Colin the Copywriter
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colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Colin the Copywriter
@colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
140 followers 340 following 250 posts
Author of debut SF novel, Exo, available NOW | A quarter of a century writing UK publishing jacket copy | 5,000+ blurbs | Talking the cover stories that persuade readers to buy | A few mine, mostly others' | Also find me here colinthecopywriter.com
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colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
It's been a long journey, but thanks to @jberlyne.bsky.social @awfulagent.bsky.social @tonimargarita.bsky.social & Shannon Donnelly and all at @diversionbooks.bsky.social (not to mention @bookforward.bsky.social & @michelvrana.com ) for bringing Exo out into the world in style.
Happy Publication day, Exo. May you find the readers you deserve. Plus packshots of the novel Exo and as it appears on an e-reader and a phone.
November 18, 2025 at 6:44 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Thanks to @booktrib.bsky.social for the chance to talk about five books dealing with change in the world & how we live with that change, each of which changed how I wrote my own novel, Exo.
booktrib.com/2025/11/12/f...
@tadethompson.bsky.social
@sannewman.bsky.social
@catamaroon.bsky.social
A hand holding the Earth with the title 'Books to Hold Close As the World Turns', featuring 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson, The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman, Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley, Rosewater by Tade Thompson and The Coral Bones by EJ Swift
November 14, 2025 at 9:43 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild (1/2): Follow where the title leads. For @cornerstone_press & Ernest Cline's Ready Player One the super-short blurb is all tell and no show, leaning heavily on gaming tropes.

WORLD AT STAKE. GOOD AND EVIL.

QUEST. FATE OF HUMANITY.

And, lastly . . .
Ernest Cline's Ready Player One Blurb: Imagine the WORLD AT STAKE. An EPIC STRUGGLE between good and evil. The GREATEST QUEST in history. The FATE OF HUMANITY resting in your hands. ARE YOU READY?
November 13, 2025 at 9:01 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
I've read it from top to bottom twice and, while I accept I've got a vested interest, I do think you might have missed one . . .

reactormag.com/new-science-...
@reactorsff.bsky.social
@diversionbooks.bsky.social
@awfulagent.bsky.social
@zenoagency.bsky.social
#ColinBrush #Exo #sciencefiction
Reactor's November 2025 science fiction publications with my novel Exo making an oversized and uninvited-to-the-party entrance.
November 12, 2025 at 7:42 PM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild (1/3): Classic book, classic copy shape. @gollancz.bsky.social edition of Frank Herbert's Dune features copy with an inverted triangle shape. We start big and wide with awards & movie affirmation, followed by landmark works of SF that followed Dune. Says: this book matters . . .
Frank Herbert's Dune Blurb: WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD. 
WINNER OF THE NEBULA AWARD.
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE. Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was Dune, one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written. Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world Arrakis. Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe. When stewardship of Arrakis is transferred to his house, Paul Atreides must travel to the planet's dangerous surface to ensure the future of his family and his people. But as malevolent forces explode into conflict around him, Paul is thrust into a great destiny beyond his understanding. And in this game of power, only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
November 12, 2025 at 6:53 PM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Lovers of Dungeness: click below to discover how this curious corner of Kent coastline was the seed for Exo, my SF murder mystery set at the end of the world. Thanks to Michael Golding for asking me to write about his home & not minding my hubris at playing nemesis.
dungeness.org.uk/info/exo-a-n...
Homepage for Dungeness.org with view of the beach and ruined shacks.
November 11, 2025 at 4:44 PM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild (1/2): This old warhorse! After all these years @gollancz.bsky.social & @lordgrimdark.bsky.social The Blade Itself is still sporting its original cover and blurb. But this blurb knows something legions of Grim Dark fantasy imitators often forget: it's all about the characters ...
Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself Blurb: Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught up in one feud too many he's about to become a dead barbarian, leaving nothing behind but bad songs and dead friends. Jezal dan Luthar, paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than winning glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules. Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer. would like little more than seeing Jezal come home in a box. But then he hates everyone. Cutting treason out of the heart of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendships - and his latest trail of corpses could lead straight to the rotten heart of government if he can just stay alive long enough to follow it.
November 7, 2025 at 5:27 PM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild (1/2): The secret here is in the middle. Most blurb writers (myself included?) would pitch @harpercollins.bsky.social and @robinhobb.bsky.social Assassin's Apprentice with just paragraphs 1 and 3 of this blurb. Pitch the set up, the character's situation and the story direction...
Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice Blurb: The kingdom of the Six Duchies is on the brink of civil war when news breaks that the crown prince has fathered a bastard son and is shamed into abdication. The child’s name is Fitz, and he is despised. Raised in the castle stables, only the company of the king’s fool, the ragged children of the lower city, and his unusual affinity with animals provide Fitz with any comfort. To be useful to the crown, Fitz is trained as an assassin; and to use the traditional magic of the Farseer family. But his tutor, allied to another political faction, is determined to discredit, even kill him. Fitz must survive: for he may be destined to save the kingdom.
November 5, 2025 at 8:09 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild (1/2): Avoiding spoilers. Sometimes pitching the book’s plot would spoil the read. But how do you find an intriguing way of pitching the little you can say?

In Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, we’re given a problem – the coming death of humankind – and . . .
Andy Weir's novel Project Hail Mary Blurb: A LONE ASTRONAUT. AN IMPOSSIBLE MISSION. AN ALLY HE NEVER IMAGINED. Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. But right now, he doesn't know that. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time, and he's just woken to find himself hurtling through space, millions of miles from home. It's up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery, and he's got to do it all alone... Or does he?
November 3, 2025 at 11:52 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Some blurbs hint (1/2) Originally published by @angryrobotbooks.bsky.social the @michaeljbooks.bsky.social edition of Lauren Beukes' @clarkeaward.bsky.social winning Zoo City features the original cover & blurb. The book's big weird involves criminals being magically attached to animal familiars ...
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes and Lemur Blurbs: Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheque, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons. Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions reside. Instead it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she'll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives - including her own.
October 24, 2025 at 12:12 PM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild: Start small, end big. Kate Summerscale's The Peepshow blurb starts with a grisly find, details bringing it to life. Then it expands, the horrors within beguiling a nation. Finally, the last para offers a grand promise: closure. Show with little details. Tell with the big themes.
Kate Summerscale's The Peepshow Blurb: In 1953, the bodies of three young women are found by a tenant in the walls of a Notting Hill house. He tells the police that he chanced upon them while trying to put up a shelf for his transistor radio. As a series of further horrors are discovered, the eyes of a nation turn to 10 Rillington Place. In this riveting tale of violence, misogyny and tabloid frenzy, Kate Summerscale lifts the veil on what really happened inside the house - and suggests a new solution to one of the twentieth century's most notorious crimes.
October 21, 2025 at 4:54 PM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild: Classic 3-line pitch blurb for Annie Jacobsen & @transworldbooks.bsky.social NW:
Nuclear war begins with a blip on a radar screen.
This is a minute-by-minute account of what comes next.
It has to be read to be believed.

Or:
What is it?
How does it work?
Why should you read it?
Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War Blurb: Nuclear war begins with a blip on a radar screen. This is a minute-by-minute account of what comes next. It has to be read to be believed.
October 17, 2025 at 8:21 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
'A twisty mystery, unusual science . . . Will find fans among both sf and mystery readers.'
Thank you, @ala-booklist.bsky.social & John Faria for the Exo review. Thanks as ever to:
@diversionbooks.bsky.social
@awfulagent.bsky.social
@zenoagency.bsky.social
www.booklistonline.com/products/981...
Booklist review of Exo by Colin Brush (me!).
October 15, 2025 at 6:17 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the office (1/3): Penguin @michaeljbooks.bsky.social Mermaid Collection brings unjustly neglected 20th-century works back into print. Pitching Margaret Kennedy's Lucy Carmichael – the story of a jilted but sensible, happy-go-lucky woman’s attempts to remake her life – it felt right to . .
Penguin Michael Joseph Mermaid: Lucy Carmichael by Margarey Kennedy Blurb: ‘People seem to get over things, don’t they? I don’t know how, but they do – ordinary people. I’m very ordinary, so I expect I shall do what they do.’ Lucy Carmichael is jilted at the altar. But no matter. Her loving and kind family never liked her explorer fiancé anyway. Instead of moping or falling into her supportive family’s arms, however, Lucy abandons their suburban home. Heading for the country, she takes up a teaching position in the industrial town of Ravonsbridge. There, she finds solace in her work, in her new (rather gossipy) colleagues – and rediscovers her sensible young self. But if Lucy has, despite everything, kept her head – where lies her heart?
October 14, 2025 at 1:00 PM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
(1/2) Back in the day they didn't butter you up. Both the line on the front and the blurb on the back of this old @penguinukbooks.bsky.social film tie-in of Isabel Colegate's The Shooting Party are straightforward to the point of bluntness.
Isabel Colegate's The Shooting Party and toy guns Blurb: A group of men and women gather at Sir Randolph Nettleby's estate for a shooting party. Opulent, adulterous, moving assuredly through the rituals of eating and slaughter, they are a dazzlingly obtuse and brilliantly decorative finale of an era.
October 10, 2025 at 8:35 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild (1/2): The didn't-know-you-were-interested-in-this blurb. Sometimes you have start from scratch. Before you can pitch the book to your reader you've got to pitch the subject. For @wildfirebooks.bsky.social and @jonnelledge.bsky.social A History of the World in 47 Borders . . .
A History of the World in 47 Borders by Jonn Elledge Blurb: People have been drawing lines on maps for as long as there have been maps to draw on. Sometimes rooted in physical geography, sometimes entirely arbitrary, these lines might often have looked very different if a war or treaty or the decisions of a handful of tired Europeans had gone a different way. By telling the stories of these borders, we can learn a lot about how political identities are shaped, why the world looks the way it does - and about the scale of human folly. From the Roman attempts to define the boundaries of civilisation, to the secret British-French agreement to carve up the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, to the reason why landlocked Bolivia still maintains a navy, this is a fascinating, witty and surprising look at the history of the world told through its borders.
October 8, 2025 at 7:06 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild: When you've got it, flaunt it. @oneworldbooks.bsky.social & Sam Leith's The Haunted Wood pitches its accolades: 1st: its 12 Book of the Year mentions. 2nd: 12 short quotes saying why it is good. 3rd: a long quote makes the reader a promise: if you like stories, you'll like this.
Sam Leith's The Haunted Wood Back cover: A BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 Sunday Times, Irish Times, Financial Times, Independent, New Statesman, Tablet and Waterstones Daily Mail, TLS, Economist, Prospect, Evening Standard, 'A delight' Julia Donaldson 'Gorgeous, loving, learned’ Hadley Freeman 'Moving and wistful' The Times 'Written with such love' Lucy Mangan 'Magisterial' New Statesman "A feast of a book’ Independent "Witty and warmhearted' Guardian ‘Marvellously charming' Literary Review ‘A joy’ Michael Rosen 'Gloriously entertaining' Tom Holland 'Fair-minded, terrific' Evening Standard 'Irrepressibly funny' Rowan Williams "This history of childhood reading is brilliantly constructed, well-researched and beautifully written - a wonderful book for anyone who believes in the magic of stories. The Haunted Wood reminds us that the books we read as children shaped us and shaped our societies." Elif Shafak
October 7, 2025 at 5:36 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild (1/5): It is a publishing cliche that 'this book is for everyone.' When an editor makes such a claim the comms team groans: they hear 'a book for no one.' But @4thestatebooks.bsky.social & Craig Brown's A Voyage Round the Queen is determined to fly the 'for everyone' flag . . .
Craig Brown's A Voyage Around the Queen Blurb: Queen Elizabeth II was famous for longer than anyone who has ever lived. When people spoke of her, they spoke of themselves; when they dreamed of her, they dreamed of themselves. To the optimist, she seemed an optimist; to the pessimist, a pessimist; to the awestruck, radiant; and to the cynical, humdrum. Though by nature reserved and unassuming, her presence could fill presidents and rock stars with terror. For close to a century, she inhabited the psyche of a nation. Combining memoir, essays, cultural history, travels, dream diaries and parody, A Voyage Around the Queen presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of this most public yet private of sovereigns.
October 3, 2025 at 8:37 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild (1/2):
'Which they were. But now they are not.'

These two short, plain sentences early in the blurb for @headofzeus.bsky.social and @kellylink.bsky.social The Book of Love provide the hinge for this pitch. Three dead teenagers are no longer dead – why? A subtle, surprising . . .
Kelly Link's The Book of Love Blurb: Laura, Daniel and Mo disappeared without trace a year ago. They have long been presumed dead. Which they were. But now they are not. And it is up to the resurrected teenagers to discover what happened to them.Revived by Mr Anabin - the man they knew as their high school music teacher - they are offered a chance to return to the mortal realm and solve the mystery of their death. But only two of them may stay. What they do not realise is their return has upset a delicate balance that has held - just - for centuries.
October 1, 2025 at 7:55 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Lovely piece by Nina Allan on what the Booker judges this year don't know. Also, a great argument for persistence as a reader. You might fall out of love with a writer's work but perhaps you, they or both of you will find your way back to one another. www.ninaallan.co.uk?p=7171
Nina Allan on Ian McEwan's What We Can Know
September 29, 2025 at 9:16 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild 1/2: A goatherd sets out to become a magician, but true magic is on the wane. That's the pitch for @ursulakleguin.com Earthsea quartet. Four books. Four stories. One @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social omnibus. The trick here, because you don't want to spoil any of the stories . . .
Ursula K Le Guin's Earthsea Quartet Blurb: A Wizard of Earthsea * The Tombs of Atuan * The Farthest Shore * Tehanu Ged is but a goatherd on the island of Gont when he comes by his strange powers over nature. Sent to the School of Wizards on Roke, he learns the true way of magic and proves himself a powerful magician. And it is as the Archmage Sparrowhawk that he helps the High Priestess Tenar escape the labyrinth of darkness. But over the years, Ged witnesses true magic and the ancient ways submit to the forces of evil and death. Will he too succumb, or can he hold them back?
September 29, 2025 at 8:04 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild: Sell one, sell the them all. The blurb for @orbitbooksuk.bsky.social and @annleckie.com @clarkeaward.bsky.social winner Ancillary Justice is a two-parter. First, it tells you why should read this landmark trilogy (many prizes, a masterpiece, contemporary societal concerns).
Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice Blurb: Ann Leckie's New York Times bestselling Imperial Radch trilogy is a modern masterpiece of science fiction, capturing readers with its powerful exploration of gender, identity and artificial intelligence. Ancillary Justice is the first novel in the trilogy, and the only novel ever to win the Hugo, Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Once, she was Justice of Toren a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy. Now an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, many unanswered questions and a burning desire for vengeance.
September 26, 2025 at 8:42 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild: SF often takes an idea/metaphor & makes it real, concretising the abstract. In this @gollancz.bsky.social blurb for The Dispossessed, the SF is stripped out to pitch the big ideas: a story of walls & being between 2 worlds, 2 ideologies. A story of the personal & the political.
Ursula K Le Guin's The Dispossessed 'There was a wall. It did not look important even a child could climb it. But the idea was real. Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.' Shevek is attempting to find a new theory of time but there are those who are jealous of his work, and will do anything to block him. So he leaves his homeland, hoping to find a place of more liberty and tolerance. Initially feted, Shevek soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game. 'With powerful themes of freedom and society The Dispossessed is a true classic of the 20th century to be read again and again' The Times
September 24, 2025 at 6:01 AM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
Blurbs in the wild: Pitches are the words we put in & words we leave out. Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness is a foundational text of sci-fi but to read the blurb on
@gollancz.bsky.social new edition you wouldn't know it is SF, you'd never know it was set on a distant alien planet.
Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness Blurb: 'Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.' Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long. tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place. As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.
September 22, 2025 at 4:46 PM
colinthecopywriter.bsky.social
3-part pitch: in 3 paras the blurb for Izumi Suzuki's Terminal Boredom makes a trad publicity pitch: what is it? how does it work? why do it? Para 1 tells you what you're holding. Para 2 pitches the 7 stories within. Para 3 argues for its continued relevance 50 yrs after her passing. What. How. Why.
Izumi Suzuki's Terminal Boredom and toilet roll Blurb: Seven punky and pitch-black stories offer English-language readers an overdue introduction to Izumi Suzuki, a cult figure in Japanese literature. The fissures in a queer matriarchal utopia are exposed when a boy - a creature usually contained in ghettoised isolation - appears beneath young Yuko's window; an extreme government initiative curbing overpopulation prompts a woman to re-evaluate her friendships; the last family in a desolate city learns to be human through the awkward appropriation of popular culture; passive-aggressive furniture provides unwelcome romantic advice; tense interplanetary politics distort Emma's love life; Jane's ex-girlfriend reappears, radically altered and insistent on a catch-up; Tokyo's teenagers, disaffected and numb from excessive screen- time, find distraction in violence. Suzuki's singular slant on science fiction remains fresh and essential. Concerns about society, gender and imperialism dovetail irresistibly with flights of speculative wonder. And with a kitchen sink in the corner of even her wildest stories, Suzuki reminds us that while society may be limitless, relationships remain impossible.
September 19, 2025 at 10:20 AM