About the other half of the cover…

Because cover copy sometimes becomes a concern and an object of commentary here, some advice about good cover copy from a writer who sells like a sonofabitch:

Selling a story by NOT telling a story

 

Comments

  1. I’d say his advice applies to both covers: we had a cover on Lousy Book Covers a couple years ago that made the mistake of telling the whole story. Gee, why would anyone actually care to read the book once they’d seen that spoiler cover? With the front cover, you’re looking to get the prospective readers’ attention and intrigue them enough to look further into your product, nothing more.

    The back cover is the same deal, except that if your front cover is doing its job, you’ve already got your prospective readers’ attention. For writing the teaser on the back cover, you use the same skills as you would for writing a tagline or the first line of the story: tell the readers something that makes them say “Wait, what!?” My favorite method for this is something the tropes sites call Super Dickery: e.g. “In our next issue, Superman kills his wife Lois Lane so he’ll be free to marry 13-year-old Arisia!”

    Readers: “Wait, what!?”

    Writers: “Don’t worry, people! By the time you finish reading the story, you’ll be totally fine with Superman being a jail-bait-chasing Bluebeard… somehow.”

    Readers: “How!?”

    Writers: “That’s for us to know, and you not to find out until you buy our next issue!”

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