How to write jacket copy that will help sell your book

March 17, 2014

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Jacket copy: that briefest of descriptions which must, at quick glance, convey to a potential reader all the brilliance and complexity of your book. Yeah, no pressure!

It may be an impossible task, as author Josh Cook suggests in his blog article linked below, but giddyup, because your book is going to need some jacket copy, so it might as well be good — or as good as you can get it.

Before you start writing the early drafts of your jacket copy (yes, just like your book, this text should probably go through several revisions), check out the following articles for some guidance, warnings, and inspiration.

4 articles to help you write better jacket copy for your book:

1. How to write sales copy for the back of your nonfiction book (worth reading even if you don’t write nonfiction, as many of the same concepts will apply)

2. Jacket copy sells books, so make it good

3. The impossibility of jacket copy

4. How to optimize book jacket copy

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What do you think makes a compelling book description? What did you come up with for your own jacket copy? Let us know in the comments section below.

About Chris Robley

Chris Robley has written 502 posts in this blog.

Chris Robley is an award-winning poet, songwriter, performer, and music producer who now lives in Portland, Maine after more than a decade in Portland, Oregon. His music has been praised by NPR, the LA Times, the Boston Globe, and others. Skyscraper Magazine said he is “one of the best short-story musicians to come along in quite some time.” Robley’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in POETRY, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Beloit Poetry Journal, RHINO, Magma Poetry, and more. He is the 2013 winner of Boulevard's Poetry Prize for Emerging Writers and the 2014 recipient of a Maine Literary Award in the category of "Short Works Poetry."