I had read Royal Blood thinking it was historical mystery/suspense and was incredibly disappointed when it turned out they were vampires.

Indeed, blurbs can be a slippery slope. I've come across a couple that only slightly misrepresent what's actually contained in the book.

One that sticks in my mind was the blurb for "Blood of the Demon" by Diana Rowland. It was really just one part of one line…"Between heaven and hell, man and demon, she’s about to face the one thing she may not be able to survive." The italicized bit caught my attention because the "demons" of this series (as well as where they reside) has nothing at all do to with heaven/hell…that point is make exceedingly clear a number of times in the first two books. Not a big huge deal, but the innocuous phrasing makes incorrect implications. IMO.

That all said…I'll bet blurb writing ain't easy. One has to write a description to appeal to a specific (or broad-as-possible) audience. Slippery slope, I say. Slippery slope.

I've never come across glaring errors like that, but my blurb pet peeve is when the plot sounds amazing and the book turns out to be nothing but sex sex and more sex. I know some people read for that, but I think it should be pretty obvious that that's what the book is really about. Don't lure me in with the promise of a great story, then attempt to impress me with how many metaphors you can come up with for body parts- because I promise, I won't be impressed.

I have to tell you all that I so appreciate Susi pointing out the mistake in the blurb, because once I approve the blurb/proof, I assume it will be loaded as is – sometimes mistakes are made, words are dropped, blurbs are shortened, that kind of thing. I've been out of town since I found out the book was releasing early and I did not re-read the blurb.
I notified Siren the minute Susi told me, and they had the blurb corrected within three minutes! You cannot imagine how amazing that feels to know that as an author, you're not left hanging while readers are getting the wrong idea about your story!

Great topic!

I can't remember a specific example of this with a book off the top of my head but sometimes the blurbs about movies on Netflix are really off. There was one movie that I got where the title made so much more sense after watching it because the description was totally wrong!

The one example I can think of is 'The Lord Protector's Daughter' by Modesitt. It mentions something as a crucial plotpoint on the blurb which actually happens in the last chapter or second to last.

This has only happened to me once. But, it was more a problem with a summary I found at Barnes and Noble than what the book's summary was, I think. I picked up Beautiful Stranger by Hope Donahue thinking it was a memoir of a girl with an eating disorder; that's what the blip from B&N alluded to. It ended up being about a girl who was addicted to plastic surgery. While it ended up being an alright book, I had no desire to read about plastic surgery. Not really my cuppa tea.

I've noticed this too and it can totally throw me out of the story. Case in point: Kathleen Dante's books make no mention that the world has magic in it/the h/h can perform magic so when I read the first one, I thought I wasn't reading it correctly when I first encountered magic because it was so subtle and it took awhile to adjust my perceptions of the world/what was going on. If it'd been mentioned on the back, not only would it have made me even more eager to read them but I would have accepted it much more readily!

PS I'll definitely be buying Barrett's book now that I know there's no cheating – that's definitely one of my no-go topics in books.

smaccall @ comcast.net

I have to say, I was quite surprised when I read the original blurb for Julia's book. It probably wouldn't have stopped me from reading it, but I know that cheating is a hot button topic for many readers and I thought that she was really limiting her audience by having the heroine proposition her sister's fiance. I'm relieved to find out that it was the brother of her sister's fiance that she was getting involved with. That's much more normal.

I've encountered blurbs that were misleading, not out-right wrong. Good thing I didn't pick the books due to their blurbs but their authors.

I don't think I've encountered any blurbs that were flat out wrong but misleading – oh yes. I sometimes feel as if all book blurbs are wrong. When it's a new to you author or series, a misleading blurb can make or break a book. Frustrating.

Julie, I am so glad that you listened to Susi and that your publisher listened to you. To lose sales because of a blurb would be so infuriating, I would think.

Wow, you are totally right Susi, I agree on both accounts (who would ever suspect Royal Blood to be paranormal? I get that maybe they want to really surprise the reader when it is revealed the evil is a vamp, but I'm sure it will put off more historical readers this way..) And the Julia Barrett novel: oh my, I completely understood she was going to have sex with the fiance of her sister! Which as a sister I can absolutely not understand! That breaches everything: the bond, the trust between sisters. Poor Julia, I can well imagine many readers decided against buying this book, because based on this blurb I sure wouldn't give it a try and might miss out on a great story 🙁

In my opinion deciding whether to read or not a book based on the blurb doesn't go in the category of 'judging a book by its cover'. In my opinion the blurb has to be true to the story and should also give a first taste of what the reader can expect. And I think truthfulness to the story is a must.

I really hate it when they write the blurbs wrong like that, but it's great that they changed it as soon as they were notified.
It does make me wonder how many books I would have enjoyed, but have never read because of the blurb.