on the AI being used regarding book searches:

Amazon now has Rufus, its own AI shopping assistant. Readers are increasingly using conversational search. Recommendation engines are getting more sophisticated. Ad platforms are using more automated targeting. Meta ads, Amazon Ads, and AI-driven discovery tools are all trying to work out what your book is, who it is for, and when it should be shown to someone.

That means your metadata is doing more than helping with search.

It is helping AI understand your book.

–James Blatch, “The New Rules of Book Discovery“

While I’m not in charge of my metadata (my publisher is), when it comes to writing my blurbs and filling out my publisher-provided worksheet, I can still try to help out with it.

My publisher provided all of us authors with a blurb checklist to use, but I believe that’s proprietary, so I’m going with James Blatch’s list:

The blurb has two audiences now

Yes, readers will still use your blurb etc to make their human choice, that has not changed.

But the metadata also has to explain the book clearly enough for machines to interpret it.

That does not mean writing robotic copy. It does not mean stuffing in keywords. It does not mean flattening your blurb into a dull list of tropes.

It means being clear.

A blurb for the new era must communicate:

• genre
• subgenre(s)
• protagonist
• setting
• central conflict
• stakes
• tone
• reader promise
• relevant tropes or hooks

This is a lot to include in a blurb, but it’s necessary to hit each one. I would say especially for tropes, as readers like to search by those quite a bit.

The CEO of my publishing company, Tanya Anne Crosby, has written articles on this phenomenon that I highly recommend you read, especially since they talk about Amazon. Amazon cannot be ignored when it comes to selling books. They sell 50% of all print books and 67% of all eBooks (Source).

Anyway, Crosby has written a great article about Rufus, Amazon’s AI shopping assistant and how it works with books, and a recent article about whether or not Amazon’s search is an LLM (large language model) and how that may be utilized in the answer retrieval process. There’s also a really good graphic in that article that further explains how Amazon is going beyond keyword searching.

So, now that there’s all this out in the open, and we know more about AOE, how the heck do I write my blurb for The Step and the Walk? My trilogy is a dark romantasy with strong gothic tones…but for this book, do I focus on his discovery of demon magic and alchemy, or do I focus on the brief romance that Andresh has at university? The magic stretches throughout the book, whereas the romance is just a part of it, but what is more tantalizing to the reader, and how do I make an honest blurb?

I have my checklists and The Name and the Key‘s blurb to use as a template, but I need to think hard and slowly on this to get it right. I don’t remember how quickly these are due, but in general I know that they’re due kinda fast. …But not so fast that I write something terrible again.

This will be taking up my headspace for the next couple of days for certain. As always, I ask you to please with me luck! Thank you!