Since we talked about hook sentences last week, it only seemed natural to address back-cover copy today.

Like a hook sentence, your back-cover copy is a tool for selling your book. If you are traditionally publishing, this copy sells your book first to agents and editors, then to readers. If you are indie publishing, you skip that agent/editor thing, but the back-cover copy is still critical for getting readers to click, “Buy.”

When people are perusing a bookstore, they’ll flip the book over to read what your book is about. Or they might read the description on a retailer’s website. Frequently when you’re being interviewed on blogs or in magazines, they print the back-cover copy. Or when you’re on TV, they will draw from your back-cover copy to explain your book to the audience. There are many, many reasons to invest the time in writing great back-cover copy.

The qualities of a good book blurb are similar to the qualities of a good hook. Your back-cover copy should include:

  • Character: Who is the main character? Who is this story about?
  • Setting: Where and when does it take place?
  • Conflict: What are they trying to achieve and what’s in their way?
  • Action: How do they go about doing this?
  • Uniqueness: Why is this book different? Why should someone invest the time in reading it?
  • Tone: Is the book funny? Dark? Sarcastic? This should be hinted at in the blurb.
  • Mystery: Often phrased in a question at the end, this is the part of the back-cover copy that triggers an itch in the reader’s brain.

And you need to do all these things as concisely as possible. But how do you boil your huge, beautiful masterpiece into just 150 to 200 words? Let’s look at three examples from books that are very different from each other.

So Not Happening by Jenny B. Jones

Isabella Kirkwood (CHARACTER) had it all: popularity at a prestigious private school in Manhattan, the latest fashions, and a life of privilege and luxury. Then her father, a plastic surgeon to the stars, decided to trade her mother in for a newer model. (CONFLICT)

When her mother starts over with her new husband, Bella is forced to pack up (ACTION also CONFLICT) and leave all she knows to live with her new family in Oklahoma. (SETTING) Before her mother can even say “I do,” Bella’s life becomes a major “don’t.”

Can Bella survive her crazy new family? Will the school survive Bella? How can a girl go on when her charmed life is gone and God gives her the total smackdown? (MYSTERY)

The “uniqueness” label isn’t so easy to apply to a single sentence, but for this book I would say there are lots of books about wealthy, snooty Manahattan-ite teens. This one just got dropped into small town Oklahoma, though. I also love that you can tell this is a humorous story by the tone throughout.

Let’s look at the next example:

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses (UNIQUENESS) long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die. (ACTION, CONFLICT)

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick (CHARACTER) is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them. (MYSTERY)

Puck Connolly is different. (CHARACTER) She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen. (MYSTERY)

Something interesting to note is that you can tell this is going to be a dual POV book by the way Sean and Puck’s paragraphs are separated from each other.

Lastly, let’s look at a fantasy example that sets up the storyworld as well as the characters:

King’s Folly by Jill Williamson

The gods are angry.

Volcanic eruptions, sinkholes, ground shakers—everything points to their unhappiness. (CONFLICT, SETTING) At least that is what the king of Armania (SETTING) believes. His son, Prince Wilek, (CHARACTER) thinks his father’s superstitions are nonsense, though he remains the ever dutiful heir apparent to the throne.

When a messenger arrives and claims that the town of Farway has been swallowed by the earth, the king sends Wilek to investigate. But what Wilek discovers is more cataclysmic than one lost city. Even as the ground shifts beneath his feet, Wilek sets out on a desperate journey to save his people and his world. (ACTION) But can he do it before the entire land crumbles? (MYSTERY, UNIQUENESS)

The best way to improve at writing back-cover copy? Read a lot of it! Look up books in your genre, pick 20 or so, and read the copy back-to-back-to-back-to-back and so on. Very quickly you’ll pick up on patterns and be able to apply them to your story.

Want to try out yours? Leave your back-cover copy in the comments, and we’ll offer feedback!