Summary: Your book’s front cover may get someone’s attention, but your book’s back cover copy gets their money. That copy can make or break your book promotion. Learn how to write amazing copy.<br> Intro Transcript<br> James: In this episode, we’re going to talk to you about back cover copy. So really the question we have to ask folks, is does a book cover sell a book? It does and it doesn’t. Not usually. Most of the times, a book cover sells you on the idea of reading the back cover copy, or if you’re on Amazon or online, that description that’s on the page. That’s where the real selling takes place. So how do you write compelling back cover copy? That’s what we’re going to explore today in today’s episode.<br> So Thomas let me ask you, is that what sells you on a book? Is it the back cover copy? Is it the cover? Is it a combination?<br> Thomas: Probably half the time, it’s the back cover and the other half of the time it’s the reviews, either from my friends or from people I trust. Or the aggregate of reviews online. <br> James: Ok so you’ll read the reviews, so it’s a combination of those things.<br> Thomas: Right. But if I typically won’t read the reviews if the back cover copy has not caught my attention. So if I’m bored by the back cover copy, you’ve lost me. You’ve lost the chance to sell me your book.<br> James: Okay, so for you, it sounds like you’re a lot like me. I’ll look at the cover and if I see it looks “wow this looks like somebody did it who does not have graphic design experience” like we’ve talked about in the previous episode two episodes back, then if it looks good you’ll go to the back cover copy, you’ll read the back cover copy, then you’ll take a look at some reviews and that’s your process?<br> Thomas: That’s right. And for me, I don’t read paper books. So it all happens online. So when we say “back cover copy” this is the text that goes next to your book photo on Audible or on Amazon.com. It’s the paragraph of text that describes why people should read your book. <br> James: Okay. Well, you and I are the same. I look at that cover then I read the back cover copy or the description online, and then I’ll go and take a look at it. I never really actually read the 5 star and 4 star reviews, I go to the 1 star immediately because I want to see what the criticisms are and at that point, I make the decision. So I guess we’re both saying the same thing, that back cover copy or the description online is absolutely critical in selling your book. So our advice to you is, do not gloss over this. Spend the money to make this right because this is really the key component in getting somebody to buy your book. <br> Thomas: That’s right. So Jim, what do we do, how does somebody write better back cover copy? What are the copywriting secrets of James L Rubart?<br> Other than the cover, your back cover copy is the most crucial part of your novel marketing. <br> TLDR:<br> <br> Do not gloss over this. <br> Spend the money to get it done right.<br> <br> James: Well this is actually hard, Thomas, for me, as we were putting together this episode it was kind of like “this is something I’ve been doing for 25 years, so it’s one of those things that comes naturally, you don’t really think about it or you don’t think that much about your process. So I had to really think and drill down and go “okay what do I do when I’m writing back cover copy for other authors or writing my own back cover copy?” and so these are the things that I realize I do instinctually and it’s things that our listeners can do as well. So let’s go through those points.<br> What is back cover copy?<br> TLDR:<br> <br> It’s a sale pitch, it’s the ad for your book<br> In movie terms, it’s a trailer, so it’s the trailer for your book<br> <br> First of all, what is back cover copy? We talked about it, but it is THE sales pitch, it is really the ad for your book. If we were talking in movie terms,
