Did you know that the marketing language publishers create for your book’s back cover copy is rarely written by the marketing department? Instead, an editor with little marketing experience or a freelance writer outside the company is tasked with creating this important copy. This practice may explain why so many books display such ineffective, boring marketing text.
Why is most back cover copy ineffective? Editors and freelance writers are rarely trained to think from a consumer’s point of view. They are word nerds who focus on fixing manuscripts and identifying what’s inside a book. But, they’re not very good at explaining to consumers the all-important purchasing question, “What’s in it for me?” And, it’s much harder to convince consumers to buy books when they can’t tell why the purchase is in their best interests.
As the author, you should take responsibility to write the back cover copy for your book. Why is it a big deal? Besides the back cover, the same text shows up everywhere, including your book’s Amazon page, the publisher’s website, sales catalog copy, press releases, author website, etc. If your back cover copy is boring, then the world will see a boring explanation of your book.
Preempt the publisher by writing your back cover copy early and submitting it ahead of time. Most publishers will appreciate that you took another task off of their long to-do list. Even better, you’ll get a greater chance to control how the world views your book.
Don’t just tell readers what’s in your book. Tell the reader what’s in it for them. If you need to improve they way you write marketing copy, see Chapter 1 in my book, Sell Your Book Like Wildfire. For good examples of persuasive marketing copy for fiction and non-fiction, check out these titles:
Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst
No Graves As Yet by Anne Perry
Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
