I think I nailed the blurb

11 June 2026

I think I finally got it: the back cover copy for Once Upon A Sky is in one of its final versions.

Here’s the old one for comparison…

He needs to tame his wild imagination.
She wants to be the best knight.
Can he let himself believe long enough to help her?

Twelve-year-old Maxwell struggles at home within his newly formed family. His mother favors Lizzie, his stepsister, who seems better at everything. She doesn’t care that he has become more down-to-earth to improve his grades, even as he dreams of orange irises and castles made of clouds every single night.

Ruhtra is a failed squire in charge of the princess’ safety. When she goes missing and as a mysterious disease spreads, Ruhtra uncovers a plot that might just help her keep her head on her shoulders. Will she be brave enough to fight for what is right?

When Ruhtra crashes through Max’s window on a bird, he can’t believe what he sees: what if everything he had ever imagined was true?

Now, the new one…

On the ground, a boy struggles to belong in a family without his dad.
In the sky, a girl dreams of a future with no clue who she truly is.

Twelve-year-old Maxwell discovers a peculiar cloud forming above his town. Nobody believes him except Ruhtra, a knight the size of his thumb. Together, they fly away to a cloud castle to recover a kidnapped princess whom Ruhtra has sworn to protect.

As they progress, a mysterious disease spreads and the sky itself seems to wreak havoc on the ground…

Can Maxwell save the people he loves before the darkness swallows it all?

I think it sounds way better than the first one, don’t you think?

My process

I don’t particularly like writing back cover copies. But that’s something I still needed to do. I mean, once the cover grabs the attention, the next step is often to look at what’s written on the back, right?

To get the first blurb, I followed the instructions from a book called Mastering Amazon Descriptions by Brian Meeks, which I’ve read in 2022 .

But for the new blurb, I actually followed the recipe from Jayben and the Golden Torch by Thomas Leeds, which I also read in 2023 . And that’s actually one of Meeks’ instructions: take a book in your genre and analyse how they write their back cover copy. I think it works much better that way. However, I still needed to add the dual point of view (‘cause Jayben doesn’t have that).

Finally, I’ve asked what people thought of it in various Discord channels I’m on. And they loved it.

Next step for the blurb will be to get through my line editor in August. Until then, that’s the almost final version, and I love it :)