Writing an Enticing Book Blurb that Prompts Readers to Buy
/Once your book is available for sale via online retailers, two essential aspects will help it convert to sales: a high-quality cover design and an enticing book blurb.
While the cover grabs a potential reader’s attention and prompts them to click on the book’s product page, the book blurb usually moves them to buy, so an enticing blurb is equally as crucial to your book’s success.
What’s a blurb?
It’s the description that will appear on Amazon and other online retailers that tells what your book is about. Often the same words will be used on the back cover of your book as well, but the two don’t have to match.
It’s always good practice to take some time to read the blurbs of the bestselling books in your genre. Take note of the blurbs that stand out to you, and the ones that you actually took the time to read in full. I find that when a blurb is too long, a prospect won’t always take the time to read it, so I like to aim for a blurb of three-hundred words or fewer.
This is the formula I like to follow when writing a blurb for a non-fiction book. I break it into four sections:
Section 1: Start with an enticing, bolded tagline. This is a statement of one to two sentences that makes a strong claim, in bold font, to call out to your ideal reader and grab their attention. Here are some examples of strong taglines from bestselling books:
Atomic Habits by James Clear. Book blurb tagline: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results.
Super Attractor by Gabby Bernstein. Book blurb tagline: Ready to turn what you want into the life that you live?
The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch. Book blurb tagline: Be more effective with less effort by learning how to identify and leverage the 80/20 principle: that 80 percent of all our results in business and in life stem from a mere 20 percent of our efforts.
Some are short and to the point, while others are a sentence or two. All, however, are designed to grab your reader’s attention with a bold statement or question that entices them to continue reading.
Section 2: Enticing opening paragraph. After you’ve written a bold headline, skip a space and add the opening paragraph. This is where you’ll want to put the most important information about the book because it’s often all the prospect sees. Why? Because a book’s product page on Amazon only shows the first paragraph or so before they offer a clickable “read more” link that opens the rest of the description.
Not everyone clicks the “read more” link, so you’ll need to put your most enticing yet relevant information about your book in that first paragraph.
Section 3: Bullet Points that feature the book’s benefits. Even those who click the read more link won’t always read the entire book description; however, they are more likely to skim through bullet points since they usually highlight the benefits and main takeaways of the book. So ask yourself: What are five main takeaways from my book? Do they benefit my reader in some way? How can I word my bullet points so they’re enticing and packed with value? Here’s a tip: If you know your prospects' pain points, your bullet points should be the answer to their problem.
Section 4: A closing paragraph that prompts them to buy. Finally, end your blurb with a closing paragraph that leaves your prospect inspired to take action. Often this will include a call to action to buy now. This is also a great place to put some relevant keywords for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
As an example, head over to Amazon and read the blurb for my book, Self-Publishing Success. This article is an excerpt from Chapter 8: Preparing to Publish.
