So, What Is It About?

So, what is this book about?  Sounds like a simple question in search of a simple answer.  Yeh, whatever.

I posted something on facebook a while back that actually sounded pretty darn good (if I say so myself), but it really wasn't a complete synopsis of the upcoming novel:

"Devon must help his mentor, the dwarf that raised him as his own, return to his fallen home, to die. Along the way Devon loses friends, finds out more about himself, and learns a surprising history behind his step-father. His life changes in unexpected ways, and in the end he braces for even more..."

I couldn't find the complete post (thank you Facebook), but you get the idea.  A young half-elf goes through the character arc, blah, blah, blah.

I suppose this is something that all authors have to face.  How do you write up a blurb that tells what the book is about and in turn, sells that book?  This portion of writing goes hand in hand with all the other aspects; it isn't as easy as it looks.  You have the idea, you know what you want to say, but you don't know how to say it.

So, again, what is this book about?

It is about a half-elf who faces some life-changing experiences.  It is about a dwarf who is going home to finish a job begun some forty years prior.  It is about an elf who comes face to face with his hatred.  It is about a prince who learns that his life has been built on a lie.  It is about another prince who has found that he has held himself back because of his inability to come to terms with a lost love.  It is about a princess who learns that people will lie to her to make her feel more secure.  It is about a kingdom built on hypocrisy.

It is about the ignorance of racism.

None of which will sell a book.  That initial facebook post may sell the book, but it also sells it short.  So, I basically have 45 days to drum up a paragraph that will sell the book AND give some idea about the many facets of this novel.  Again, nothing new.  All writers have to go through this.

I suppose the best practice is to know the answer to the question when somebody asks you what the book is about.  If you are writing a book; do you know the answer to that question?