Jacket Copy Or Query Letter?

I've been in the freelance writing business for seven years now, and during that time, I've been asked to write some very strange copy, all with the goal of making it enticing and exciting without turning it into an infomercial. One of these jobs was to write jacket copy for paperback fiction...but this wasn't obscure small pressers trying to outsource the mar-comm work for a book only 20 people would see. No, this was jacket copy for some of the biggest names in the thriller and mystery genre -- authors who would go way beyond my own meager expectations of a publishing career.

There was a catch, as there always is. This wasn't for the American market. No sir, this wasn't even for the Canadian or British market -- or Australian, for that matter. This was jacket copy, written in English only to be translated to Spanish, then slapped onto the back of mass-market paperbacks in Spain. Tapping into my own query experience, along with research a heck of a lot of Amazon descriptions for that particular genre, I sought to piece together jacket summary after jacket summary, all while keeping within some basic rules that minimized future translation complications.

(To this day, I have no idea why they didn't just hire a Spanish writer to do it. We worked off and on for about a year and on about a dozen books. Hopefully, I helped sell copies rather than lose things in translation.)

When you write query letters, you get advice spouting off just about every piece of advice out there. Write it like jacket copy. No, don't write it like jacket copy -- write with more detail! No, write with less detail -- keep it obscure, just have a hook! And if you look deep enough, there are sound arguments for just about all of these positions, along with successful examples of each floating around the interwebs. I suppose that translates into one horrible truth that none of us unpublished writers want to hear: every agent is different, complete with his/her own opinion and preference! In fact, the only bit of advice you could probably consistently count in is "Don't write something crappy," though there may be some obscure message board thread about why a crappy query is a GOOD idea because it shows that you think out of the box and are avant garde.

Ultimately, I think there are a lot of similarities between jacket copy and query letters. Obviously, query letters have all that writer info below the hook, but the actual purpose of the plot blurb is the same -- grab attention, lure in, and complete with a hook that makes them want more.

With that in mind, I'm staring at the back of Bit Of A Blur by Alex James. James is the bass player of Blur, one of my favorite freakin' bands of all time, and unlike most rock bios, A) James actually penned this one himself and B) it's blissfully funny and self-deprecating with all sorts of witty lines.

Do you want to read it? Let's sample the jacket copy and find out:

For Alex James, music has always been a door to a more eventful life. But as bass player of Blur, his journey was more exciting and extreme than he could ever have predicted. In Bit Of A Blur, he chronicles his journey from a slug-infested flat in Camberwell to a world of screaming fans and private jets -- and his search to find meaning and happiness (and, perhaps most importantly, the perect cheese), in an increasingly surreal world.

Now, let's discount the fact that the word "journey" was used twice in consecutive sentences. Having just read that cold, does this story interest you? If you were a hypothetical agent and had this come across your email, would you ask for a partial? A full? Or would you send a polite form rejection? Ponder that thought while you listen to one of my favorite Blur songs.