One of the books I’m reading right now is Book Blurbs Unleashed by Robert J. Ryan (Affiliate link). I’ve been using the book to help me improve my copywriting skills, when it comes to developing book blurbs. A book blurb is a description about a book that gives you an idea of what the book is about, but also is written to persuade a person to give the book a chance. Anytime you read the back cover of a book or a description in an online store, you’re reading a blurb.
I’m okay at writing non-fiction blurbs. They’re pretty easy to write because you’re presenting a just the facts explanation about what the book is about. But with fiction blurbs I’ve struggled because I’ve never written them before. I picked up Book Blurbs Unleashed, because I knew I needed some help crafting a good fiction blurb.
Any good copy writing has its own design, or formula to it. It’s presenting information, but it’s also designed to hook people’s interest and get them to consider buying something. That’s the point of copy writing. It persuades people to do something. And as such it has its own rules, which shape the writing that’s done.
So reading the aforementioned book and putting it into practice has been a bit of an adventure…
And not just for my fiction books, but also my non-fiction books. I decided to rewrite the blurbs for all my occult books. A couple needed extensive rewrites (I’m looking at you Space/Time Magic) and some were really good and only needed a little tweak. Either way though it was fun for me to review the writing of those back cover blurbs and see what I could come up with.
At this point, you’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with magic. The answer to that really boils down to my fascination with different types of writing and how writing is used to inform and persuade. Copywriting a blurb is different from writing a book or a technical document. There are specific conventions that are applied with writing a blurb that you won’t find in other types of writing.
When I look at copywriting from a magical perspective what I’m looking at is how those writing principles can be used to structure a chant or develop an evocation. I’m looking at the use of white space, the space between lines of writing and also at punctuation and how the right type of punctuation can be used to create an experience with the words that is evocative of what you are working with. And of course, I’m also looking at the purpose of copywriting. The purpose of a blurb is ultimately to fascinate, tease, enchant, and persuade a reader that they may want to read your book.
So I apply this understanding to a magical working. What am I ultimately trying to do? I’m trying to get results or a deeper communion with spirits or whatever else, but I’m also trying to persuade possibility to turn into reality. And the way I do that is through the best use of my resources to accomplish the desired end. It’s not just gathering those resources together, but setting them up carefully and considering what elements to use and when and where in order to accomplish the most with the least amount of effort. We can learn a lot from how we structure and setup writing…and how those principles can be applied to magic or anything else for that matter.
