How Numbers Work In the Blurb for the Bestselling Mystery Novel of All Time

For our third and final example on using numbers in book blurbs, let’s take a look at the #1 mystery novel ever: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. While you  may think there isn’t a number in the title, there is: none. None is equivalent to zero.

But an interesting fact is that this is not the original title. The original title contained a vulgar word we don’t like to use anymore in modern society (a good thing), one beginning with n and ending in r. You can Google it up. In the US, it was changed to Ten Little Indians. Still not PC, but more acceptable than the original.

As you see, the number that is key to the novel is 10.

Here’s a back cover:

 

There are several things to recommend this exceedingly well constructed back cover–both in blurb and design.

First, notice the top right exclamation. If you ever studied journalism or just are aware of how those front pages are constructed for print papers, you know that top right is where you place the thing you consider priority–the lead story. The eye automatically goes to the top of a page first. Put something important at the top. If it’s a key recommendation or statement or story question, that’s a good place.

Top right on this back cover has a clear, all-caps, exlamation-point statement that will nab the attention of any mystery novel lover (or any reader who enjoys fiction, period). THE WORLD’S BESTSELLING MYSTERY!

That’s a pretty emphatic statement that has to make any browsing reader curious.

Now we get into the countdown. Starting from the key number 10.

In the novel, there are serial killings, countdown killings, in an isolated location. (See image on top left that gives a sense of an isolated island residence.)

Notice that the countdown doesn’t go on to the end. Just enough to get a count going, leaving it hanging–which is also effective, isn’t it?

Each countdown in the blurb gives a story element. Key terms that ignite interest when it comes to mysteries: strangers, isolated, guilty secrets, haunted, violent storm, begin to die, dead.

And the question finale, the story question itself: Who among them is the killer and will any of them survive?

Being in an isolated location, taunted by a nursery rhyme, dying one by one, and the killer in their midst–that’s a fabulous, “hook-ish” set-up.

The countdown always adds suspense and dread. (Just as in the previous novel, where you know if they got the number ahead of you, you’re next.)

The final recommendation blurb by TIME–an established and well-known journalistic entity–gives the final “read me” nab to the browser, assuring them this mystery is an “ingenious thriller.”

Even if you don’t have TIME or famous writers giving you rec-blurbs, you can use key imagery on your back cover and, if applicable, a clever countdown or numerical motif for all your types of blurb uses.

Next Time:

Well, wait and see.