All writers need readers, right?
Your book description, the section that describes your book on Amazon, and on the back of your paperback or on the flap of your hardback, is a critical part of finding readers.
Readers buy books based on great descriptions.
Here are 7 key things every description should have:
1. A strong first sentence. You can insert a tag line, a short sentence that might go on the front cover, or a short exciting review quote at the top of your description. Whatever you do you, the opening lines of your description must hook readers. They must be engaging and create a desire to buy your book. You can incorporate the most dramatic element of the book or what the reader will get, how they will benefit, from reading your book.
2. In the second paragraph tell the reader who the main characters are, by name, what the circumstances of the book are and the location.
3. Include the dramatic problem or dilemma of the plot quickly. You can use key words such as: “however”, “but” or “until” to describe the turn of events the book focuses on.
4. Hint at how the characters might overcome the dilemma.
5. Indicate the tone and mood of the book. Tell the reader through pace and word choice what kind of story they will get. Is it a romance, a mystery, a thriller, a literary story, a fantasy or another popular genre?
6. Keep all paragraphs short (two or three lines), to make the description easy to read online.
7. Mention what’s unique about your book and use a dramatic tone, if the book contains drama. A little hype goes a long way. Do you know what’s unique about your book?
Other tips:
- Cater to your target reader’s tastes – “If you like ….,you’ll love….”
- Quote authors, not publications, when comparing your book
- Mention awards, if you have them
- Your hook, the opening sentence, can also be a question
- Don’t make the description too long. Three to five paragraphs is more than enough
- Look at the five top books in your genre for length, layout, style and content tips.
Spend time getting this right. Test each version you create with people you trust who will be honest with you.
A poor book description will seriously impact your book sales. Big publishers spend a lot of time on this, changing or inserting single words over and over to create powerful descriptions.
Get this right if you want your book to sell.
<h1 style=”display:none;”>The idea</h1>
In following your advice to improve the book description for my novel JUST BILL, I placed two short quotes from reviews at the beginning. I then broke the description into short paragraphs, and (I hope) simplified the wording. I’m convinced these adjustments have greatly improved how the description will work for readers–thanks!
I am writing a book which is a teaching. No main characters. How do you recommend writing a blurb for such a book?
Ken, the material in this post still applies!
Ken,
Your blurb should be focused on what the book is about – the subject you are teaching? – That is the main thing you should tell the reader in your blurb.
For example – “The full facts about ??????. Read this and you will know it all.”
Or – “Read this book, and your knowledge of ?????? will vastly improve.”
Great advice. A good blurb is as important as a good cover.
And it’s the hardest to do! I have no problem during the creative process of writing the books, but I am useless at blurbs.
However, this advice will be a great help. Thanks.
I’ll second that. And the author bio … if it’s your “firstborn”, what can you put in it?
I’m in full agreement with Gretta – they are positively painful to write.
To be perfectly honest, the one blurb for one of my books, originally written by a professional publisher, is the one I like the least. I’ve tweaked it a few times, and it’s getting better, but I think they did a lousy job, which is a pity because it is the first book in the series. So many times I’ve been told that folks have read the 2nd book first, liked it, and then went back and got the first; and I truly believe it’s the fault of the blurb.
Even more of a challenge: many book sites require a blurb that is 600 characters or less. Those really make you hone your editing skills.
The blurb is the most difficult part of writing a book. Thanks for that. I hope it will make all the difference to mine.
This is brilliant advice, thank you for writing it, I find blurbs are my most difficult area to do.
I to find writing the blurb the hardest. After writing the whole story, now it’s time to narrow down hundreds of pages into a small, but powerful synopsis that provides the readers the most interesting facts without giving away too may spoilers.
Thank you…it’s a great advice. I have just completed a manuscript and was pondering on the blurb contents.
I don’t find blurbs too much of a problem to write, but cover images are another matter… not the image itself, as that’s what photo libraries are for, but what the image depicts when my novels usually have several separate apparently unconnected threads that eventually come together for the climax. (Picturing that climax would be something of a ‘spoiler’.)
For blurbs, I just ‘list’ the themes of the threads in short paragraphs… then hint at the conclusion with something like ‘Then someone has to die.’
Here’s the cover blurb from one:
TRANSACTIONS – “The special selection box of assorted tarts”
A modern morality tale, where immorality has a place
Sex…… When you’re young, you’re supposed to be obsessed with it.
Money…… as you get older, the making of it rules your life.
But sometimes these unwritten rules get turned around.
Paying to play is one thing… until someone has to pay with their life.
Do you know what your teenage daughter’s doing tonight? … and whose Champagne she’s drinking over breakfast?
**** * ****
A heady mixture of forbidden sex and illicit dealings, mixed in with the finer things in life, and the basest of desires… Until the stakes get a little too high, and someone must die.
* * *
Good information…book publishing is complex and success can hang on the title and back cover.
Back in 1997, when my first novel was acquired by Sonnet Books, a Simon & Schuster imprint, a fight broke out between my editor and my literary agent, who hated the synopsis she wrote on the grounds that it gave away too much of the plot. I could see his point. He wrote his own version, which I wasn’t terribly keen on either because it was way too emotionless for a romance imprint. So I waded into the fray and synthesized the two versions, which did satisfy both of them. (The S&S PR department, OTOH, created an absolutely terrible marketing hook for the book’s internal sales materials, but that’s for another post.)
The publisher-produced synopsis for my second novel, in 2006 (HQN Books, not Simon & Schuster), was better — my agent didn’t feel it necessary to fight that editor about it — but I improved its dramatic impact in 2014 when I rereleased the title independently.
I used to think that producing an excellent synopsis was hard, but it just takes practice. I’ve had many readers say they have been drawn in by my book descriptions, so I must be doing something right! Studying examples from the most compelling books in your chosen genre is key. And by “most compelling,” I don’t necessarily mean “best selling” but rather, what compels =you= about the synopsis that entices you to learn more about the book?
There are some other key points this article missed, which I plan to blog about on 3/2/2016.
Kim Headlee
Stories make us greater.
Good solid advice here. Conveying what the story is about is always good. So many blurbs don’t. I’ve seen too many blurbs replaced with excerpts, and while that’s nice, it doesn’t tell me what the book is really about.
The trouble is that a blurb and a synopsis can be very different things… especially if your publisher wants summary style synopses. With a complex plot, they can be too long or involved.
A blurb should tempt the reader to want to find out more by reading the book. It should intrigue the potential reader, as well as offer a taster. The blurb… or blurbs… can be tailored for where they are. A more involved one on the flyleaf and on sales sites like Amazon, with a snappy one on the books back cover for bookshop browsers.
These two are for the same book (not yet released):
First the longer one:
‘RETRIBUTIONS’ – “Don’t tell me it’s another bloody e-mail”
An explosion in an empty bookshop, that harms nobody, is followed by a string of murders that have no apparent motive to connect them to each other.
The method of killing varies between them, and apart from those that are murdered together, none of them are known to each other.
Yet all of them are being claimed by the same killer, in a series of e-mails sent to the investigating officers.
*
Each new murder raises more questions than answers for the police who are investigating them.
Why are they being chosen as victims?
What kind of victim will the killer choose next?
Who is targeting these people so accurately,
Whilst taking such extreme care to avoid any accidental victims?
And what have they all done to incur his obvious displeasure?
******** * ********
This is the ‘back cover’ version:
‘RETRIBUTIONS’ – “Don’t tell me it’s another bloody e-mail”
A tall mysterious African is taking an unhealthy interest in certain people.
Atheist scientists…
Muslim and Christian clerics…
Entrepreneurs and entertainers…
and a fifteen year old youth.
But why should their deaths be so important to him?
A gay, atheist vicar…
A sexually charged grieving widow…
A high class whore and her biker boyfriend…
And several extremely baffled policemen…
They’re all asking themselves the same question:
“What links all these victims?”
******* * *******
I have to admit that I underestimated the importance of the blurb until recently. Not only writing a “good” book, which is a tremendous challenge was important but the description that follows, one that would entice potential buyers. Of course, it makes sense. It had been my belief that a short synopsis would persuade the potential reader to try “the free sample” – that doing the trick! Anyway, the tips and feedbacks presented here are indeed eye openers, so to speak. Much appreciated. I have now made changes to the blurb on Amazon, though not the one in my ebook. Not sure if that´s necessary, as it would be in a paperback format.
Great advice here. I also recommend “Gotta Read It!” by Libbie Hawker. Reading this book made everything click into place for me.