If you’ve written a book and the manuscript is all but done, it’s time to start thinking about your book blurb. This is a great time to start thinking about your book blurb – and not right at the end when you have all the pieces of your book there – from words to cover – but the book blurb.
Trust me; there’s nothing worse than having everything ready to go except for this vitally important piece of marketing. If you’re like most authors, this is an exhausting last step that can be extraordinarily difficult. You’ve spent too much time in your book – how on earth are you going to condense it into a few short paragraphs?
Like it or not, this needs to get done: after all, you want to sell your books!
But before you agonize over this, let me give you one quick tip that will help you to take your book blurb from pretty good to this is amazing. Better yet, it’s not a difficult step to take, either.
This is one smart way to make your book stand out from the crowd while also addressing any possible pain points that might be stopping a reader from purchasing your book. As a third bonus, it can also add huge credibility to the book – and you as the author of that book.
This is also a tip that works well for books that are usually a bit, well… dry. Important books, but not the kind of book that anyone reads for fun – think legal books, for example.
Get someone to give you a testimonial or review. You’ve seen these across many books – “a gripping read” “taut writing that thrills all the way to an explosive ending.” Whatever your testimonial, it gives readers a good idea of what to expect inside in a short snippet, while also addressing a potential resistance point. If you’re selling a non-fiction book, then your social proof should focus on an outcome – it all depends on the genre. Either way, get that social proof on the jacket!
Don’t forget you can also use press mentions here – so if you’ve been diligent about sending out a press kit prior to the general release of your book, then you should have some fantastic endorsements there as well.
That’s really all there is to this tip. If you look at Amazon, you’ll notice that just about all the top-selling authors are leveraging this trick (among many others), so it’s definitely one you should be adding to your repertoire.
This won’t solve the issue of writing the book blurb itself – you still need to write something about the book! But with testimonials, you’ve got some real credibility and social proof for potential readers to see, which goes a long way in breaking that buyer resistance.
