It's a mammoth task to write a whole book, but it's also a challenge to turn it into a sales description that makes readers want to buy now and start reading immediately.
Copywriting is writing text with the purpose of marketing or selling, and it is quite different to the writing skills that authors usually rely on.
If you're traditionally published, your publisher will do the sales description for you, but you won't be able to change it. If you're indie, you have to do it yourself (or pay someone to do it for you), but luckily, you can also change it whenever you like. Most indies will change their sales description multiple times, so just get started, and you can finesse it later.
This is an excerpt from How to Market a Book Third Edition, available now in ebook, print and audiobook formats.
Start by revisiting your comparison titles and copy out the book sales description for each. This will give you a sense of the language used and how the description is structured.
It's not a summary of the book, it's an advert that will hopefully make the reader want to buy.
Fiction sales descriptions
Most novels have a hook in the headline, something that makes the reader intrigued and want to know more. This hook needs to be genre-specific and preferably emotional in some way. For example, my first line for Stone of Fire is:
A power kept secret for 2000 years. A woman who stands to lose everything.
It's a high-stakes religious conspiracy thriller in the tradition of Dan Brown, and you should get that sense straightaway.
Fiction sales descriptions usually name and describe the main characters as well as the inciting incident, the thing that sets the plot in motion and the start of the emotional journey.
They might also open up the aspects of the antagonist or the conflict that will get in the way of what the character wants, for example, the deadly storm, the abusive ex, or the shadowy government forces.
They also use hyperbole, words that seem over-the-top or clichéd, but they are used for a reason. That's why so many crime novels are chilling or deadly, and so many thrillers are action-packed with a race against time.
Traditional publishers have been doing this for many years, so model the books that are selling in your genre, although, of course, don't plagiarize and make sure the language you use is right for your book.
The sales description often ends with a question that makes the reader want to answer it by reading the book. Don't give too much of the plot away, but intrigue people enough that they want to read on.
BookBub did a study on sales descriptions by split testing variants and discovered that mentioning awards an author had won increased click-through. They also recommend using sub-category genres in the text e.g. psychological thriller instead of just thriller, as well as using ellipses at the end of a sentence, and avoiding too many character names.
You can find the study at TheCreativePenn.com/bookbubAB
Non-fiction sales descriptions
What is the problem that your book will solve for the reader?
What question are you answering?
The goal of a non-fiction book is usually to solve a particular problem for a reader. The customer is searching for answers to their problem, and they need to know that your book addresses that specifically. It has to be worth them buying the book. You can use that right at the top of the sales description in the form of a question. For How To Market a Book, I used “Do you want to sell more books and reach more readers?”
Your answer is presumably ‘yes,’ which is why you're reading this book. It's all about empathy with your reader. What problem do they have? What language will they resonate with?
For example, I talked to a clinical psychologist with a book on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that wasn't selling. His sales description was overly technical about the therapy itself, whereas actually, readers would be searching for help with their problem, so his hook should be “Do you need help with depression or anxiety?” rather than “Do you need CBT?”
Once you have identified the problem, you can write about why you're the person to help and what the book includes. You need to establish your expertise.
The reader needs to know that not only does this book solve the problem, but that they can trust you to help.
You can include a table of contents, but it might be best to condense the various parts with mini-headlines that entice the reader even more. You can also use bullet-point formatting, which makes it easier to read.
The phrasing here is important, for example, use “In this book, you will discover,” rather than “In this book, I will teach.” The word ‘you' is incredibly important in copywriting and keeps the focus on the reader, because they are thinking, “What's in it for me?”
Blurbs from other authors and media
One study by BookBub found that a quote from a well-known author boosted click-through rate by 22%. A quote from an author like Stephen King will get a better click-through than a quote from a publication like Publishers Weekly. So quotes from well-known authors are great if you can get them and you should put them right after your headline. But let's face it, most of us won't get a cover quote from the biggest names in our genre.
If you have quotes from less well-known authors or blogs, put them in the editorial review section which you can access through Amazon Author Central.
Formatting and testing
You can format your sales description with basic HTML, which will give you larger headlines, sub-heads and bullets. You can use Author Central to do this, hand-code it yourself, or you can use the very useful free book description formatting tool at Kindlepreneur.
You can test different changes to your sales description over time, and even if you don't want to do that, make a note in your calendar to review your sales descriptions every six months, or at least annually, because things change, you change, and you will likely update it over time.
This is an excerpt from How to Market a Book Third Edition, available now in ebook, print and audiobook formats.