book review on back cover

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Back Cover of a Book: Must-Haves & Examples

Finishing your manuscript is a massive accomplishment, almost a complete victory.

But so much must be done to ensure that all your efforts weren’t for nothing. You need readers to buy your book!

And you can’t stand in the bookstore or pop out on the side of Amazon’s book page to try and convince the reader that they’ll love this book. 

Your book’s back cover is one of the tools that will do that for you.

That means a lot is riding on creating the perfect back cover. But not to worry, we’ve compiled a beginner’s guide to creating a back cover of a book that wows. And we’ve included 16 examples to show how successful ones are done. 

Importance of The Back Cover of a Book

The back of a book cover can make the difference between increasing book sales and losing the reader’s interest.

Your back book cover together with the front cover must make a convincing sales pitch to the reader.

The front cover or the spine of the book must attract the reader. Once you have their attention, they’ll flip over the book and that’s your chance to persuade them to buy it.

To get the reader to buy your book, or at least open it to chapter one, your book’s back cover needs to tell a story:

• What the book is about (using a book blurb)
• Why it’s worth reading (using book reviews)
• Why this reader in particular will want to read it (using enticing copy and targeted keywords)

This is a book promotion tool that’s as important as author newsletters , your social media posts, or book trailers .

What Goes on The Back of a Book

The back cover usually has the elements listed below. Some elements may be omitted based on what you want to convey about your book. 

Once you understand the roles each of these components plays, you’ll have a better idea of what serves the best purpose on the back cover of your book.

Book Reviews

Awards and past work, isbn and barcode.

• Publisher Details 

This is a one-liner that stands out the most on the back of a book. This appears at the top, ensuring that it’s the first thing the reader sees.

The tagline is usually written differently to make it pop. For example, it could be bolded, a different color, larger in size, or italics.

Examples of a tagline:

Descriptive

A brief descriptive sentence that teases at the main theme, conflict, or (in the case of non-fiction) problems being solved by the book.

For example:

“No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.” Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

A brief line that uses keywords from the genre to target ideal fans.

“Lethal. Loyal. Legendary.” Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

A quote from a professional book review that will intrigue the reader while explaining the book’s hook.

“The greatest romance story of this decade. –Entertainment Weekly” Fault in Our Stars by John Green

From a Scene

A line from the book that makes the reader feel as if they’re dropped right into the action.

“He needs my help, but he’ll be my downfall.” A Prince So Cruel by Ingrid Seymour

Note: The tagline can be between 5 to 50 words, so use them wisely!

This is a description that tells the reader what the book is about without summarizing the plot or giving away any spoilers.

It lets the reader know what to expect.

Your book blurb is kind of like the text version of a book trailer. Just like a trailer, it will highlight the compelling parts of your story.

The best way to go about writing your book blurb is to keep the target reader at the front of your mind. Consider what the reader will be excited to see from your book.

If you need tips on writing a book blurb, check out our blog: How To Write a Compelling Book Blurb (+15 Examples) .

Readers are more likely to believe that your book is good if someone noteworthy praises it.

Pick a stellar testimonial from another author (preferably from your genre) or a publication to give your book credibility.

Avoid adding reviews that say, “I loved it!”

Rather choose reviews that praise a specific part of your book like your writing capability, the characters, the premise, etc.

Take a review on the cover of All the Broken Places by John Boyne for example: 

“Exceptional, layered and compelling…This book moves like a freight train.” Review by Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of In Love

The number of reviews you use will depend on what you want the back cover of your book to convey. Some back covers only use reviews, while some have it in the tagline or at the end of the blurb.

But if you don’t have a publication or notable author to turn to, you can use your best customer review.

If you want to know more about getting endorsements, check out our blog: Professional Book Review: The Ultimate Guide .

Your book’s back cover can also mention any awards and achievements you’ve received that add credibility to your book. You could even include if your books have only been nominated.

Also, add any previously published work. The reader may notice a previous title making them lean towards getting your new release.

Adding your past work will also signal that you have staying power as an author.

Sometimes the back cover of a book will include an author bio, and for some authors, this can seem like the hardest thing to write.

While you don’t need to share your favorite color or that you like long walks on the beach, you do need to let the reader get to know you a bit.

Your author bio shares the credentials, writer’s journey, other works, etc. And it is way more streamlined than something you’d find on the author’s website .

Want To Give Your Readers An Engaging Online Experience?

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But does every author need one for their book?

Not necessarily.

If you write fiction, it won’t be the end of the world if you don’t add it. But if you write non-fiction including a bio can help build trust with the reader.

In that case, a bio will show why you are qualified or have the experience to have written your book.

Note: When adding your author photo alongside your bio, make sure it both matches your personality and your book’s genre. Be sure to use a professional photo that has been taken more recently.

Your book’s ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is a number that is used to identify your book. The accompanying barcode is the scannable version of this number.

They’re created by the publishing or self-publishing company. Unless you’re using Amazon, you may have to pay for it in the case of self-publishing.

Note: When getting your book printed, the printing company will have a set requirement for where this number and barcode will go, so keep that in mind when arranging the elements on the back cover of your book.

Publisher Details

The reader won’t be eagerly flipping over your book in search of the publisher’s information, but it needs to be on the back cover of your book nonetheless.

Note: The publisher’s information and logo are low priority so make sure they’re in smaller text.

Tips For Designing Your Book’s Back Cover

Follow the below tips to level up your book back cover design:

Do some research

We recommend doing research in your genre to see what unique styles you could try for your own back cover design.

When analyzing the covers, look at the positioning of the blurbs and reviews, and take note of how a story is told from the front cover to the back. 

Keeping both covers consistent will make your book tell a complete story without the reader even reading a word.

Prioritize layout

It may sound fun to create a wacky book cover, but you could end up creating a confusing mess that’s hard to decipher.

It’s okay to color out of the lines a tad bit, but don’t go overboard! The goal is to avoid a cluttered book back cover and ensure the text is easy to read.

You can achieve this by using clear fonts, an uncomplicated color scheme, and giving the content sufficient space to breathe.

The reader should be able to grasp some information at a single glance. After that glance, if they’re interested, they’ll keep reading.

Use style to tell a story

Your front and back covers don’t need to be designed the same to be cohesive. The front and back covers are not twins, they’re sisters.

For starters, you could use similar borders or related elements. For example, if you’ve written a mystery novel you could have one big puddle of blood on the front and smaller splatters on the back.

Consider the atmosphere and tone that you want the reader to feel and use the appropriate fonts, colors, and design elements to communicate that.

Use copy to sell the book

What you can’t say through design, you’ll say through words.

There’s an art to writing copy that compels a reader to open your book. You have to say a lot in as few words as possible.

Make sure each piece (your blurb, reviews, and bio) serves a purpose that discusses something different from the last. The reader should come away with an understanding of the premise and excitement to keep reading.

DIY – Doing It Yourself

When self-publishing, you can get templates from book cover printers to insert your designs into or you can use software like Canva or Adobe Creative Suite to design the back cover of your book.

Hire somebody

If you lack the time or design prowess to create a back cover for your book, you can simply hire a professional.

It will save you a lot of time and effort, just be sure to research which designer meets your budget and needs.

Don’t forget the book’s spine

When a reader is browsing a bookstore or library, they’ll most likely see the spine of your book first.

Therefore, the spine of your book needs to continue the same story as the rest of your book cover.

Your spine should include the same color scheme, fonts, and design elements as your cover. Everything will be minimized and sideways, so make sure it is easy to read from an angle.

Here’s the information that could be found on your book spine:

• Title of the book.
• Full Author name (If the book is long enough, the author’s first and last name), or
• Shortened Author name (If the author’s name is too long, the spine will have an initial and the last name).
• Publisher’s logo.
• Book series number.

Back Cover Of A Book Examples

As promised, below are 16 examples you can use as reference when designing the back cover of your own book. 

We’ve included the front cover too so you can see the full design story!

1. Romance Genre

Icebreaker by hannah grace.

Curvy fonts and cool colors create the right atmosphere in this Romance example. 

Text is given plenty of room to tell its story with the use of adequate spacing, plus the artwork of the main characters breaks up the pattern of the text too.

With a few pops of orange and bolder text, the back cover draws the reader’s eyes from one point to the next. The author bio is the last thing the reader will notice, as intended by the designer of this book’s back cover.

2. Non-Fiction Genre

Stop overthinking by nick trenton.

This book’s back cover follows the theme of this book, practicing what it preaches. It avoids clutter and uses text that is super clear to read.

It’s easy to start skimming through the content because of this, and only one point is highlighted on the back cover, “Stop Overthinking,” which reiterates the topic of the book.

3. Thriller Genre

The new couple by alison james.

We love this back book cover because the blurb is written from the main character’s perspective. It immediately pulls the reader into the story.

The tagline appears on both the front and back cover of the book, but it serves to cement the premise of the book making sure the reader won’t forget it.

Lastly, the yellow text at the bottom continues speaking directly to the target reader, mentioning other popular books in the sub-genre similar to this one. If a reader has loved those books, they will be more likely to buy this one.

4. Sci-Fi Genre

Recruitment by k. a. riley.

Streamlined is the name of the game for the back cover of this book.

Targeting Sci-Fi lovers is the main aim here, so the tagline just states the year the book is set in.

Although it doesn’t tease the story, it’s still effective in attracting the reader because the blurb is short and discusses the premise in enough detail.

5. All in one (Fantasy Genre)

A court of thorns and roses by sarah j. maas.

This fantasy example has it all: the accolade in the tagline, the well-written blurb, the decorated author bio, and the enthusiastic endorsements.

The back cover of this book is stacked with information yet it all feels easy to skim read because the content is sectioned off.

The back cover cleverly mentioned the author’s name and credibility multiple times. It clearly aims to promote the book using the author’s name. It’s trying to say: 

“If you’ve heard of her, you should definitely check this book out!”

6. Children’s Genre

Children who dance in the rain by susan justice .

We love the design of this example. Since it’s a children’s book, it sells the art style first and foremost and gets creative with the design of the text.

Although the reviews are on top of white backgrounds, the text doesn’t look out of place and rather just adds to the innovative nature of the cover.

Endorsements are highlighted from the front to the back cover, showing parents that this book is worth reading since it is worthy of awards!

7. Consider the Reader

The clockmaker’s daughter by kate morton.

The layout of this cover considers the target readers in every decision made.

Equal importance is given to each component, enticing the reader to read all of it from top to bottom.

The tagline reveals the setting and genre efficiently, and the praises for the author solidify it.

Although the front and back covers don’t share a similar background, the font and leaf design elements are used to connect the experience.

8. Use endorsements

None of this is true by lisa jewell .

Lisa Jewell’s back cover aims to convince readers to buy the book through reviews by respected authors.

It leaves the reader thinking, “Well if they couldn’t put this book down, then maybe I wouldn’t be able to either.”

The names of the authors are contrasted to the reviews using a slightly different font and yellow text. 

And it also has the largest review near the top, with varying sizes as the reader’s eyes go down the cover. This keeps the cover from being dull and hard to skim through.

9. Taglines

The only woman in the room by marie benedict .

In the above example, the tagline is split up and integrated into the blurb but if it’s all read together, it tells the story briefly for anyone skimming the back cover of the book.

The taglines are capped by reviews to complete the experience.

Not to forget the addition of Marie Benedict’s past works at the bottom left of the book’s back cover. It reminds readers of her other popular novels.

10. Past works

November 9 by colleen hoover.

A total of 3 font colors are used for the back cover of this book, yet it doesn’t look busy or cluttered.

The lighter colors surround the blurb, keeping it the center focus. This encourages the reader to read the taglines and still be interested in reading the blurb and author bio.

Speaking of Colleen Hoover’s author bio. It lists so many popular past books for fans and newcomers to be impressed by.

We love this addition because if a fan forgot that you’re the one who wrote a book they loved, they’ll be reminded. This will increase your chances of selling your new release. 

11. Continue the Style Story

Lightlark by alex aster.

With an entertaining front cover, it can be hard to decide what to do with the back cover.

Lightlark shows us that with the same font, colors, and a recurring design element, it can be done!

This book’s back cover continues the story by using the same border, but flipping it so it doesn’t look exactly the same as the front.

The fades from tinged-orange to yellow-gold on top of a sleek black background keep the front and back covers connected.

The cover has 2 taglines large and in charge of drawing the reader in. What seals the deal is the mention of the second book in the series, making the reader aware that there’s more to come.

12. About The Author Example

Self-love workbook for women by megan logan .

We love how fun and colorful this cover is – and it fits the book’s theme so well!

Highlighter-like taglines and bullet points give this back cover even more spunk. This highlighting style makes it feel like it’s the reader’s notebook, emphasizing that the book is about working on one’s self.

But what gives this book an extra edge is the authority the author has in her field. The author bio showcases the author’s expertise, letting the reader know that if there was anyone they should listen to about self-love, it’s this author.

13. Author Branding

The gifts of imperfection: 10th anniversary edition by brené brown.

This is the 10th-anniversary edition of this book, so that means it was pretty well received.

But there are 8 billion people in the world, so not everyone would’ve heard of this book – and the covers try to make up that ground.

The back cover of this book uses the author’s branding to sell the book. Even though the author bio is at the bottom, it feels as if we’re being told about Brene Brown’s efforts for this book at every turn.

But the author’s bio reveals more about her decorated past than the blurb, discussing her achievements, past works in other industries, and experiences.

14. Minimalism

The food lab by j. kenji lópez-alt.

Plain doesn’t have to mean boring. 

There’s a lot of content on this page which would otherwise be overwhelming. But with the use of bronze borders, content is neatly sectioned and given space. 

Instead of a tagline, at the top lies the blurb in a newspaper or magazine type of column. The main selling point is centered within a box: the reviews. This is a great way for the author to build trust with the reader.

15. Artwork

The zen monkey and the lotus flower by tenpa yeshe.

Text is simple, big, and bold on this back cover. But the main attraction is the art.

The artwork of this book reiterates the title, reinforcing it in the reader’s mind.

The balance of artwork and text upholds the book’s theme too. And the art is a great feature of the book, making it hard for a reader to look away.

16. Creative Layout

The science of spice by dr. stuart farrimond .

You can use your book’s genre and theme to come up with unique ideas for the back cover of your book. 

Above is a fantastic example of how to do this.

Ingredients sit within boxes labeled by chemistry-like symbols. The text on the back cover of the book uses copywriting techniques to call out to the reader and persuade them that this book is for them.

Back Cover Of A Book Template

Follow any one of these templates below to craft your dream back cover for your book.

Promotion Doesn’t Stop There

Creating the perfect back cover of a book doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing from there.

If only it was as simple as publishing your book and watching the sales come in. That’s the dream, right?

Life isn’t that simple, so book promotion isn’t that simple. 

You need everyone and their mothers to hear about your book, and in today’s digital world, the best way to do that is by spreading the word online.

If you’re looking to improve your online presence you need an author website. An author website helps readers, publishers, and other industry professionals find you easily online.

We love working with authors, so fill in this inquiry form and we’ll see how we can help you.

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Book Back Cover: 6 Steps to a Back Cover that Converts

Book back cover | book summary | tagline | headline, last updated on: october 10, 2022, 1. start with a strong book cover, 2. craft a compelling book tagline, 3. write a strong book summary, selling books online, 5. write a catchy author bio, book portfolio, book reviews, book barcode, target market, book back cover design templates.

An effective book back cover draws a reader in with a combination of the following five elements: tagline, book summary, teaser, author bio, and book reviews. The back cover of a book is an author’s most valuable tool for turning a browser into a buyer. It is an author's place to tell a reader what makes this book a must-read. This 5-step guide will walk author's through creating a book back cover that converts.

An author has 10 seconds to grab a reader's attention with the book's front cover. The book cover is the forward facing portion of a book. It is the first thing a reader sees, whether a book is shelved face out at a store, or is just a thumbnail online. These days, more and more books are being purchased online. That means the front cover thumbnail needs to be clean and appealing to stand out among a sea of other book covers, most likely in the same genre. An effective book cover needs to make a potential reader stop scrolling. In order to do so, authors need to ensure that the book cover has two elements: a good title and appealing cover art. A reader needs to feel a connection to the book, and needs to know at a glance what they are getting. Cover art that doesn't tell a story will make selling a fiction book challenging, if not impossible. A title written in an unreadable font is likely to turn off buyers. And above all, a book cover must look professional. One element that most successful book covers employ is the use of the top third of the book to convey the most important information. People read from top to bottom, so the top portion of the book must grab a reader's attention, whether online or in a retail store where they are in a waterfall display. Take a look at the front cover examples below from a children's, fiction, and nonfiction book.

Children's Book Cover Example

In the case of the children's book cover example, Bug Hunt by Brooke Vitale , published by Charge Mommy Books , the fact that it is a level 1 early reader with literacy activities is clearly spelled out on top. The art clearly shows what is happening in the book, and the text is easy to read. If you are in the market for early reader books, check our full line of Charge into Reading Level 1 Reading Books at Charge Mommy Books new online bookstore .

Nonfiction Book Cover Example

In the case of the nonfiction book example, Think Again by Adam Grant , published by Viking Press, the text is easy to read, and the top third of the book calls out that the author is a New York Times Bestseller. Instead of a story moment, a single piece of interesting art draws the reader in. This is paired with a tagline that tells the reader what the book is about.

Fiction Book Cover Example

In the case of the adult fiction cover example, Kill Shot by Vince Flynn , published by Atria, the biggest text is the author's name. That is because Vince Flynn is the selling point. Readers will buy the book based solely on his name. The front cover image offers a clear picture of the story, showing a reader where it is set and the story's protagonist.

The book tagline, or headline, is a line or two that goes at the top of the book back cover. It’s big and bold and calls attention to itself quickly. This is particularly important in young adult books and novels for an older audience, where the tagline is your chance to create an eye-catching, compelling tease. It is also important to remember that on a book that has a dust jacket, the longer book summary will go on an inside flap. In that instance, the tagline may be the only text about the book on the back cover. Take a look at the tagline examples from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins , Looking for Alaska by John Green and Slushy, Slurpy City Snow by Brooke Vitale.

The tagline for The Hunger Games reads Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. With just this, a reader is immediately drawn in, eager to know what the Hunger Games are. Looking for Alaska uses the following tagline: First drink. First prank. First friend. First girl. Last words. This gives us a slight sense of the book—enough to intrigue us, but not enough to satisfy our curiosity. Our only choice? Read on!

Children's Book Back Cover Taglines

A children's book back cover—whether for picture books, early reader books, early chapter books, or chapter books—won't typically use a tagline, though a rhyming book will sometimes offer a verse to give the reader the idea that the book is written in rhyme, as in the example above from my book Slushy, Slurpy City Snow .

In general, however, children's books tend to dive straight into the . . . book summary.

A book blurb or book summary is a compelling description of what a book is about. It is intended to draw a reader in and make them want to buy or read a book. The elements of a book summary vary by genre, as each is striving to accomplish something different. So let's take a look the differences between fiction and nonfiction book summaries.

Fiction Book Summary

The purpose of a book summary for a fiction book is to make the reader curious. By offering up just enough information to intrigue a reader, but not enough to answer any questions, the reader is left with no choice but to read the book. This is true regardless of genre, from mystery or romance to YA or children's picture books.

At its core, an effective fiction book summary should do three things:

• Introduce the protagonist
• Set the stage for the story conflict

Present the challenge the protagonist faces in overcoming their problem.

All three of these are essential to drawing an audience in. And the more emotionally invested a reader is in the characters, the better.

Take a look at the fiction book summary examples below from Periwinkle Smith in Stuck Duck by Brooke Vitale , published by Charge Mommy Books and Kill Shot by Vince Flynn, published by Atria. If you are interested in seeing some additional picture book summary examples or in the market to purchase a picture book, check out my new line of picture books, available today at Charge Mommy Books online shop .

In the case of Periwinkle Smith in Stuck Duck, our protagonist is Duck. The story conflict is that he has a trumpet stuck on his head. And the challenge is finding a way to get free.

The idea of having a trumpet stuck on your head is a comical. It helps readers to see that there is humor in the book, while leaving them curious about how the duck got stuck and how he will get free.

In the case of Kill Shot , the protagonist is Mitch Rapp. The conflict is that his own handlers have declared him a liability. And the challenge is that he must now survive on his own, against his former allies.

Here, the reader is given a sense for the world Mitch Rapp lives in. We understand the stakes and are left wondering if he can survive—and what will become of his enemies.

Nonfiction Book Summary

Nonfiction book summaries work a bit differently than fiction book summaries. For plot-driven fiction, more of the story is given away. It is not uncommon even to give away some element of the ending of the book. Why? Because in nonfiction it is often the journey, not the beginning or the ending of a story that is worth reading. Take a look at the book summary examples for Alive by Piers Paul Read, published by HarperCollins and Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson , published by Simon and Schuster.

Alive is a story-based nonfiction title, and as such it follows many of the same book summary rules as fiction. We learn that the protagonists are survivors of a plane crash. We learn that the problem they have is that they are stranded and need to find a way home. But what challenges stand in their way? That the book summary doesn't tell us. Why? Because that is at the heart of the story. Here, the reader is given the beginning and the ending. The plane crashes and sixteen survivors make it home. But what happens between point A and point B? That is what will make a reader pick up the book.

Steve Jobs , on the other hand, is a biography. And it can be assumed that any reader picking the book up has some familiarity with the subject. So rather than focus on the challenges Steve Jobs faced in his life, the book focuses on making the reader feel that they will get to know who Steve Jobs was as a person. It makes them feel a connection to him, and focuses on making it clear why this book above all others on the subject is *the *book to read. Unlike fiction, where every story is unique, there are often many nonfiction books published on the same subject. Setting one book apart from another—explaining why it is the best book on the topic—is the job of the back cover summary.

How long should a book summary be?

A book summary varies in length, but ideally it shouldn’t be too long. For a children's book, try to keep it to 50 words or fewer. For chapter books, middle grade books, YA, and adult novels, try not to exceed 150-200 words. If you can’t boil your story down to something that short, chances are the story itself may be a bit too convoluted!

Do remember, a book summary and marketing materials are not the same. A book summary, especially in a picture book, speaks right to the child, while marketing materials will often speak to a parent, telling them what a child will get out of a book, or what the book teaches.

4. Hook readers with a book teaser

A book teaser is a statement or question at the end of a book summary that aims to hook the reader. In the case of Kill Shot , it is the idea that there is nothing more dangerous that Mitch Rapp. That statement leaves readers wondering what this dangerous man will do.

But the teaser isn’t always a statement. It isn’t even always part of the book summary. One great way to draw a reader in is to pose a question the reader needs the answer to. It can be as simple as asking if something will happen, such as asking in Stuck Duck whether Duck will ever find a way to get free. By asking such a question, you make the reader wonder—you set this idea in their mind that they can’t let go of until they get the answer.

Even better, set the stakes for the protagonist. Will he win in the end or will something else happen? Make a reader want to find the answer to that question, and they’re sure to open the book!

Whatever you do, don’t give away the ending of the book (unless it's nonfiction)!

A book summary is important no matter where you are selling but selling online does change the game a bit. Online book sellers like Amazon only show the first few lines of your product description, so make sure your first sentence hooks the reader, making them want to hit the “more” button to read the rest!

The book summary for Periwinkle Smith in Stuck Duck is a great example. In addition to the book blurb, Amazon features the following line at the top of the product description:

Turn a bad day good again with this rhyming picture book featuring seven pages of bonus literacy activities sure to grow your child's confidence and jumpstart their enthusiasm for reading.

Here, the addition of a headline offers additional information about the book that serves as a key selling point: the fact that it comes with literacy activities. Many publisher set this headline in bold to draw a reader's attention.

It is interesting to note that, given the online market and the inability of a reader to see the full book, the product description here doesn’t match up with the book summary. The online description reads as follows:

Duck is having a good day. A great day, even! That is, until a horn falls out of a tree and lands on his head! Just like that, Duck’s day goes from good to bad as he struggles to find someone . . . anyone . . . who can help him get free. But can help be found, or is Duck doomed to be STUCK DUCK forever? This rhyming picture book is sure to leave everyone giggling over Duck's silly antics as he learns that even a bad day can turn good again, and it's okay to ask for help when help is needed.

Here, the book summary has been enhanced, to further entice readers and play up the key selling points of the book. Remember, the goal of a book blurb isn’t to tell the story, it’s to draw readers in. So let a reader know what your book is about, then hook them and leave them wanting more!

But of course, a book back cover needs more than just a book summary. It also needs . . .

An author bio should be a sentence or two at most. The author bio tells the reader what else the author has done or if this is an author's first book. If the author has some special qualification that makes them fit to write this book over other authors, this is a good place to mention that, too. If the book is quirky or funny, use this space to try to show that off!

Look at this author bio example from Ben Clanton’s Peanut Butter and Jelly (A Narwhal and Jelly book) :

Here, the author bio not only serves to tell the reader what else the author has written and where to find his work, it also infuses humor, giving the reader an idea of what they can expect to find inside the book. Author bios should be factual, but they do not need to be dry. Spice them up with a bit of personality so that a reader feels like they are getting to know the author a bit.

Note: while the book back cover is a great place to put this if you are working on a paperback or a book without a dust jacket, a book with a dust jacket usually lists the author bio on the inside back flap, while the book summary goes on the inside front flap.

6. Choose back cover design elements

If this is an author's first book, there won’t be anything to put here. But if an author has written other books, try showing off those book covers. Kids love looking at other book covers, and will often ask parents to buy other books they see. And parents like to know that an author has put out other books. It saves them the time of looking it up. This is true for middle grade, YA, and adult novels as well. Especially in the case of series books, showing off the covers of other books in the series can make it easier for readers to know what order to read in.

Check out this example of an author's book portfolio Twilight by Stephenie Meyer .

Book reviews are endorsements of your book from reputable sources. This might be a book review from a prominent publication such as Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, or Publisher's Weekly. It might be a book review from a national or local newspaper or magazine. It could even be a testimonial from a celebrity. Of course, these kinds of book reviews aren't always easy to get. If you can't get a testimonial like this, try reaching out to fellow authors. Positive endorsements are a sign to the world that the book has been read—and enjoyed! One or two testimonials will go a long way toward making a book more appealing. Remember, book reviews for past books work well here, too, as it shows the author's previous works were good. If you have won a book award, include that on the book cover as well.

Note: If you get a starred book review, be sure to note that with the testimonial.

ISBN means International Standard Book Number . This 13-digit number is the unique identifier tied to each and every book created. The ISBN helps to identify not only a book title, but book format (paperback, hardcover, eBook).

A barcode is simply a visual representation of numbers associated with your book. A book barcode is a scannable version of the ISBN. Many large book retailers in the United States require barcodes with prices, as their price scanners cannot read barcodes without prices. While you’re at it, it’s not a bad idea to list the actual book price on your barcode so readers can easily find it. Take a look at the example below:

Unless you plan to change the book price regularly, put the suggested retail price on the book back cover. If you’re publishing in multiple countries, you may want to list the book price for each country so that you can use the same back cover across all markets.

A great added touch to a book back cover is a publishing company's colophon, or logo. Include on the book back cover and the spine of the book so the reader recognizes the book publisher.

Let the reader know who target audience is by listing an age range. This could say ages 3 and up, or it could say ages 3-7. For a chapter book, the age range may be listed as 7-10. But share this information so parents looking at the children's book have the information they need. The age range may be listed on the barcode, or may go on the top left corner of the back cover.

If you are writing an early reader book or early chapter book and you have had the book leveled, either through Lexile leveling or Guided Reader leveling, include the Lexile level or guided reading level on the book back cover so that parents will know if it is right reading level for their child. This is especially important for early reader books, which are often selected by reading level.

Include an author website here so that readers know how to find more of your books or any other material you are offering.

And finally, the back cover is a great place to list copyright for the cover design of your book.

The book back cover is a great place to show off an illustration. This could be an illustration that wraps around from the front of the book, so that when laid flat the book cover makes one full piece of art. Or it could be a spot illustration that sits on its own. If it’s an illustration that sits by itself, try grabbing an intriguing piece from the inside of the book. Repurposing an illustration will save you some money, but it will also draw the reader in because they’ll want to see what’s going on with that art. Here's a great book illustration example from Mercy Watson: Princess in Disguise by Kate DiCamillo.

The back cover of a book can be designed to include any of the elements discussed above, including the tagline, the book summary, book reviews, and the author bio. The way these elements lay out can be mixed and match depending on which is most important for marketing the book. Remember, we read from the top, so the most important element should go first. Below are several book back cover design templates to get you started in choosing how to lay out your back cover.

With all those elements in place, let the book design begin. Good luck, and remember, people do judge a book by the (back) cover, so make yours shine!

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Book Back Covers: What You Should Include [Examples Inside]

• February 22, 2024

Table of Contents:

Understanding the purpose, key elements of book back covers, crafting an engaging book synopsis:, author bio: adding a personal touch:, design and layout considerations:, balance and composition:, hierarchy of information:, visual elements:, typography:, whitespace:, call-to-action:, consistency with front cover:, isbn and barcode: technical necessities:, common mistakes to avoid, not saying clearly what your book is about:.

• Ignoring who you're writing for:

Making it look unprofessional:

Forgetting to tell people what to do next:, not checking for mistakes:, leaving out important updates:, impact on sales and reader perception, influence on purchase decision, the role of professional writers, the future of book back covers, embracing digital platforms:, personalization and customization:, integration of augmented reality (ar) technology:, feedback and iteration: refining your book back cover.

The book’s back cover is super important for selling in the big world of books. It gives readers a sneak peek into the book and makes them want to read more. Making a good book back cover means telling a good story, giving useful info, and making it look attractive. In this article, we’ll talk about what makes a back cover great and give tips for authors who want to make their back covers grab people’s attention.

The book back cover of a book has two main jobs: to give important details and to grab people’s interest.

Firstly, the book’s back cover tells you what the book is about shortly and clearly. It’s like a sneak peek that helps you decide whether to read it. Like how a movie trailer shows you exciting parts of the film, the book’s back cover gives you a taste of what’s inside the book.

Secondly, the back cover tries to make you want to read the book. It uses catchy words, cool pictures, and interesting quotes. Its job is to make you curious and eager to learn more about the story. Think of it like a friend telling you about an awesome adventure—they make it sound so fun that you can’t wait to join in.

Following are the key elements of the book’s back covers

Every great book’s back cover begins with a captivating synopsis. It’s the art of condensing the essence of your story into a few paragraphs without revealing too much. The goal is to entice readers, leaving them curious and eager to dig into the pages.

The author’s biography is more than a list of accomplishments; it’s an opportunity to connect with readers personally. Striking the right balance between professionalism and relatability can significantly impact how readers perceive the author brand and the book.

The visual presentation of the back cover is as important as the book writing journey it holds. Here are some design and layout considerations to keep in mind:

Achieving visual balance is crucial for a back cover design. This involves distributing elements such as text, images, and graphics in a harmonious and visually appealing way. A well-composed layout will draw the viewer’s eye smoothly across the back cover, guiding them through the information presented.

The back cover should have a clear information hierarchy like in the front cover design and typesetting . Important details such as the book title, author name, synopsis, and endorsements should be prominently featured and easily readable. Less critical information, such as barcodes and publisher logos, should be placed discreetly without detracting from the main message.

Incorporating relevant visual elements can enhance the back cover’s appeal and convey the book’s themes or genre. This may include illustrations, photographs, or graphic elements that complement the book’s content. However, it’s essential to ensure that these visuals align with the tone and perspective of the book and contribute to its overall aesthetic.

Choosing appropriate fonts and typography styles is key to ensuring readability and visual coherence. Selecting legible fonts that reflect the book’s genre or tone can help create a cohesive design. Additionally, paying attention to factors such as font size, spacing, and alignment can improve the text’s overall readability.

Utilizing whitespace effectively can enhance the back cover’s clarity and focus. Leaving ample space around text and visual elements helps prevent overcrowding and allows each element to breathe. Whitespace can also help draw attention to key information and create a balance within the design.

Including a clear call-to-action can encourage readers to take the next step, whether purchasing the book, visiting the author’s website, or following them on social media. This might involve adding phrases such as “Buy Now,” “Learn More,” or “Connect with the Author,” accompanied by relevant contact information or website URLs.

While the back cover presents an opportunity to provide additional information and context, it should maintain visual consistency with the front cover to ensure a cohesive overall design. This includes using similar color schemes, typography, and imagery to reinforce the book’s branding and identity.

While not the most glamorous aspect of the back cover, the ISBN and barcode are essential for retailers and distributors. Ensure they are placed correctly and prominently to avoid any scanning or inventory management issues.

When you’re putting together the back cover of your book, there are some common mistakes to watch out for. These mistakes can affect your business turnover . Knowing them lets you ensure your back cover helps your book succeed.

It’s important to tell people what your book is about in a simple way. If they don’t understand it quickly, they might not be interested in reading it.

Putting too much information:

You might want to share everything about your book, but putting too much on the back cover can be confusing. Stick to the most important things, like a summary, good reviews, and a bit about you as the author.

Ignoring who you’re writing for:

Think about who might want to read your book. Ensure your back cover talks to them in a way they’ll understand and like.

A back cover that doesn’t look good can make people think your book isn’t worth reading. So, it’s worth spending time and maybe some money on making it look nice.

After someone reads your back cover, what do you want them to do? Maybe you want them to buy your book or visit your website. Make sure you tell them.

Spelling or grammar mistakes on your back cover can make your book look bad. Make sure to check it carefully or ask someone else to.

If things like awards or reviews on your back cover are old, it can make your book seem outdated. Keep it up to date with the latest info.

A well-crafted back cover holds immense power in shaping a book’s sales trajectory and the reader’s perception of its value. It serves as the final gateway between a potential reader and the story within, making its impact on sales and reader perception undeniable.

The back cover is often the first point of contact for a reader considering a book. Authors must understand that this small space can make or break a sale in a sea of options. A compelling back cover entices the reader, sparking curiosity and prompting them to explore further. Conversely, a lackluster or poorly designed back cover may lead a reader to overlook an otherwise exceptional book.

While some authors may choose to tackle the back cover themselves, enlisting the help of a professional service like Ghost Writing Founder can ensure quality content that resonates with readers. Experienced professional service providers know how to craft compelling copy that captures attention and drives sales.

As technology advances and reader preferences evolve, the landscape of bookback covers is transforming. Authors and designers must adapt to these changes to ensure their back covers remain relevant and engaging in an ever-changing market. Let’s discuss in detail:

With the rise of e-books and online retail channels, the traditional concept of a physical back cover is evolving. Authors now have the opportunity to explore innovative ways to capture readers’ attention in the digital space. Interactive elements such as embedded videos, animations, and hyperlinks can add depth and interactivity to the back cover, creating a more immersive experience for readers.

In an era of personalized marketing, authors increasingly explore ways to tailor back covers to individual readers’ preferences. Dynamic content generation tools and data analytics enable authors to create customized back covers that resonate with specific target audiences.

Augmented reality (AR) technology is revolutionizing how readers interact with books. By incorporating AR elements into back covers, authors can bring their stories to life in exciting new ways. From immersive 3D graphics to interactive character profiles, AR-enhanced back covers offer readers a unique and memorable experience that transcends the limitations of traditional print.

Before finalizing your book’s back cover, gathering feedback from peers and potential readers is vital. Constructive criticism offers invaluable insights, guiding revisions to enhance clarity, impact, and alignment with your book’s themes. The iterative process involves multiple rounds of refinement, ensuring the design resonates effectively.

Testing through focus groups, A/B testing, or surveys validates improvements before printing. Embrace feedback to craft a back cover that captivates and communicates your book’s essence succinctly and powerfully.

Crafting a compelling book back cover is an art that requires a blend of storytelling, design skills, and a deep understanding of reader psychology. Authors who invest time and effort into this often-overlooked aspect of book marketing can reap the rewards of increased reader engagement and book sales.

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Back Book Cover Design: Everything You Need to Know

There’s a widespread belief that a person spends only 8 seconds looking at the front book cover design.  Moreover, the same goes for the back cover: you have only a few seconds to grab a reader’s attention. This means you need to beat the clock, so let’s get to it. In this blog post, you’ll learn how to compose a killer back book cover design so that a reader ends up being immediately hooked on it. 

Why back book cover design matters

The back cover of a book is an important marketing tool . Think of it as of your sales pitch. 

The information you include there is a primary ad for your book . It should provide a catching description of the book, squeezed in a couple of hundreds words to get the reader’s attention and keep them intrigued.

It’s also a place where you can say a couple of words about yourself. Make it simple, there’s no need to place a whole autobiography here, just a few phrases to summarize your professional work.

Last but not least, you can mention the endorsements and reviews of your book to add some value and credibility to the whole deal. 

However, the back cover of a book is not a place where you should use fancy words or long content. Don’t forget, you should keep it short, clear and focused.   Pretty tricky task and a huge responsibility for the book back cover design, isn’t it?

There’s also a popular misconception that in the online e-book world, there’s no need for a back book cover since nobody will ever see it. 

Not really.

• Amazon now has the so-called “look inside” feature, which allows potential readers to take a sneak peek at the back cover. 
• Kindle posts back covers for paperback editions, and this feature has been receiving a lot of positive reviews from customers. 
• In order to upload your work to KDP Print, IngramSpark or BookBaby you have to include a front cover, spine, and back cover. 

Now when you know about the importance of a back cover in your book cover design , let’s talk about the best practices of its layout. 

We have a lot of amazing examples, so get yourself comfortable and keep reading.

FREE RESOURCE

Everything an indie author should know about book cover design, anatomy of a back book cover .

Take a look at the graph, which explains the back book cover layout.

As you can see the back book cover consists of the following elements:

• Author bio 

Testimonials

Now let’s take a closer look at these items.

In general, the tagline feature gained wide popularity from film ads. Does this sound familiar? 

When you can live forever what do you live for? (Spoiler alert, The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer )

As you might have guessed, tagline is a short, catchy phrase that can be used as an advertising slogan . 

Here are the main characteristics of a tagline:

• reveals the main plot premise or main idea ;
• shows the uniqueness of your book;
• arouses interest or intrigues the reader (for example, asks a provocative question) ;
• should not sound too generalized or use cliches ;
• sounds good, has a beautiful rhythmic structure ;
• contains witty, funny and easy to remember phrase ;
• uses a quote from your book that later on readers can easily recognize;

When coming up with a tagline, you’d better avoid using the title of the book, mentioning character names and composing a phrase longer than 10 words .

Tagline best practices 

Check out some examples of a good tagline with useful tips and explanations.

Blurb is a brief description of a book that should immediately attract the attention of your readers. 

By the way, for e-books, it’s important to optimize the blurb for Amazon and other online retailers, since this book description will be posted on a purchasing page. Also,take into consideration that Amazon displays only the first few lines of the book description.

How can you come up with a catchy blurb that sells ? First of all, aim at your target audience . A secret to a successful blurb is a proper research of the genre and readers’ expectations. That’s the reason why nonfiction and fiction books use different ingredients for their blurb cocktail. 

For non-fiction books a well-done blurb should:

• present a problematic situation that needs to be solved;
• include an immediate solution to that problem (a good trick is to use bullet points here);
• explain what value the reader gets out of it;

For fiction books on the other hand, a blurb might:

• briefly describe the situation , give some hints without revealing the whole story
• start with a hook , one of the most existing plot points or twists
• set up the mood , describe the emotional state the readers might enter
• finish with an intrigue point (might be a rhetorical question or a tense unfinished sentence)

Take a look at these examples of fiction book cover design:

Both nonfiction and fiction books should:

• concentrate on a target audience ;
• be short, aim for 100-200 words;
• avoid cliche phrases;
• be readable ( clear paragraphs for fiction; bullet points for non-fiction);
• use present tense to create a feeling that the reader is getting involved in what is taking place at this very moment;
• avoid superlative tone (never should you ever use all capital letters);

The author bio is a great chance to to talk a bit about yourself and connect with the readers .

Keep in mind that most of the readers will see your biography before they read the book itself, so it can affect their ideas about the contents of your book. It is also recommended to go with the third person when writing the author bio, it sets a more neutral environment for the potential reader rather than a clear self-promotion guide. 

The same target audience rule applies to the author bio as well. Pretty obvious, isn’t it?

Let’s say your book is a science fiction novel set in a galaxy far far away. In this scenario, your author bio should be different from when you’re writing about the best ways to improve your communication skills.

For non-fiction, it is extremely important to demonstrate the author’s competence in the subject. It is one thing if Mr. Nobody or Mrs. Newbie made the collection of recipes, and another thing if the author of the book is an award-winning professional chef.

Highlight what is worth mentioning and hide non-essential details that might affect credibility. 

Oh, and of course…keep it short, approximately 75 words . 

Author bio best practices

Here are some examples of an excellent author bio layout.

Testimonials are positive reviews on your book that come from well-known experts, publications, fellow authors or sometimes readers. 

You should take care of testimonials even before your book is ready to be published. It takes some time to reach your target expert and get them to write a review on your piece of work. So be sure to plan everything .

Having a testimonial on your back book cover is extremely important to establish a so-called “social proof” , which means that the target audience trusts the opinion of someone who vouched for your book. 

Bonus point: A review of the book written by an opinion leader can increase your book sales. 

A great balance would be to gather two or three testimonials . 

Testimonials best practices

We know that this falls into the category of setting the bar too high, but use it as an inspiration for the testimonials.

Let’s Review

As you might have noticed in all of the above examples, it’s perfectly fine to omit some parts when coming up with a back book cover. There are different variations of things you might want to include when writing your back cover copy.

It’s safe to say that unless you have 100 testimonials and are planning to use them, as your key selling point, you’ll definitely want to keep the blurb . Some self-publishing authors prefer to concentrate just on the blurb , and it looks great!

If you have a killer tagline that will make a particularly awesome hook, go for it! There are so many cases when the tagline entered a popular culture easily and became a business card of the book itself.

If your author bio is particularly relevant to this type of book and can serve as a selling point, we highly recommend building your back book cover design around it.

If you have a few good testimonials from well-known people in the industry , then nothing will go wrong if you put them all over the back book cover. Include only testimonials from highly recognized people in the field. If for any reason, you couldn’t reach them, it’s fine to omit this part altogether.

As you can see, there’s a lot of “ifs” when it comes to book back cover design and layout. Just think about it, look through your resources and decide on the excellent back cover for your book!

What do you include in your back book cover design ? Share your ideas in the comment section below.

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Table of Contents

How to Design Your Back Cover

How to write back cover copy that sells, examples of great book back covers, how to make the back cover for your book & why it matters (with examples).

The front cover is a reader’s first impression of your book.

“Is this a book I might want to read?”

If a reader is hooked by your book title, intrigued by the subtitle, and impressed by the front cover design , then the back cover of your non-fiction book has 3 jobs at once:

• The description tells the reader what they’ll get out of reading the book.
• The short bio tells them why you’re the right person to write that book .
• The overall design of the cover (and the quality of the copywriting) tells them if the book is professional and valuable.

Basically, the cover gets them interested; then the back cover helps the reader decide whether or not they want to go any further.

Because it has 3 jobs—visual, informative, and persuasive—the back of your book is really a combination of marketing copy and design.

This post will walk you through both aspects of the back cover, as well as how to choose the right designer for your book and how to write back cover copy that will grab a buyer’s attention.

One of the first things to understand about book cover design is that the back cover of a book is an integral part of the whole. You can’t design the back without designing the entire thing.

When books are printed, the cover is created as one whole image on a special sheet of thick paper called cover stock. The image includes the front, spine, and back. Then that cover is cut to the right size and folded to form the book’s binding.

So you never want to design the back of the book by itself. The whole cover of your book needs to be sent to the printer as a single pdf file, and it should be created that way.

Your book’s printer will also have specific requirements for the back book cover or book jacket, like where the ISBN barcode goes, and the correct color profile and settings for your pdf file.

And, if you’re including an Author photo , it needs to look just as professional as your book and work well with the rest of the design.

But even beyond the technical aspects of a good book cover, there’s an art to laying out the text of the back cover copy. It isn’t anything like just typing up a letter and printing it.

Designing a back cover that will hold a reader’s attention is a combination of artistic design principles and a print specialty known as typography.

Typography: words as design

Typography is the art of arranging type to be easy and appealing to read, especially when it’s printed. Modern book designers have to know how to do that for both digital and print formats.

Since book covers today are created on computers, digital book covers have the advantage of looking the same way on Amazon as they do on the designer’s screen.

But print is a whole different story.

Digital images are made of light—light literally forms the picture, which is why your computer screen is dark when it isn’t on. There’s no light to make any images.

Print images are made by ink that’s printed onto a physical page. That’s why printed images aren’t as bright as digital ones—they’re only reflecting light, not made of it.

So the type on your back cover has to be easy to read either way, and the colors have to look good in both media. If you hold a printed book up to an image of the same book on Amazon, you’ll see that the colors aren’t exactly the same.

Printing gets even more complicated because printed ink bleeds, if only a little. So, type that looks great on a computer screen can be too thick or too thin in print, depending on what other colors are next to it.

Here’s the deal: the typography of book design isn’t just art. It’s also technological know-how and a lot of math.

Typographers choose a professional font and manipulate it by making it thicker or thinner, spacing the letters closer together or farther apart, and even hand-tooling the individual letters to make your back cover copy look clean and professional.

If you don’t know how to do those things, or even if you have experience doing it digitally but not in print, that lack of experience is going to be obvious to the reader.

They won’t know what’s wrong with it exactly, but their overall impression will be: “Hey, there’s something cheap looking about this.”

If you want your book to look professional, you should hire a professional.

Other back cover design elements

Hopefully, I’ve already convinced you to hire a professional to design your book. But when you do, you’ll need to know a couple more things about back cover design to make the right choice for your book.

A great book design will make your book feel like one coherent, professionally designed package. The look and feel of the front will continue across the spine and onto the back, often by subtly echoing the book’s core colors and design elements across the 3 faces of the book.

So you really need a cover designer who isn’t just a typographical specialist within the self-publishing context, but also one with a great eye for overall layout and composition.

It’s best to look for one person who can design the front, spine, and back cover together—and I’d personally be wary of a cover designer who doesn’t provide the complete pdf you need.

The only exception would be if you want custom artwork for the cover. In that case, you’re really hiring 2 different artists:

• The illustrator, who creates the original art for the cover
• The typographer/designer, who lays out the cover as a whole, placing the art into the overall design along with the title, subtitle, author name, and any other design elements

Ideally, your cover designer should specialize in your book’s genre.

If you’re publishing a business book , look for a portfolio of bold, modern titles with color that really pops, and imagery that’s minimal but full of energy.

If you’re publishing a memoir, look for a portfolio with elegant, meaningful type, as well as expert use of photo manipulation to set an emotional tone.

And, most of all, follow your gut! Always. Because your prospective readers will too.

Last but not least, your cover designer will need you to provide them with the back cover copy.

The back cover copy of your book consists of 2 parts (sometimes 3):

• Your book’s description (about 150 words)
• Information about you, the Author (about 100 words)
• One or two great testimonials (sometimes called a book blurb or cover blurb), if you have any (optional)

Writing your back cover description

The first thing to remember about your book description is that it’s a design element of your book, so it has to fit naturally and easily on the back cover.

If it’s too short, it won’t give readers enough information to make them open the book and start reading.

If it’s too long, it won’t fit well on your book. No designer, no matter how professional, can make a 500-word description look good on the back of a standard trade paperback.

So, what’s the best length to shoot for?

A 150-word description strikes a great balance.

It gives you enough room to sell the reader on the book while giving your cover designer enough space to lay it out comfortably.

But here’s the most important thing to remember in writing your nonfiction book description:

It should not explain your book. Instead, it should create interest and connection with the reader.

Think about your target audience , and ask what those people need to know about your book to help them understand how much they’ll get out of reading it.

Writing a great book description isn’t about making everyone want your book—that’s impossible, and trying to do that is counterproductive. You’ll end up with mediocre cover copy that doesn’t appeal strongly to anyone.

Instead, try to make your specific target audience want your book. Believe it or not, by targeting your back cover copy at a narrow audience, you’ll end up making your book sound a lot more interesting to a lot more people.

For more help doing that, read my full post on writing a great book description .

Writing your back cover Author bio

The back cover Author bio usually comes after your description and should be around 100 words (fewer is fine, but I wouldn’t go below 60 or 70).

If the description is about selling the book, the bio is about showing the reader why you’re the right person to write that book.

A lot of Authors have trouble writing the bio, so read my full post on Author bios if you’d like more guidance on how to do that.

The most important thing to remember about all your back cover copy is that readers need to know why they should read the book.

If you’ve solved a problem they’re currently facing—or if you have special information that most people don’t have, making you the perfect person to write this particular book—you should share that with your readers.

1. You End Up Where You’re Heading: The Hidden Dangers of Living a Safe Life , by Jimmy Rex and Cameron Carling

“You settled for the first job that came along, the okay apartment, and the steady but unfulfilling partner. You thought you were playing it safe.”

These authors do a great job of appealing to the people who need this book by describing, in just a few words, what that reader’s life looks like.

A lot of first-time Authors get hung up on the idea that they’ll “turn off” potential readers by targeting their readership too narrowly. But that’s just not how people work.

If you don’t like your job but you have an amazing spouse, you won’t think, “This book doesn’t describe me.” Instead, you’ll focus on the problem you do have: “Maybe this book can help me find a job I’ll like more.”

Don’t worry about targeting your readers too narrowly. People will resonate with the parts that fit them. If they’re interested in the book for any part of their life, they’ll check it out.

2. Boot Straps & Bra Straps: The Formula to Go from Rock Bottom Back into Action in Any Situation , by Sheila Mac

Notice that the title is catchy but doesn’t tell you anything about the book on its own. It’s the subtitle that makes you want to keep reading.

If you’d like some guidelines about how to create this kind of rockstar title/subtitle pair, read my posts on crafting great titles and subtitles .

Everything about the cover design, from the typography to the colors and layout, says “positive, feminine fun.”

The description copy sets the exact same tone, with a first-line that speaks directly to the readers this book was written for:

“If life has knocked you down, get ready to pick yourself back up and give your problems the boot!”

3. Income Bliss: Create a Retirement Income That You Can’t Outlive , by Bob Gardner, CLU, ChFC, RFC

Between the title, subtitle, and cover art, this cover design sets up the description perfectly.

The idea of creating a retirement income that you can’t outlive addresses a pain point for a lot of people, and the description backs up this theme with more detail: it doesn’t have to be frightening; anyone can do it.

But the closer is the Author bio, which in this case is nested in the middle of the book description.

“Financial advisor and wealth management expert Bob Gardner has spent his career helping his clients build successful portfolios that have the stability to last through their retirement, and that give them the liquidity to enjoy it.”

It’s easy to promise that you can help people make money, but this Author has the credentials and experience to back it up.

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Home » Self-Publishing » How to Design Your Book’s Back Cover

1. Tagline:

What’s the first thing you want the reader to see when they turn to the back cover? A brilliant tagline. Draw them in with a catchphrase, a line from the book, a quote from a review, or a short, punchy description. Limit this tagline to one sentence. Think of it as a teaser, not a summary.

A back cover blurb  offers a snapshot of the book and sparks curiosity. It should address the central topics or themes without being too vague, clever, or flashy.

• Keep it short. A fiction blurb for adult readers should be 175 – 225 words. A blurb on a children’s book should be 100 words or less.
• Make it descriptive . Use vivid details that will appeal to the book’s audience.
• Know your genre. The blurbs you write for a literary novel, a children’s book, a nonfiction book, and a poetry collection will each have different styles. A fiction blurb gives a glimpse of the character’s emotional world and immediate conflicts or drama. Nonfiction blurbs provide valuable knowledge, insights, or answers to a particular problem.
• End on a high note. Leave the description open-ended so they have to read more!
• Don’t pile on the adjectives and adverbs . It will feel inauthentic and over the top.
• Don’t use the same book description that appears on a bookseller page. That is designed to give customers an objective overview, whereas a back cover blurb should capture a distinct tone of voice or point of view.
• Don’t summarize the entire plot of your book . A book blurb is not the same as the three-page book synopsis you provide to a literary agent or publisher.

3. Testimonials:

Roll out the endorsements! This section gives you a chance to share the praise that fellow authors, experts, reviewers, or journalists have lavished on your book. These testimonial quotes on the back cover of your book can be very convincing for a potential reader who’s on the fence about buying a copy.

Select quotes from authors who are well-known and writing in the same genre as you. And see if you can get someone from a high-profile magazine or newspaper to review your book. It’s always easier to ask people you know, but you can send a query to established writers with a copy of the press release for your book .

4. Author bio:

The author bio on the back cover will likely be the shortest version that you create. In other words, it should be far more condensed than the author bio that appears on the last few pages of your book or in the “About the Author” section of your website . Two to three brief sentences will do (25 to 50 words max). Some fiction writers may choose not to have a bio on the back cover, but nonfiction authors should always include one to demonstrate expertise in their field.

5. Design Tips:

There are many different ways to make a book back cover design that is effective and inviting, but the best ones have a few things in common. Keep these tips in mind when creating and designing your back cover:

• Go for a clean, uncluttered layout to create the most visual impact.
• Use a consistent color palette and limit yourself to two or three different font styles to ensure a cohesive look and feel.
• Create a hierarchy for your text and images. The tagline and blurb should appear first and stand out from other back cover elements, either in a slightly larger font or in a different color.
• When it comes to text, less is more. It’s better to keep two strong quotes and present them in a neat, organized way than to have three quotes jammed into a small space.
• Make sure all the text is in a legible font style and color.
• Use margins and negative space around your text and images to help the design breathe. Overcrowded text that runs edge to edge, or lots of overlapping text and imagery is unappealing and looks unprofessional.
• Do not leave the back cover blank. This is a premium space for your marketing information and should not be wasted!

Ready to take the next steps toward launching your book? Check out our ideas for marketing and promoting your self-published book .

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Write a Book Back Cover They Can’t Ignore: Tips & Examples

by Gatekeeper Press | Dec 1, 2021 | Blog

Think about your book’s cover as its packaging, the outer wrapping used to help market and sell a product like any other. The package — your book cover — not only contains the content within but must also be attractive and enticing to the consumer. Authors may mistakenly assume that the front cover is all that really matters in cover design, but that negates how book marketing actually works.

A book’s back cover functions as an important marketing tool that helps persuade a prospective customer to buy your book. When authors craft a carefully worded blurb for the back of their book, they can pique just enough interest to compel the shopper to hit the ‘Add to Cart’ button. Continue reading to learn the ins and outs of writing amazing back cover copy.

Elements of a Good Book Back Cover

When designing your book’s back cover you should plan to provide real estate for the following featured elements:

• Headline. A headline is a one-line snippet that is designed to grab the reader’s attention. It is usually italicized or bolded and can ask a provocative question or be a riveting line from the book.
• Blurb. The blurb should be written in third person, not exceed 200 words, and should include short, finely-honed paragraphs that convey what the consumer can look forward to experiencing while reading your book. For non-fiction, this can include bullet points of how the reader will benefit from reading the book.
• Hook. At the end of the blurb, adding a hook will motivate the reader to discover the treasures your book has to offer. It could be a challenge, a promise, a quote, or a question.
• Words of Praise . If you have received a review or endorsement for the book, go ahead and include that in the back cover design.
• Author Bio. A brief bio citing the author’s credentials, with or without a photo, is often added to the back cover. If it is a cover jacket design, the author bio appears inside the back cover flap.
• Barcode. The book’s ISBN and price appear in the lower portion of the back cover design.

How to Write Back Cover Copy

Writing a compelling blurb for the back cover is more challenging than one might initially think. Authors are wired to tell stories or disseminate information but are not necessarily adept at pitching their book to consumers. Consider these tips to aid you in the process of writing back cover copy:

• Start with a punch . Begin the blurb with a strong headline or opening sentence, as it is essential to grab the reader’s attention right from the start. Remember that the back cover copy is a marketing tool, so give that first sentence the time and effort it deserves.
• Introduce only one or two characters in your blurb. Remember that you only have about 200 words to provide an enticing nugget that includes a bit about the setting, the period, the premise, and the conflict. Introducing too many characters in this short blurb only muddies the waters.
• Write short paragraphs. Write the summary in short, digestible chunks versus long-form paragraphs. This helps the blurb be quickly and easily scanned.
• Hold back a bit. Remember that the blurb is not the same as a synopsis of the book. Keeping this in mind, give the reader just enough intriguing information to rouse their curiosity, but do not provide any reveals.
• It’s all about the reader experience . Never forget that your back book cover content is designed to engage the reader’s emotions and prepare them for the experience they can expect while reading your story.

Non-fiction

• A strong headline. The headline should provide a concise one-line statement defining the main selling point of the book — the problem to be solved.
• Demonstrate the solution . Frame the problem that the book promises to solve, and then provide a list of the benefits the reader will gain from your book.
• Explain the reward. Close the blurb with a strong statement, assuring the reader about how the book can improve some aspect of their life.

Awesome Book Back Cover Examples

When attempting to grasp exactly what a great book back cover involves, sometimes pictures are worth a thousand words. Consider these back cover examples:

Interesting Book Back Covers

Vince Flynn’s Enemy at the Gates makes interesting use of the back cover by splitting the space between a self-portrait and reviews for the new thriller.

John Grisham’s latest, The Judge’s List , boasts a clean, simple back cover that uses the space for just one thing — an interesting excerpt from the book.

Funny Book Back Covers

The back cover of For Once in My Life by Colleen Coleman paints a comical picture of her life as a columnist at her local newspaper.

Brain Farts EWW Edition! by Murphy Sawyer is a book for kids that any parent can see by its back cover will be greatly enjoyed by their prodigy.

Compelling Book Back Covers

The back book cover for When the Apricots Bloom by Gina Wilkinson stirs a sense of curiosity about this story based in Baghdad.

Devoted by Dean Koontz has an intriguing back cover. He introduces a dog named Kipp, and his instincts to thwart evil and protect a boy and his mother.

Non-Fiction Book Back Covers

Napoleon Hill’s How to Think and Grow Rich was first published in 1937. The current back cover conveys in clear, concise language exactly what the book offers the reader.

The back cover space of Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant is filled with quotes of praise by notable people.

Get Your Book in Perfect Shape from Cover to Cover

When embarking on the self-publishing journey, authors can benefit immensely by enlisting the professional help of a self-publishing partner like Gatekeeper Press . Reach out to us today for all the support you need to shape and polish your manuscript and get your book ready for publication. Give us a call at (866) 535-0913 or contact us online .

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Back cover design: A guide to creating an effective book cover

1 February 2024

Magda Wojcik

The back cover of a book is the outer surface on the opposite side of the front cover. Its primary function is to provide a brief summary of the book, author information, endorsements and other relevant details to attract potential readers and give them a glimpse of the content before they decide to purchase or read the book.

But it is not just about including these elements; it is about creating an informative and engaging back cover that stands out. In this blog post, we’ll explore the components of a back cover with examples from bestselling fiction and non-fiction books, design and accessibility considerations, free back cover templates, and the role of editing services.

So whether you are an author looking to design your back cover or a reader interested in understanding the elements of a back cover, read on to learn all you need to know.

What does a book back cover consist of?

The back cover usually consists of the following elements:

• endorsements and reviews
• ISBN, barcode and publisher’s details .

They may not necessarily all appear on the back cover. For instance, the cover may not include the author’s bio if they are famous because readers may already be familiar with their name, publications and achievements. Later in this article, you can see back cover templates , which illustrate this point.

Now, let’s delve into the elements of the book back cover in more detail.

A tagline on the back cover is a catchy and memorable phrase that encapsulates the book’s essence. It often reinforces the main theme or draws attention to a key aspect.

To write a compelling book back cover tagline:

• Capture essence : Distil your book’s core theme or message into a few words.
• Invoke curiosity : Create intrigue by posing a question, using wordplay or hinting at a mystery.
• Be concise : Keep it extremely brief, typically one to two sentences.
• Continue in the blurb : create a sense of mystery, urgency and engagement that will be further explored in the blurb.

A  book blurb  on the back cover is a concise and engaging summary of the book’s content. It is usually written to capture the reader’s interest and provide a sneak peek into the storyline.

To write an effective book back cover blurb:

• Hook the reader : Start with a compelling hook or question to capture immediate interest.
• Introduce the core : Briefly introduce the main character and the central conflict to establish the story’s core elements of the fiction book. For a non-fiction book, explain the main discoveries and arguments.
• Highlight importance : Convey what is at stake to create a sense of urgency. This may include what the protagonist stands to lose/experience or how the discoveries enclosed in the book can improve the reader’s life.
• Avoid spoilers : Provide enough information to generate curiosity without giving away crucial plot twists or spoilers.
• End with a call-to-action : Conclude with a call-to-action that encourages readers to delve into the book to uncover the full narrative or findings.
• Be brief : Aim for around 150 to 250 words.
• Create continuity : Develop further the sense of mystery started in the tagline.

An effective fiction book blurb example

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

EVERY DAY THE SAME Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost. UNTIL TODAY And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

This blurb is effective because it:

• creates an intriguing routine
• introduces key characters and their seemingly perfect lives
• promises a significant and shocking event (‘UNTIL TODAY’)
• raises questions about the protagonist’s reliability
• implies complications and consequences, building suspense and interest.

An effective non-fiction book blurb example

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

FIRE gave us power

FARMING made us hungry for more

MONEY gave us purpose

SCIENCE made us deadly

This is the thrilling account of our extraordinary history — from insignificant apes to rulers of the world.

This book blurb is effective because it:

• distils complex historical themes into four concise elements
• uses impactful words (FIRE, FARMING, MONEY, SCIENCE) to symbolise key developments
• creates a dynamic narrative flow of human history
• concludes with a bold statement.

Endorsements and reviews

Back covers often include endorsements from notable individuals or excerpts from reviews that highlight positive feedback about the book. Any awards or accolades received may also be mentioned.

Good reviews or endorsements on a book’s back cover should contain the following elements to be effective:

• Specific praise : Highlight specific aspects of the book that stood out, such as writing style, character development, plot twists or thematic depth.
• Relevance to target audience : Express how the book will resonate with the target audience, indicating the genre or themes that make it compelling for certain readers.
• Credibility of the reviewer : If the reviewer is well-known or has expertise in a relevant field, mention their credentials to enhance credibility.
• Brief and impactful : Keep the review concise, focusing on the most compelling points to capture attention quickly.
• Call to action : Encourage the readers to buy and read the book by creating a sense of urgency or importance.

Examples of impactful endorsements and reviews

‘You don’t know how much you need this book. It will change your life.’ — Melissa Hartwig Urban about  Quit Like a Woman  by Holly Whitaker

‘Interesting and provocative … It gives you a sense of perspective on how briefly we’ve been on this Earth.’ — Barack Obama about  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind  by Yuval Noah Harari

‘A fantasy like you’ve never read before.’ — #1NYT bestselling author Jennifer Armentrout about  Iron Flame  by Rebecca Yarros

‘Smart and sharp. Fast-paced and twisty.’ — Megan Miranda, author of  The Only Survivors  about  First Lie Wins  by Ashley Elston

The author bio found on the back cover includes information about the author, including a brief biography, a photo, and details about other books they have written. This helps readers understand the author’s background and explore additional works. Moreover, it illustrates the author’s credibility and authority in the topic of the book.

Examples of effective author bios

Fairy Tale  by Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Silly Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, The Outsider, and Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by the New York Times Book Review. He is the recipient of the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist, Tabitha King .

This author bio is effective because it:

• highlights King’s extensive bibliography and success as a worldwide bestselling author, establishing credibility
• mentions recent publications, showcasing the author’s continued work and relevance
• includes prestigious awards and honours
• adds a personal touch by mentioning his residence and family, providing readers with a glimpse into the author’s life.

The Psychology of Money  by Morgan Housel

Morgan Housel is a partner at The Collaborative Fund and a former columnist at The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal. He is a two-time winner of the Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, winner of the New York Times Sidney Award, and a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.

• showcases multiple awards, emphasising the Housel’s excellence in business and financial journalism
• established professional credibility by highlighting author’s background as a writer for reputable and relevant magazines.

ISBN, barcode and publisher’s details

Finally, the back cover contains the three important elements associated with retail. First, the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) uniquely identifies the book, which is helpful for bookstores, warehouses and libraries storing the book. Next, the barcode is scannable for retail purposes. Last, publisher details provide information about the entity responsible for publishing the book, including the name and logo of the publisher or press.

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

ISBN is a unique thirteen-digit book identifier assigned to each edition of the book. In other words, an eBook, audiobook, hardcover and paperback edition of the same book will have different ISBNs.

How to obtain an ISBN?

Each country has a different ISBN issuer, but they are all overseen by the  International ISBN Agency , which introduced ISBN in 1970. You can contact the ISBN provider from your country online. Some offer ISBNs for free, and others sell ISBNs in packs of one, ten, hundred, or a thousand. For instance, in the UK, USA and Australia, ISBN providers sell with prices decreasing the larger the package. On the other hand, in New Zealand, South Africa and Canada, self-publishing writers and publishers can obtain ISBNs for free.

Note that print-on-demand (POD) platforms like  Amazon KDP ,  Ingram Sparks  and  Lulu  provide their free versions of ISBNs but with a caveat. If you choose their identifiers instead of the officially recognised ISBNs often, they will limit where you can sell your book.

Like ISBN, a barcode is necessary for books that will be sold. Barcodes can be obtained for free. For instance, you can try the Online Barcode Generator to get a free barcode for your back cover. POD platforms like Amazon KDP , IngramSpark and Lulu also provide them for free with their cover templates.

How to design a back cover?

Here are some key considerations when designing a back cover of a book.

• Function over flair : Prioritise conveying essential information like the blurb, author details, and ISBN over excessive design elements. Avoid clutter, and leave ample white space for a clean and organised look.
• Look at other books in the same genre : Analyse successful books in your genre to understand design trends and audience expectations. This helps your book fit in while also standing out.
• Use style to tell a story : Align the back cover design with the book’s tone and content. The design should offer a glimpse into the narrative or themes, creating a cohesive visual experience.
• Match the front cover : Ensure consistency between the front and back covers. The design elements, colour scheme and typography should complement each other, presenting a unified visual identity.
• DIY vs hiring somebody : Consider your design skills and the complexity of your vision. If confident, DIY may be cost-effective. However, hiring a professional designer can ensure a polished and effective result. To DIY a book cover, try one of the automated tools, such as  Canva’s Magic Studio ,  Midjourney AI ,  Adobe Firefly  or  Microsoft Design .

How to incorporate accessibility into a back cover design?

Accessibility in the context of  book cover design  refers to creating covers that are inclusive and can be easily understood, navigated, and appreciated by individuals with diverse abilities. This includes considerations for people with visual, cognitive, or motor impairments. Designing with accessibility in mind ensures that everyone, regardless of their abilities, can access and engage with the book cover content.

Key aspects of accessibility in book cover design may involve:

• Contrast and legibility : Ensure there is sufficient contrast between text and background colours to aid readability. High contrast is especially important for readers with visual impairments.
• Font size and style : Choose a clear and legible font with a size that is easily readable, even for those with visual impairments. For instance, Arial, Comic Sans, Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic, Trebuchet, Calibri and Open Sans typefaces are more accessible.
• Alternative text for images : If your back cover includes images, provide alternative text (alt text) for each image. Alt text is crucial for individuals using screen readers to understand the visual elements.
• Readability in various formats : Ensure that the back cover is readable in different formats, including print and digital. Digital versions should maintain readability when viewed on various devices and screen sizes.
• Consider readers with colour blindness : Be mindful of colour choices, as some readers may have colour vision deficiencies. Avoid relying solely on colour to convey important information. Also, avoid combining red and green and instead try blue and red (or orange and yellow combination). Finally, use highly contrasting colours and play with the dark/light saturation to make the contrast more pronounced.
• Readable layout : Organising information in a clear and logical manner, allowing easy navigation for individuals with cognitive or attention-related challenges.

How can editing services help elevate a back cover?

There are several benefits of using professional editing services when designing a book back cover. For instance, thorough proofreading can catch any typos, spelling errors or formatting issues, maintaining a polished and error-free appearance. Likewise, copyediting can help ensure consistency with the front cover, the book’s content and other books in the series. Here are some other examples of how editing services can help in a back cover design:

• Clarity and conciseness : Editors ensure the back cover text is clear, concise and effectively communicates the book’s essence, helping readers quickly understand the content.
• Grammar and language : Editing services correct grammar, syntax and language issues to present a polished and professional back cover, enhancing the overall impression of the book.
• Target audience appeal : Editors assess the language and tone to ensure it resonates with the target audience, maximising the back cover’s impact on potential readers.
• Consistency with content : Editors help align the back cover text with the book’s content, ensuring accuracy and coherence in presenting the narrative, genre or themes.
• Feedback on blurb effectiveness : Professionals can provide feedback on the effectiveness of the blurb, suggesting improvements to make it more engaging, intriguing and aligned with market expectations.

Back cover templates

Here are four free back cover templates for your inspiration.

Final thoughts

In conclusion, creating an impactful back cover is essential to presenting a book to potential readers. This comprehensive guide has explored the crucial elements of an engaging back cover, ranging from taglines and blurbs to endorsements, author bios and technical details like ISBN and barcode. Remember, the back cover serves as a gateway to the world within the book, enticing readers with a glimpse of the content. By carefully considering design and accessibility and utilising editing services, authors can elevate their back covers to effectively connect with their target audience and make a lasting impression. 

I am an  experienced editor  working with non-fiction, academic and business books. If you need a second pair of eyes,  proofreading  and  editing  the text selected for the back cover or preparing your manuscript for publication, contact me for a  free sample edit  (and remember to use my  early bird discount ).

I'm a freelance editor and indexer with a PhD in literary history. I work with non-fiction, academic and business texts.

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Blog • Book Design

Last updated on Feb 29, 2024

How to Design a Book Cover: 7 Steps for Professional Results

A book’s cover is one of the most important marketing assets that authors have at their disposal. A great cover design will communicate the book’s content and tone in the blink of an eye, attracting new readers wandering through a bookstore or browsing Amazon, and potentially doubling your sales . 

So, what does it take to create an outstanding cover design? In this post, we’ve teamed up with Reedsy’s designer, Raúl Gil, to show you how publishing professionals create their world-class cover designs.

How to design a book cover:

1. Take inspiration from other covers

2. pick the right design tools, 3. choose a genre-fitting concept, 4. select a design style, 5. adapt and develop your concept, 6. balance the title and author name, 7. adapt the design to other book formats.

FREE RESOURCE

Cover Design Checklist

Make sure your book cover ticks all the boxes with our handy guide.

Research and planning should be an essential step in all design projects. With book covers, that research should be focused on two of the design’s main goals, which are how to:

• Attract the attention of the book’s target reader and
• Communicate genre, tone, and content.

Thankfully, publishing is a trend-driven industry, and the creative choices of top publishers are reflected in the books you find on your local high street.

Snoop around bookshops, libraries, or online retailers

Mainstream bookshops are especially useful places to start since they will stock books that are selling right now and will only carry the latest editions (so you won’t be misled by 30-year-old cover designs).

When looking at books in your genre, you’ll want to note any common uses of color, imagery, and general approach to design. 

Here’s an (edited) snapshot of top-selling psychological thrillers on Amazon at the start of 2024:

At a glance, you might see that many of these covers:  

• Use a font similar to Helvetica, a sans serif typeface that feels quite contemporary. 
• Employ a certain amount of yellow, red, and blue in some of the designs.
• Feature a character who’s obscured in some way.

All genres have their trends and tropes, and a good designer should be aware of them before working up their concepts. Once you’ve gathered this intel, use it in your design to communicate what your book is about.

But before diving into the design process, deciding on the tools you’ll use is crucial .

A poor craftsperson blames their tools — however, Leonardo didn’t compose the Mona Lisa with crayons. So before you get too far into the design process, you need to know two things:

• What software are you using to design your cover?
• Will you be proficient enough in that software to bring your ideas to life?

If you’re not 100% certain of your digital design skills, look into hiring a professional cover designer for your project. You can still remain in creative control of how the book looks, but with their market knowledge and ability to execute a design, a pro will give you the best chance of giving your book the design it deserves.

MEET COVER DESIGNERS

Get an amazing book cover

Let readers judge your book by its (professionally-designed) cover.

If you’re confident in your abilities, let’s look at some of the most popular book cover design apps and see which one you’d be best suited to.

Professional-grade software

Consumer software.

Now that you know the tools at your disposal to bring your cover to life, let’s get creative. In the next few sections, we’re going to show you what goes on in a professional designer’s mind when they’re working on a new project. You’ll get an insight into their process and hopefully be able to apply this methodology to your own design.

Rocket Bride: A Case Study 

For the rest of this guide, we will demonstrate the cover design process with the help of Reedsy’s in-house designer, Raúl Gil, who will design a cover for a hypothetical novel that we will call... Rocket Bride . This book doesn’t exist, but if it did, this is what it would be about:

Rocket Bride is a space opera targeted mainly at a romance-reading audience. It centers on a princess who’s engaged to an evil land developer and the roguish intergalactic smuggler who helps the princess escape on her wedding day. Like oil and water, chalk and cheese, these two heroes are unlikely accomplices — and maybe even unlikelier lovers. 

But before we start throwing around any ideas, we first need to decide on the concept and style that our cover will take.

The only way to find a suitable concept is to first come up with a bunch of ideas that are off the mark, kinda good, or wrong but headed in the right direction. Even professional designers who know what they’re doing start by throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Book Cover Concept Worksheet

Use our step-by-step template to create a strong cover concept.

As a starting point, ask yourself: What emotions do you want your cover to evoke?

Capture the book’s tone at a glance

In today’s publishing landscape, more readers are buying their books from online retailers like Amazon. The average shopper will only see a small thumbnail of a book’s cover — and perhaps only for a fraction of a second. Bearing that in mind, your design needs to be clear, fairly simple, and communicate your book’s emotional tone.

From your research, you should have a good idea of how covers in your niche communicate the tone of the book. If it’s a thriller novel, it may be dark and mysterious, like the design for A Flicker in the Dark . If it’s a humorous nonfiction book, it’ll use lighter colors and feature an image that conveys the concept and tone of the book, like the cover of Jenette McCurdy’s funny, gallowsy memoir.

But beyond that, what else can draw readers to a book?

Characters (with or without eyes)

Fiction readers, broadly speaking, can be enticed by a character they’d want to spend 300-odd pages with. To that end, you will see covers that feature a character from the book. 

In certain genres, you’ll notice that character faces are often concealed in some way. You’ll rarely see a character’s full face on literary fiction and mystery novels. They might be backlit (as is common in thrillers) or obscured by some design feature. There are many reasons why this might be the case, but we think it boils down to the fact that readers want to put themselves in a protagonist’s shoes — and if they see a model’s face on the front cover, it makes it hard for them to recast themselves as the hero of the story.

Though, of course, there are exceptions. Books adapted to film will often have tie-in covers featuring the poster art – after all, who’d say no to having Leo DiCaprio’s face on your book? Romance is another example of where you’d see a character’s face — the old cliché of handsome shirtless cover models remains as true today as it was in the Fabio era .  

If your genre’s design trends call for a character to feature on the cover, think about how much of their face you want to show. 

In the case of Rocket Bride , we’re taking a lead from popular books in the women’s fiction and cozy romance spaces and depicting our main characters in illustrated form. In line with the trends, we will show full-body images of our lead characters — though it’s worth noting that having stylized, hand-drawn depictions of these characters does leave some wiggle room for readers to imagine themselves as the leads in the story in a way that a photo of an Abercrombie & Fitch model doesn’t.

Location and period

Readers also like knowing where a book is set and are often attracted to books that promise to take them off to a certain time and place. Take a look at these examples:

The cover for Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, while foregrounding a character, uses costume to tell readers that they’re in for a dose of Old Hollywood glamor. (Note how you don’t see her eyes!)

The jacket for Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time instantly says that we’re going to a retro-futuristic world where people travel the galaxy in broken-down hunks of junk. 

For books that offer readers a sliver of escapist entertainment, a focus on location can oftentimes be a winner.

Iconography

Going back to what we said about covers only having a split second of a browser’s attention, you’ll see more covers these days leaning towards very simple and iconographic — something that is either recognizable or evokes instant meaning. 

In the past twenty-odd years, you’re likely to see this approach with literary novels, but with an increasingly digitally minded approach, it’s also become commonplace in genre fiction.

Take a look at the three examples and see how they use simple, iconic images to make an impression:

• RF Kuang’s Yellowface has a striking design that says all it needs to say with its recognizable depiction of East Asian eyes on a solid yellow background.
• The cover for Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow recontextualizes Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
• Every entry in Richard Osman’s bestselling Thursday Murder Club series can be recognized by its type-led design and simple fox motif.

Rocket Bride: An illustrated approach with character, tone, and location

With all this in mind, we shared some comp titles from the world of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. In line with the classic B-Movie tone of the story, we also sent him some examples of Jet Age imagery that we thought would be suitable for Rocket Bride’s  cover.

In our discussion with Raúl, we talked about the humor of the story, but also the bristling romance of Classic Hollywood. The relationship between our two heroes is like Hepburn and Bogart in The African Queen ; like Han and Leia in Star Wars . We wanted the cover to convey the fact that this book is feisty, fun, and far from the hard sci-fi books that many casual romance readers would normally avoid. It’s more Princess Bride than Dune .

After sending him our design brief , Raúl soon returned with a concept that showed our lead characters and science fiction setting, rendered with a sense of excitement and romance.

With a basic concept in place, you’ll want to make sure you know how you’re going to bring this idea to life.

Broadly speaking, there are four ways that you can approach your cover — each led by the type of imagery that will dominate the design. Pretty much every title you’ll see in a bookshop will fall into one of these four categories:

Stock image-led

The vast majority of book covers released by major publishers will feature stock images that are then cropped, manipulated, or edited into the design. You see a lot of these covers in most romance subgenres, as well as crime/thrillers and self-help.

Type-led designs

You’ll see this approach in a lot of nonfiction and literary fiction these days, where the focus of the design is a creative manipulation of the title text.

Illustrated covers

These range from intricate, life-like illustrations of the book’s world (which you’d see on the cover of a lot of Fantasy and Science Fiction), to evocative works of abstract art that you might find on the front of a literary fiction novel.

Photography

This is where new photography is commissioned for the cover design. These days, you only see this style of cover on celebrity memoir covers, where the big selling point is the author.

😁 Check more covers made by Reedsy designers by browsing our book cover gallery !

If you were looking to hire a professional to make your cover, you would first decide which style is best for your book, then seek out designers who specialize in that style.

Our market research shows that cozy illustrations are fairly common in women’s fiction and certain (non-historical) romance subgenres. With this in mind, we committed to an illustrated design for Rocket Bride .

Raúl soon returned with various versions of his original concept, presenting a few different executions of the same idea: our space princess being whisked away by our roguish space pirate.

Of these concepts, we ultimately decided to move forward with version #3. It captures the sense of adventure and romance at the core of Rocket Bride : the pose of its main characters reminded us of classic romance covers with a hint of fun and a healthy dose of mid-century sci-fi imagery. 

📏 Before you go much further with the design, make sure you’re working to the right dimensions. For ebooks, the standard front cover size on KDP is 2560 x 1600 pixels. We’ll dive into the specifics of print editions later on in this guide.  

Once you’ve landed on your final concept, you can treat it as a jumping-off point and start to play around with the small details that’ll impact how your reader engages with the cover.

Focus on the details that matter

In the course of refining the concept, you shouldn’t get carried away with cramming in too many details. There’s a temptation to add extra elements into your design, like a full moon, an abandoned house, or an extra character. A professional designer will be able to pull off those things — but if you’re doing it yourself, remember that less is almost always more.

From Raul’s original concept for Rocket Bride, we were able to request a few changes. We loved the fun tone of the illustration, but felt like some of the details were a bit too close to The Jetsons for our liking. We also wanted the background to resemble the American Southwest a bit more. With this feedback, Raúl tweaked the design by changing out our hero’s weapon, removing the rocketship, and adding in some stunning Monument Valley-style buttes.

Note: If you’re working with a professional designer, you may have agreed in your contract how many rounds of redesigns you’re entitled to as part of your fee. Try to include as much feedback at once and have a discussion with your designer about what is practical.

In our case, Raúl was happy to make extra changes while in the sketching phase, so we had him refine the character design. He gave Captain Perseus some rugged battle scars and added a third eye to Princess Andromeda (an essential part of her character backstory).

With the details locked in, it’s time to put a lick of paint on it.

See what color schemes pop out (and fit in)

Your design style will determine how much color-tweaking can be done at this stage: for example, the sky’s the limit for illustrators, while those working with stock images may be limited by the original photo (or their Photoshop skills). 

However, even a small change in color temperature or a slight hint of color can transform how the design will impact the reader. 

In the example above, the designer of Angela Morrison’s Sing Me to Sleep used a licensed stock image from Shutterstock then recolored the character’s sleeve and added ‘atmosphere’ in the form of digital snowflakes.

Note: make sure you pay for image licenses. If your cover design includes licensed images, it’s at this stage that you’ll have to purchase the rights to use them. Professional designers will typically use watermarked and low-resolution images in their initial concepts until you approve the final (truly final) version. If you’re hiring a pro to create your design , they will usually handle the licensing for you.

Returning to your research, you might have an idea of the color schemes trending in your genre. Again, we’re not saying that you need to adhere to tropes — but if you’re stuck for ideas, it can’t hurt to try out a color palate that instantly communicates the genre of your book.

For Rocket Bride, Raúl took our preferred concept and applied a few different color schemes that were inspired by science fiction imagery, retrofuturist design, and pulp cover art from the mid-20th century.

Each version lends the design a slightly different vibe and emotional quality — some more nostalgic, some more menacing. There are also some genre implications: the version with the blood red dust could have a superhero comic book feel, while versions E and F remind us of spaghetti westerns.

After mulling these options over, we decided to go with Version C, with pastel shades that you’d see in contemporary rom-com novels — offsetting the sci-fi setting and letting the readers know that this isn’t just a straightforward shoot ’em up in space.

If you haven’t already, this is the point where you’ll start adding all the elements that make a book cover more than just a piece of art. In this section, we’ll show you how to avoid some of the most common mistakes we’ve seen on self-made book covers.

Make the important bits easy to read

Once again, quick communication is key to your success. You want the reader to glean the most important bits of text in the half-second that they might look at it — which means that there’s no room for error. Contrast is one of the most important things to consider for text placement. There needs to be enough of a color difference between the text and the background so that your title and author name are easy to read (see below: Aya’s Blood ).

In the second example, The Cowboy’s Last Song , you can see that the designer has created contrast by laying the title over a shadow in the middle of the page. While this does greatly help with legibility , it adds a bit of unintentional muddiness to the final design.

Use two to three fonts

For the sake of minimizing your cover’s busyness, don’t use too many typefaces. If you check out the books on your shelves, you’ll probably notice that there aren’t more than two or three fonts at play . Between the title, the author’s name, and any other text you want to include on the cover, you can find a way to make two fonts stretch.

Give your author name the right size

The general rule of thumb is that the more famous you are, the bigger your name will be on the cover. After all, STEPHEN KING is more enticing to readers than the words FAIRY TALE. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably not Stephen King, so make sure that your name doesn’t take up too much real estate. For a good example, look at Stacy Willingham’s A Flicker in the Dark , which nicely balances the title and the author’s name, favoring the former over the latter.

Loglines, reviews, and testimonials

Another common element you’ll see on almost every cover is either a short logline or testimonial (usually from an established print outlet, author, or authority on the subject matter of your book). Let’s look at two examples:

Readers are so used to seeing thousands of book covers every year, and almost every one of them will have some sort of logline or testimonial (or even just a line that says “from the author of X book”) — so if your design is missing this element, your cover is in danger of feeling a bit naked.

So, putting all of these into practice, let’s add some copy to Rocket Bride .

Rocket Bride: Bespoke title treatment

In the case of Rocket Bride, we were clear that the title had to be more prominent than the author’s name, so the relationship between texts was clear. We stuck to a single font for all the text, varying their weight, size, and color. 

From the first sketches, we reserved a safe area at the base of the illustration on which to accommodate the title without contrast problems.

Visually, we wanted a dynamic treatment of the text that could provide expressiveness to the composition and enhance the “light science fiction” component of the novel. So, we used a condensed and thick typeface to form a solid typographic mass, and then we skewed it, adapting it to the forms and counterforms of the base illustration. 

Finally, we added a small graphic treatment in which a small rocket moves in the direction of the text — a typographic treatment that’s more than just expository text. The title “Rocket Bride” almost becomes the book’s logo, a brand that we can read and recognize even in small thumbnails on online platforms.

But wait! We’re not done just yet.

Now that the front cover has been completed, all that’s left is to use the design to fit your various book formats. 

Export ebook covers with the correct dimensions

Ebooks are the simplest format to deal with, simply because they only require a front cover. Amazon states a preferred size of 2,560 pixels x 1,600 pixels. To ensure you’re exporting them in the correct size and format, check with your retailer’s website:

• Kindle Direct Publishing: eBook cover standards
• Apple Books: Cover Art
• Google Play Store: Book file guidelines 
• Kobo Writing Life: Setting up a new eBook
• Draft2Digital: FAQ

If you’re looking to publish in print formats, whether you’re offset printing or using print-on-demand , there are additional elements you’ll need to consider. If the following steps are more complicated than you’re happy with, you can always hire a professional to adapt your design into a full set of mechanicals (as it’s called in the industry).

Mind the typographic hierarchy on the back cover

The design of your book’s back cover can play an essential role in selling the book. You can incorporate elements like reviews, endorsements, the book’s blurb , your author bio , and social media handles to tell potential readers a bit more about yourself.

In deciding how big all the elements should be, try to think about the experience of an average reader. What information do you want to know when you hold a book in your hands and turn it over? A descending hierarchy — where the most important details are the largest in size — will guide the reader appropriately. 

In order, you might be looking at:

• Hook or logline (largest)
• Reviews and awards
• Social media and contact (smallest)

Once you figure out where all these blocks will go on the back cover, you can assign them a spot in your type hierarchy to lead readers through a little journey. 

Play around with the spine

One of the challenges of making a full cover is to get the spine right, since it depends on the book format, binding type, paper stock, and page count you choose.

Not all books are so long as to have a large spine, so in most cases, they are usually resolved with the most essential information: title and author. But a spine is an interesting area of action in terms of design.

Imagine people looking for a book on the shelves of a bookstore or library: an original spine can attract a reader’s eye more effectively.

In the case of Rocket Bride , we not only made sure to display the typographic information at an appropriate size and contrast, but we also introduced the faces of the main protagonists and a rocket logo.

Be careful with bleeding and margins

When arranging the different design elements on the cover, remember to maintain sufficient margins and an extra area for bleeding, which is necessary for the printing and cutting process. 

Most print services will usually offer templates to help you get your proportions right. KDP, for example, has a cover calculator and template generator that will turn out a PDF that you can import into your image editing software and lay over your design.

And don’t forget to leave some space for the ISBN barcode , which usually goes at the bottom left or right. And if you choose to get an ASIN barcode from Amazon, simply keep that area clean, and Amazon will add the code to it.

With that, you can export your print cover files as a PDF, ready to upload to your print service.

Create a cover for the audiobook version 

Adapting your cover design to a square format may mean needing a larger image to cover the entire area and fit properly with the specific composition of that context. Keep this in mind when hiring a photographer, illustrator, or designer.

(Note how the square format requires a larger illustrated area.)

And other promotional material

You finally have it: a shiny, brand-new book cover you can use to represent your book on the shelves and across all marketing channels! You might want to create a variety of 3D mockup images to use on digital ads, social media cover photos, or on your author’s website . 

You can use sites like Canva or Placeit to do it yourself, or if you’re collaborating with a professional, make sure to discuss this additional service before starting the project.

As you’ve probably realized by now, this process involves thorough industry research, creative brainstorming, and technical expertise, which is why we encourage indie authors to work with professionals in the field .  

While the fate of our princess and intergalactic smuggler remains a mystery, one thing is certain: their story boasts an outstanding cover, and your book deserves the same!

Continue reading

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Home / Cover Design / How to Create a Back-Cover Blurb that Sells

How to Create a Back-Cover Blurb that Sells

We all know how important our book’s title and cover  are when it comes to grabbing a reader’s attention and drawing them in. But, very few readers will ever make a buying decision based on those two elements alone.

What’s usually the deciding factor?

The back of the book cover and blurb of course.

Something, ironically, every author I know hates writing.

• What a back book cover blurb is and what it isn't
• Explanations and back book cover Examples for both fiction and nonfiction
• Steps to writing your own back book blurb and back cover copy

This is a guest post by the talented author and editor, Kelly Exeter of  Swish Publishing .

Table of Contents

Podcast episode – crafting a winning book description.

• Why Do Self-Publishers on Amazon Care?
• 1. Give the reader what they expect
• 2. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes
• 3. Keep it short
• 4. Make it scannable
• 5. Don’t tell the reader everything
• 6. Nail that first line (or two)
• A base template for FICTION blurb writing
• A base template for NON-FICTION blurb writing

What Is a Back Book Cover Blurb?

Before we get into why most authors hate writing their back book cover blurb, let’s clarify what it actually is.

In a nutshell, it’s the 200 odd words on the back cover of your book that describes the book to the reader. These words, if written well, will hook the reader and convince them they need to buy your book.

Which means, they’re effectively a sales pitch.

Now you’re seeing why most authors find them so hard to write.  Never fear, we will help with that today.

Side note: Another element on the back of the book is your bar code. Go here to get one custom made for you.

But first, I want to quickly clarify some terms you might equate with a back book blurb (but shouldn’t because they represent different parts of a book ).

• Synopsis – this is a detailed outline of the book that covers all the major points. It’s usually geared towards selling the book idea to an editor or publisher (not a reader).
• Blurb – distinct from the ‘back-cover blurb’ is this 1-2 line endorsement of a book by a celebrity or another author that sits on the book’s front cover. When you hear about authors being asked to ‘blurb’ a book, it’s this endorsement they’ve been asked to provide.
• Reviews – these are effectively longer versions of author endorsement blurbs, or short excerpts of book reviews by significant publications (like the New York Times ). These are often placed on the back cover of a book along with the back book blurb. They act like testimonials for the book.
• Book Description – these are the words that accompany your book’s listing on online sites like Amazon and Book Depository. The book description will often include the back book blurb text plus endorsements and reviews (much like the entire back cover of a book). If you don’t have a print version of your book and it’s only sold online, everything in this article about back book blurbs can be applied to your book description in online listings.

For two simple reasons, Self publishers on Amazon should care about their back book cover blurb because:

• If you publish on KDP Print or IngramSpark, you're going to need a back book cover design
• Because now, Amazon allows people to see the back of books on the book sales page

That last one is pretty big!

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How to Create a Back of the Book Cover Blurb that Sells

As already noted, writing a back book blurb is a marketing exercise . This means all the focus needs to be on the potential reader – their needs and expectations. Here are six rules to be mindful of before you put pen to paper on your back book cover blurb.

It’s so tempting to think “If everyone is doing x and I do y, then I’ll stand out from the crowd.” And sure, this works for a lot of things. Not with back book cover blurbs though. If you’ve written a non-fiction business book and your back blurb reads like a thriller novel, the reader is going to be very confused.

Do you know what confused readers do?

They put books back on the shelf or click on to the next Amazon book.

Before writing your back book blurb, choose 3-5 of the bestselling books in your genre and make a note of stylistic similarities. Then ensure you incorporate them into your back book jacket blurb.

This can be really hard for authors. We get so caught up in delivering an enthralling story or a big idea, we forget who we’re writing for. And we forget why someone would actually want to read our book. Remember:

Fiction readers are looking for entertainment and escapism.

Here’s the book blurb for Stephanie Myers’ Twilight :

“About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him – and I didn't know how dominant that part might be – that thirsted for my blood. Third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”

Regardless of whether or not you're a Twilight fan or not, that is a CAPTIVATING back cover blurb.

Non-fiction readers have a problem that needs to be solved.

Tony Robbins’ Unshakeable book blurb makes it very clear that if financial instability is a problem for you, his book can solve it.  Plus, in an ever crowded publishing world, Tony's blurb also proves why he's the writer to do just that:

“From the man who brought you one of the bestselling investment books of the decade comes a playbook to help millions of people achieve financial freedom.

After interviewing fifty of the world's greatest financial minds, and penning the #1 New York Times bestseller Money: Master the Game, Tony Robbins returns with a step-by-step playbook, taking you on a journey to transform your financial life and accelerate your path to financial freedom.”

250 words is a good ceiling for a good blurb. If you need more words than that to ‘sell’ your book, fiction or non-fiction, you might be in a bit of trouble!

Remember that a book description is not a summary of your book, it's a form of sales copy. The goal is to get people to want to find out more, not explain everything that happens.

For fiction, use short paragraphs. Note how Twilight  has its sentences laid out:

For non-fiction, bullet points are great. Here's a back book cover example for Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad:

Remember, a book blurb is not a synopsis. You need to make a strong promise to the reader (“I can help you,” “I will entertain you”), but don’t give away the whole story or big idea otherwise the reader has no reason to … read!

Oh boy. If the first few lines of a book’s blurb don't grab you, that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the book, does it? Here are some great ‘first line’ techniques:

Ask a question

Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles? (Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up .)

Set a scene

At first sight, Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet, a curmudgeon with staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People think him bitter, and he thinks himself surrounded by idiots. (Fredrik Backman,  A Man Called Ove .)

Speak directly to the reader’s problems

Entrepreneurs often suffer from the misconception that to be successful, they must do everything themselves. (Chris Ducker,  Virtual Freedom .)

Make a promise

Fitness, money and wisdom – here are the tools. (Tim Ferriss,  Tools of Titans .)

7. Include an Author Bio (Optional)

Many books have author bios and a profile picture attached. These are just a few short words that capture the readers attention. It's a great place for nonfiction authors to show off their credentials. But they aren't required, especially for fiction authors.

Steps to writing your back book blurb

Once you’ve taken in all of the above and gotten a feel for the promise you want to make to the reader, use the outlines below to write your book cover blurb.

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Take my full featured video course on how to select the best keywords and categories for your book.

Beth Bacon, an award-winning author and marketer, suggests this formula for writing a fiction book blurb:

• Situation .  Briefly, describe the circumstances of the story.
• Problem . Next write about the situation or hitch that makes change inevitable.
• Hopeful Possibility .  Here you provide the hope of overcoming the crisis. This is the cool main character or long shot possibility that gives hope that the difficult problem can be overcome.
• Mood .  This part describes the emotional state that readers will have from reading your story.  Example phrases include: “dark, dystopian tragedy”, “humorous chick lit cotton candy”, or “suspenseful, romantic and awash in…magic”.

Here’s a back book blurb example for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone ticking all the boxes above:

“Till now there's been no magic for Harry Potter. He lives with the miserable Dursleys and their abominable son, Dudley. Harry's room is a tiny closet beneath the stairs, and he hasn't had a birthday party in eleven years.

But then a mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitation to an incredible place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And there he finds not only friends, flying sports on broomsticks, and magic in everything from classes to meals, but a great destiny that's been waiting for him … if Harry can survive the encounter.”

This is a formula I’ve developed over the course of three non-fiction books of my own, and it’s served me well:

• Introduce the problem
• Outline how you propose to solve it (bullet points are good)
• Tell the reader how their lives will be better after reading your book

Here's a back book cover copy example of Jen Sincero’s You Are a Badass follows this formula:

“You Are a Badass is the self-help book for people who desperately want to improve their lives but don't want to get busted doing it.

In a refreshingly entertaining how-to guide … Jen Sincero serves up 27 bite-sized chapters … helping you to:

• Identify and change the self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviors that stop you from getting what you want.
• Create a life you totally love. And create it NOW.
• Make some damn money already. The kind you've never made before.

By the end of You Are a Badass , you'll understand why you are how you are, how to love what you can't change, how to change what you don't love, and how to use The Force to kick some serious ass.”

Over to You Now

Remember, the words you use on your back book cover is one of its most important book marketing tools and often the reason a reader will decide to buy your book. While it’s understandable that it’s the last thing you want to write after finalizing your book, it’s worth setting aside a good amount of time to give it the attention it deserves and needs. And while the words are the most important part of your back book blurb, you'll also want to make sure the layout looks nice too so if you use book mockups that show the back of your book, you'll have a front and back book cover that looks seamless, professional, and eye-catching.

Additionally, see this all-inclusive post about writing your book description.

About the Author: Kelly Exeter

Kelly Exeter is the author of three non-fiction books and a passionate editor. Via her Swish Publishing services she works with bloggers, writers and authors to sharpen their message and ensure their big ideas are delivered to the world in a way that best resonates with their target audience.

Dave Chesson

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

• Podcast Episode - Crafting a Winning Book Description

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Writing Your Book’s Back-Cover Copy

In today’s guest post, editor Jessi Rita Hoffman explains how to craft professional and compelling back-cover copy.

So you’ve written your book, you’ve chosen your title and cover design, and you’re breathing a sigh of relief. Now you have to decide what goes on the back cover. New authors sometimes rush this decision, writing the first thing that comes to mind. After all, it’s the back of the book. How important can it be?

A lot more important than a person might think. The hundred-and-fifty words you’ll place on your back cover are arguably the most important words in your entire book.

Here’s why. After the book title and front cover, the back cover is the next thing readers look at when deciding whether to make a purchase. The back-cover copy also functions as the primary ad for your book. Not only will it appear on the book itself, but you’ll probably use it as your Amazon description.

You have—at best—150 to 200 words to work with, because that’s all that will attractively fit on the back cover of most volumes. If the content is longer than that, you’ll have to make the font size so small that people will need a magnifying glass to read it. And that, of course, would not promote the sale.

Before sitting down to the task of writing your back-cover copy, examine the backs of other books in your genre for examples of how the copy should read. The examples you find will make everything you read in this article clearer.

What Novelists Should Say

If you are a novelist, your back cover should provide a short summary of what your book is about. Write only a paragraph or two, and include the hooks—the story’s most engaging plot points. If you queried agents or editors at any point, you might be able to start with the hook from your query letter.

Here is an example of back-cover copy for Loving Legit , a novel by my client Serena King:

Black businesswoman Monica Walker knows all about success. She’s transformed herself from broken-home victim to New York–magazine super-editor, and she’s only thirty at that. What she doesn’t know about is how to get a good man, a legit man who’ll put that ring on her finger. Her love life has been a series of romantic train wrecks. What disaster will her too-trusting heart lure her into next? Monica wants to find just one good guy who will respect and love her the way she deserves—but is he out there? What’s she doing wrong, she constantly wonders. Finally, it looks like wedded bliss is just around the corner. But has Monica found true love at last or just made another mistake?

It often works well if the description ends on an intriguing question or a point of tension—something that will hook the reader on the book’s premise or the character’s central dilemma. The back cover isn’t the place to get bogged down in arcane plot details; rather, you want to sell readers on the big-picture narrative arc.

What Nonfiction Authors Should Say

Unlike novelists, nonfiction authors should make a list of bullet points about the book’s main features and actually put that list on the back cover. Use three to five bullet points only (an odd number is best, marketing research shows). With the bullets, tell  what the book will do for the reader  or what the reader is going to learn from your book.

Keep the syntax (style) of the bullet points consistent. This is important, or the list won’t read right. If you start out with participles, stick with participles; if you start with clauses, stick with clauses.

Example of inconsistent bullet points:

In this book you’ll learn that: A rabbit can be litterbox-trained in a day Feeding the right kind of diet How to stop behavior problems

Example of consistent bullet points:

In this book, you’ll learn how to: Litterbox-train your rabbit in a day Feed a proper diet that extends your bunny’s life Stop behavior problems in their tracks

See the difference? The second list sounds polished. The first one sounds like an amateur wrote it.

Put the bulleted list in the middle of the copy you write for your back cover. Above the list, speak directly to the readers, and give them the primary reason why they should read your book. This should be broader in scope than the reasons you put in your bulleted list. One way to write this primary reason is to present it as a question.

Here’s an example from It’s Your Party—Make It Epic! —a book by my client Robyn Scates:

Do you feel stuck in your own life? Are you just going through the motions and calling it living? Does chaos seem to follow you, and even know your address? In It’s Your Party—Make it Epic! motivational speaker Robyn Scates talks straight about why our lives spiral out of control and how to get back in the driver’s seat. An attorney twice-honored as one of Maryland’s Top-100 Women, Robyn tells how she went from starring in other people’s mini-dramas to living authentically and regaining inner peace. Through stories, humor, and dozens of practical tips, she shows the way to anyone who has lost their joy and is trying to figure out why. In these pages you’ll discover: How to identify and end your toxic relationships How to stop saying “yes” when you mean “no” How to get free from situations that own you Why most people work at jobs that bore them How to find and protect your inner peace Your life is your party, but only if you control the invitation list. If you are a people-pleaser who wants to stop but doesn’t know how, this book is for you.

In this example, the back-cover copy ends with another appeal to the reader’s need, and with the personal and inviting statement, “This book is for you.”

Make sure that you aren’t the focus of the back cover. Make the focus your readers and why they should trust what you have to say. Unless you get in touch with your readers’ need for the book, and strike a chord with that, they will walk away and never open the pages, however excellent the writing and content might be.

Your Picture and a Bit about You

Besides those carefully chosen few words, your back cover should include a professional-looking photograph of you, the author. This should be a clear close-up photo of your face, and no one but you should be in the picture. You may have a cute spouse, kid, or pet, but this is not the place to show them off unless they are actually a part of the book.

Then, write a brief bio. For nonfiction authors, you should include two or three points to establish that you are an expert, with the training and/or experience that qualifies you to write about your topic.

What you say on your back cover about yourself will not take the place of your formal author bio, which should appear on a page inside the book near the back. You can go into some detail about your background there—but don’t do it on your back cover. (See my article “ Writing Your Author Bio Page .”)

What Not to Say

What shouldn’t you say on your back cover? Essentially, anything not discussed above. Remember you have only 150 to 200 words in which to deliver your message. Keep it short, sweet, and focused. Cut out every bit of repetition so you can stuff lots of information into those few words.

Also, make sure the tone is understated. People know you wrote this ad for the book, and if you write about it in superlatives, it makes you look bad—either arrogant or desperate or exaggerating, depending on people’s perception. Write confidently but humbly, stating facts about the book and telling its benefits, rather than writing adjectives and adverbs of self-praise. This will win you trust rather than reap you derision.

Endorsements—or Not

The back cover is also where you can place endorsements, if you have any. If you have several, they can take the place of the book description. If you have just one or two, the endorsements can appear along with the description. An endorsement is a short, pithy statement—by someone well-known in your genre (if you’re a novelist) or your field (if you write nonfiction)—who recommends your book to prospective readers. (See my article “ How to Get Endorsements for Your Book .”)

Don’t make the mistake of reeling in just anyone to write an endorsement for you. It truly does need to be a recognized name in your genre or field. Better to forego endorsements than to look like you tried to find someone important to recommend your book and no one would.

For Additional Help

If all of this sounds daunting, consider hiring an editor or marketing writer to help you craft your book’s back-cover copy in the most compelling way possible. And closely proofread the final version. Punctuation or grammar goofs in this highly visible spot broadcast the message that your book was not professionally written.

The words you place on your back cover are crucial to your book’s success. If they hook the reader, you’ve got a sale. If they don’t, then no matter how great the content is, the book will get passed over. Give your back-cover copy the time and attention required to make it the small gem it needs to be. The payoff you get will be worth it.

Jessi Rita Hoffman is a developmental book editor (content editor) who specializes in helping first-time authors. She can be reached through her website at www.JessiRitaHoffman.com or found on Twitter .

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[…] Editor Jessi Rita Hoffman explains how to craft professional and compelling back-cover copy for your book.  […]

Your timing is amazing, Jessi. JUST LAST NIGHT, I took a draft of my back cover copy to my writing group. It was a good first try, but they gave me so much great feedback. Thanks to your post, I’m even better equipped to do it right. Many thanks.

A very organized and easy to understand article with great tips! Thank you very much, Jessi!

Many writers I know use the query for the back cover. I think this is wrong, as the query is full of minute details to prove to an agent why the ms is different from thousands of others they receive, and questions are considered a gimmick. But I think a back cover copy benefits from generalities and questions that make it resemble other bestsellers in the genre and will hook more browsers that way. I must admit I can’t find professional articles to back this up though…

Glad my article was helpful, Marcy. And good luck with your book! You may like to visit my blog for more articles on how to create the components of your book, and writing secrets for both novelists and nonfiction authors. A good place to start reading is with my post: “Branding Your Book with Your Book Title and Cover,” which you’ll find at: http://bookeditor-jessihoffman.com/branding-book-book-title-cover/

Thanks for your comment, Lexicain. I agree it would be a mistake to cut-and-paste one’s back-cover content into an agent query letter. The audiences are different. In a query, you’re trying to persuade agents that what you wrote is marketable. In the back-cover copy, you’re trying to persuade readers that what you wrote is valuable to their life. The points you pitch may overlap in your query and back-cover content, but they won’t be identical.

You might like to subscribe to my blog at http://www.JessiRitaHoffman.com , where soon I’ll be posting an article with my tips for constructing a winning query letter. The queries I’ve written for my book editing clients have yielded nice results, including agents and book deals.

Your article came at the perfect time, Jessi! I am doing the last edits in my book and then sending to an editor.

Wonderful advice! Thank you!

[…] Jessi Rita Hoffman posted at JaneFriedman.com: Writing Your Book’s Back-Cover Copy […]

[…] To: Writing Your Book’s Back-Cover Copy, by Jessi Rita Hoffman – “So you’ve written your book, you’ve chosen your title and […]

[…] a book? You need back-cover copy and a good author photo. Jessi Rita Hoffman tells us how to write back-cover copy for any type of fiction or non-fiction book, and Bill Ferris shows us how to get the perfect author […]

Hey, Jessi, I wrote to @janefriedman to tell her how much I appreciated your article and her timing! Book-sales elements — back cover, synopsis, fly copy, etc. — are the brick and mortar of publishing, but minefields for Indies. At the Big Five, as you surely know, each element has its own talented copywriter. It’s tough for the rest of us to compete, maybe like trying a little legerdemain without know that distraction and language figure into the tricks. Thanks for baring the nitty gritty-necessities that even the most talented copywriter must handle. The rest is magic, I guess. 🙂

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What the Back Cover of a Book is Called & Why It’s Important

Self Publishing 101 |

Disclosure: The content on this site is free. Some of the links below are affiliate links from companies like Amazon.com and if you click the links and make a purchase we will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you in advance if you decide to support our site by using our affiliate links!

We all know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I’m going to be very real with all of you in a world that is growing more and more competitive in terms of media options and the number of books someone can pick up and consume, your cover counts big time. I hope you will forgive the self-promotion above since the cover is from the first book in my “Omega Conspiracy Series”, but I thought it illustrated the point of the article just fine.

Let’s answer a question that comes up a lot- What is the back of a book cover called? The back of a book cover has a few different names.

• The physical outer layer of book that can sometimes be removed from the actual bound cover is called a “Dust Jacket”
• The writing on a back of the cover or “dust jacket” is sometimes referred to as the book “Synopsis or Blurb”

As much as I know you’d love to read an article about dust jackets, in this article, we will dive deeper into the written matter on the back of the book cover more than the actual physical makeup of the cover itself. This is something that it really important for self-published authors and traditional authors for that matter.

Article Topics

Why is the Back of Your Book Cover so Important

As a self-published author, you have the blessing and curse that comes with having more say about every step in your book’s launch and marketing plan. This is something traditional publishers don’t always afford new writers.

With that being said you have to make sure that you set yourself up for success at each step in the process. The first window most prospective readers will have when deciding whether or not buy your novel is the book cover.

Put yourself in your reader’s shoes, they are browsing Amazon or their platform of choice looking for their next good read, and as they scroll they will have lists and lists of options. The front book cover normally gets all the accolades and importance when talking to new authors, and I understand why. It’s the lead singer of the band, everyone focuses on it.

Your front cover will help catch the eye of a prospective reader when they are searching a litany of options. A good front cover will get more prospective readers to stop and click on your book. It will buy you 15-20 more seconds that you otherwise wouldn’t get if your front cover was lacking and the potential reader just kept scrolling. Your back cover or blurb  will make them buy. The blurb or synopsis is meant to take those additional precious few seconds that your front cover earned you and hook the reader with intrigue and interest enough to click download or purchase. This is your chance to sell your reader on why they should dedicate time and money reading your story or why they shouldn’t. I want you to think about that for a second and see if you disagree with the premise of this article as to why the back cover is so important in your self-publishing journey.

So How Long Should The Blurb/Synopsis Be

If you are still reading this, then you probably agree that the blurb space of your back cover is a very important real estate, but the next question you might be asking is just how long should the Blurb be.

A Blurb should be anywhere between 150-200 well-crafted scintillating words. This is a good length to fit on most sized books, anything much longer than that you run the risk of the font getting so small it will be hard to read.

Readers aren’t naive, they know that you wrote this blurb to sell the book so your job is that much harder. You need to sell them even though in the back of their minds they know their being sold.

What should I include in the Blurb

BIG BLURB HINT-  The first thing you should do when sitting down to write the blurb to your book is make sure that you read and analyze other books in your genre to see current examples of selling authors. You can do this by Googling: Amazon Best Sellers and then find a list of best sellers in each category. Do your homework it will pay off and give you peace of mind.

Now that you’ve done your homework you probably have a much better idea on what a good blurb sounds like. But ask yourself these questions to really help analyze the blurbs you read and pick out what made them better than some of the others.

Ask yourself these questions when reading sample blurbs:

• What were the hooks that this Blurb Shared with me that made me want to read more?
• Did the blurb leave you asking questions?
• How did the blurb set up intrigue?
• How would those hooks appeal to a potential reader

Fiction Authors should include the following on their back covers

On the back cover your fiction book you want to remember the lessons and questions you answered above when doing your Blurb research. You should be thinking about these 200 words as 1 to 2 paragraphs to sell your book.

Make sure you aren’t using a lot of extra words, give a high-level 1000 foot view of what your novel is about. Make sure you are hitting main plot points but don’t worry about minutia. You want to lay out what makes your book intriguing to a potential reader and what they can expect from the story inside. Try to construct your synopsis so it tells your reader what the book is about, includes the major hooks but leaves them wanting more by also opening up other questions they need answering.

Here is a quick blurb best practice Checklist

• Keep your synopsis to 150 to 200 words so it fits on your cover at a decent font.
• Give your reader the biggest plot points at a 1000 foot view, avoid minute details
• Set up intrigue by structuring your blurb so it gets the reader asking more questions
• If you can end it with a big piece of suspense that the reader just needs to be answered then you have a great chance of them hitting purchase.

Also, Include Endorsements on Your Book’s Back Cover

If you have endorsements from another author in your Genre the back cover is a great place to put them. It gives the reader some social proof from another authority in the genre which can be great for unknown authors.

Amazon uses this concept all over their site with: Readers who purchased this also purchased these books.  

If you have an endorsement, use it.

Nonfiction Book Back Covers are a little different.

For a nonfiction, author credibility becomes the utmost importance for a potential buyer. You want to include a few sentences about you as an Author to establish your credibility.

Think about it, if you were buying a book on real estate sales you would want to know the author’s past experience and success in selling real estate.

If you wanted to read a book on dog training, then you would want the back cover blurb to explain how the author has bred and trained champion dogs for more than 20 years.

If you want to get a book on writing a best seller, you would want to go to a best seller like Steven King. Nonfiction books serve a very specific need in the reader’s mind. They want to read the book to help them solve a problem or learn something new.  Make sure you remember this.

You should focus your nonfiction back book cover on what the book will do for the reader, what it can help them learn, how those skills will solve a problem or make their situation better moving forward.

As a nonfiction reader you want the information to be:

• Clear and Concise
• Come from a credible source
• Be Actionable
• Help You reach your desired outcome moving forward

It’s a good idea to put the top 3 to 5 bullets highlighting the biggest benefits the reader will get from the book or what the reader will learn from the book.

It’s a good idea to include a professional headshot of the Author on Nonfiction book covers as well.

Endorsements work great for nonfiction covers as well

I know authors feel weird about marketing themselves but if you have an endorsement from a respected member of the topic you are writing about, then it behooves you to include those endorsements on the back cover as well.

Remember the back cover is prime real estate and if your book description/blurb doesn’t convince the reader that your book will help answer their questions, or improve their outcome moving forward, they are most likely going to keep searching until they find one that does.

So let’s Review

• The back of a book cover is called different things, but the back matter on the cover is really important no matter what you call it.
• Blurbs are what sell your book when your front cover has attracted prospective readers enough to click on the novel from a huge list of options.
• Keep your blurb concise and compelling- around 150-200 words.
• Endorsements are gold, they help give you social proof in the eyes of a new reader.
• Make sure you add your biggest plot hooks for fiction books
• Keep the level of detail at a 10k foot view
• Leave your readers intrigued and wanting more
• Try to end your blurb with a big question that set’s your reader’s insides on fire with desire needing to have it answered.
• Make sure you establish your credibility with a couple of sentences – no one wants to buy a book on how to swim the 100-meter breaststroke from someone who is afraid of the baby pool
• Make sure you clearly outline how your book will help your readers
• Use bullet points to outline your books biggest benefits
• Remember the reader isn’t reading for enjoyment, they are reading nonfiction to learn something or help them solve a problem.

I hope this article on what the back cover of your book is actually called helped, and more importantly, I hope it helped you understand just how important book blurbs are in the overall success of your book.

Don’t overlook that precious real estate that faces the world for everyone to see. It can make the difference between a reader clicking check inside for a preview or buying your book straight away. Amazon and all other platforms like to show consumers or in this case book readers products/books that convert. So if you get someone to click on your title, you want to really hook them with your back cover!

Hope this helps, thanks for reading and writing!

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5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week

“ms. munro has created tales that limn entire lifetimes in a handful of pages.”.

Our F5 tornado of fantastic reviews this week includes Michiko Kakutani on Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage , Ron Charles on Kristi Noem’s No Going Back , Christine Smallwood Miranda July’s All Fours , Sandra Newman on Hari Kunzru’s Blue Ruin , and Alissa Nutting on Kimberly King Parsons’s We Were the Universe .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s home for book reviews.

“The women in Alice Munro’s stories, like the men in the fiction of John Updike, find themselves perpetually torn between two poles: between domesticity and independence; between familial roots and freedom; between a yearning for connection and a more solitary sense of themselves as outsiders. In tracing the choices her heroines make and the fallout of their decisions, Ms. Munro has created tales that limn entire lifetimes in a handful of pages, tales whose emotional amplitude and keen sense of the mundane muddles of ordinary life have established her over the last three decades as one of the foremost practitioners of the art of the short story.

Eschewing the fashionable minimalism that for a long time dominated short story writing, Ms. Munro has remained devoted to an old-fashioned realism, demonstrating with consummate skill the elastic possibilities of that school and its enduring ability in our postmodern, postlinear age to capture the way that people live today. The stories in her new collection, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage , are no exception: they attest to her Chekhovian ability to create characters as real and flawed and sympathetic as people we know firsthand and to show us how those characters are shaped by love and loss and the simple passage of time.”

–Michiko Kakutani on Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage ( The New York Times )

“On Tuesday, the South Dakota governor published a political memoir called No Going Back . But days before it appeared, everyone on planet Earth already knew about the passage in which Noem describes shooting her 14-month-old wire-haired pointer named Cricket …The description of Cricket’s Last Stand is the one time in this howlingly dull book that Noem demonstrates any sense of setting, character, plot and emotional honesty. Otherwise, it’s mostly a hodgepodge of worn chestnuts and conservative maxims, like a fistful of old coins and buttons found between the stained cushions in a MAGA lounge … the central moment in Noem’s memoir is that transcendent scene of South Dakota gothic.

Picture it: Harvest season, ‘the Super Bowl of farming.’ But it’s hunting season at their lodge, too. ‘Balancing both at full throttle is enough to break a family,’ Noem says. She does everything possible to make sure friends from Georgia bag some pheasants, but Cricket—’out of her mind with excitement’—ruins everything … Gripping, right? Disturbing, even. Forget Travis and his beloved yellow cur. For a few glorious pages, Noem feels like a Flannery O’Connor character with tax cuts. Honestly, as someone who had to endure all 260 pages of No Going Back , I wish Noem had shot more dogs—or me.”

–Ron Charles on Kristi Noem’s No Going Back ( The Washington Post )

“…gutsy, funny, wise, chaotic, dirty, panic-inducing … July is a fabulist of mortality. Her characters feel the dread of making the choices that define one’s time on earth and suffer the consequences for taking—and missing—their chances … One of the pleasures of All Fours is surprise … Another is July’s ability to take familiar, everyday experiences and return them strange and new and precisely voiced … The specificity of observations about the body is staggering. The novel excavates every sensation, every intriguing fold of flesh …

July’s novel is hot and weird and captivating and one of the most entertaining, deranged, and moving depictions of lust and romantic mania I’ve ever read. It speaks frankly about women’s bodies; she’s a master of sentences. In the end, however, it exudes the off-putting assurance of a convert and steers into the lane of self-help. As the narrator’s marriage evolves, the book falls apart. Her despair and obsession—the stuff of great literature—gets diffused into open and honest conversation, scheduling, and lessons learned. Everyone is very mature. This modern solution to the marriage problem may be a good thing in real life, but it just can’t pack the classic novelistic wallop of love and death.”

–Christine Smallwood Miranda July’s All Fours ( Vulture )

“These long flashback sections, which take up most of the book, are what is most remarkable in Blue Ruin. The seamy, drug-crazed, millenarian atmosphere of the 90s British art world, with its intermingled idealism and cynicism, is brilliantly evoked. Here radical artists squat in derelict industrial buildings, but fill them with paintings that pander to the tastes of wealthy collectors; any quest for authenticity immediately becomes just a cannier way to sell out. Not only art but artist is reduced to a commodity. Against this backdrop, Jay and Alice seek solace and humanity in each other, but are ineluctably brought down by demons of past and present …

I tend to be sceptical of this gothic treatment of working-class reality, in which being broke and doing unskilled jobs becomes a descent into the underworld and a purifying ordeal. But I have to admit it works here, if only because Kunzru does it so well … as a whole, Blue Ruin is bracingly intelligent and often just plain beautiful. It’s a reminder that fiction, at its best, is a place to encounter new experiences and dwell in big ideas. Kunzru is known for ambitious novels that bring politics to rich, imaginative life; Blue Ruin shows him at the top of his game.”

–Sandra Newman on Hari Kunzru’s Blue Ruin ( The Guardian )

“When you hear the phrase ‘grief novel,’ relentless, wildly entertaining horniness probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But that’s what Kimberly King Parsons’s singular debut novel, We Were the Universe , immediately delivers … The ride could not be more rewarding; Parsons’s transgressive boldness allows us to feel the soul in places that moderation simply cannot reach …

Ultimately, the structure of We Were the Universe comes to function like a psychedelic journey itself. Discursive modules open up context and click the kaleidoscopic lens of perspective, deepening and expanding everything we thought we knew … though the book’s end brings a curtain-drop twist that is the plot-based equivalent of sudden mescaline clarity and awe, equally moving are the moments of joy found in the imagined interiority of Kit’s own fantasies … Pretending can be a sanctuary, too, and depending on the situation sometimes that’s all we have. The stars in We Were the Universe also glimmer in the midst of the everyday … Parsons has gifted us with a profound, gutsy tale of grief’s dismantling power. The love between Kit and Julie continues to grow despite Julie’s death. They were a universe; by the novel’s end, they feel like a multiverse.”

–Alissa Nutting on Kimberly King Parsons’s We Were the Universe   ( The New York Times Book Review )

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Being Nick Kristof

In “Chasing Hope,” the veteran Times journalist remembers the highs and lows of his storied career.

Nicholas D. Kristof covering an Arab Spring protest in Bahrain in 2011. Credit... via Nicholas Kristof

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By Reeves Wiedeman

Reeves Wiedeman is a features writer at New York magazine and the author of “Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork.”

• May 14, 2024
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CHASING HOPE: A Reporter’s Life, by Nicholas D. Kristof

There aren’t many journalists who can claim to have had more of an impact on the world than Nicholas D. Kristof. In 1997, one of his dispatches for The New York Times, about routine ailments killing children in India and elsewhere, inspired Bill and Melinda Gates to focus their philanthropy on global health; billions of dollars later, that article hangs in the lobby of the Gates Foundation. In the 2000s, according to the former head of the International Rescue Committee, Kristof’s coverage of the genocide in Darfur saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

And then, of course, there is the editorial Kristof wrote for The Carlton-Yamhill Review while in grade school, successfully challenging a rule against girls’ wearing bluejeans. His goals, he explains in his memoir, “Chasing Hope,” were to “impress girls” and to “overthrow the patriarchy.”

Stories like these, and many more, fill up Kristof’s book, which charts a charmed and committed journalistic life. Kristof has spent four decades at The Times, and won two Pulitzer Prizes — he shared the first with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, for their reporting on the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1990 — but his career began all the way back when he was a boy in rural Oregon battling the powers that be and dreaming of becoming a foreign correspondent. It didn’t take him long to get there.

“I was the youngest national correspondent at the paper,” Kristof writes after describing his arrival at The Times in 1984; he was 25 years old and promoted quickly. A few pages later, he’s off to Hong Kong “to become the youngest foreign correspondent” at the paper. (A trigger warning for other journalists: His annual expenses in 1980s Hong Kong came out to more than $500,000 in today’s dollars.)

“Chasing Hope” is devoted in large part to stories about how Kristof got the story and to documenting his swift rise through the journalistic ranks at The Times. But it begins on a descent, in 1997, with Kristof aboard a small airplane that is crash-landing in the Congolese jungle amid a civil war. Before the crash, he begs a soldier to sign a handmade receipt for a $100 bribe, which Kristof had paid him so the plane could refuel.

From there, we follow Kristof to Cairo in the ’80s, where he deals with the fact that “Nick,” in Arabic, translates to a word not to be published here. Then, it’s on to Cambodia, where he reports on the country’s sex trade and does not immediately disabuse a brothel owner of the idea that he might be a customer. “If I purchased a girl from her brothel and freed her, was I breaking any American law?” Kristof later wonders.

In Indonesia in the late ’90s, he sees a group of men on motorcycles driving by with a head on a pike. “I have a routine for approaching people who may kill me,” Kristof writes. “My theory is that it’s harder to murder someone you’ve just shaken hands with.”

“Chasing Hope” suggests that Kristof has shaken hands with plenty of killers, and should by now have a pretty grim worldview. After reading Thomas Hobbes in college, Kristof at first dismissed the philosopher’s bleak assessment of human existence. “Then I became a reporter,” Kristof writes. At one point in the book, he describes a young woman who had been enslaved and raped by janjaweed fighters in Darfur talking to an American aid worker who wants to help. “There’s nothing you can do for us,” the woman says. “We just want to die.”

And yet Kristof says he remains “a perpetual optimist,” with a belief from the very beginning of his career — see the bluejeans campaign — that journalism is a means to better the world. (Kristof credits his do-goodism to his mother and father, the only parents in his conservative hometown to let the school principal know that they didn’t want their child to be paddled.)

There’s also a surprising cheeriness to much of the book — Kristof loves an exclamation point — and he makes the case that there’s plenty to be hopeful about, from positive trends in global health to all the hard-working bighearted types Kristof has met along the way. But I often wanted to know more about some of the people in dire circumstance whom Kristof mentions only briefly before moving on to continue his story. I wondered if they shared his sense of optimism.

“ Chasing Hope” will satisfy Kristof superfans eager to know more about every era of his life — there are back-to-back chapters titled “I Become an Editor” and “I Begin My Column” — but the book suffers for its insistence on being completist. Kristof has traveled to 170 countries, and, by my count, this book manages to mention his visits to about half of them. One thorny border crossing eventually blurs into the next.

Like most journalists, Kristof has also always been more illuminating about others than about himself. Several chapters devoted to his failed run for governor of Oregon in 2022 offered a chance for introspection and a bit of digging into what went wrong — the State Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Kristof didn’t meet the residency requirement — but we don’t learn much beyond a few stray details like his strategic decision to connect with the common Oregonian by not carrying around his shoulder bag from Davos.

Still, there is reason for hope here, too. The life Kristof has lived really is a testament to the power of telling other people’s stories. Now that he has shared his own, he can get back to doing just that.

CHASING HOPE : A Reporter’s Life | By Nicholas D. Kristof | Knopf | 460 pp. | $32

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Kristi Noem’s dog killing is pure Southern gothic

A literary critic’s take on the South Dakota governor’s memoir, “No Going Back.”

Toward the end of Fred Gipson’s 1956 classic, “Old Yeller,” Travis says, “It was going to kill something inside me to do it, but I knew then that I had to shoot my big yeller dog.”

Reading that scene again yesterday, damn if I wasn’t struck by the same storm of tears that overtook me in seventh grade. It’s a devastating moment, full of anguish, permanently embedded in the memory of anyone who’s read the novel or seen the movie.

If this week is any guide, a dog-killing scene will be permanently embedded in our memories of Kristi Noem, too. On Tuesday, the South Dakota governor published a political memoir called “ No Going Back .” But days before it appeared, everyone on planet Earth already knew about the passage in which Noem describes shooting her 14-month-old wire-haired pointer named Cricket .

What you can’t get from the 24/7 worldwide freakout, though, is how strange Cricket’s summary execution feels in context. That grisly story pops up in a chapter called “Will the World Awaken?” — right after Noem describes how much Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wanted to meet her and right before she lays out a series of clichés called “The Noem Doctrine” — e.g. “Fight to win.”

In the fight with Cricket, Noem won the battle but lost the war . Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Republican garden gnome Karl Rove called “No Going Back” an act of “stunning self-destruction.” As Donald Trump considers whom to pick for his vice president, “bragging about shooting her puppy in a gravel pit ended her hopes of being selected.”

As a literary critic, I must object. The description of Cricket’s Last Stand is the one time in this howlingly dull book that Noem demonstrates any sense of setting, character, plot and emotional honesty. Otherwise, it’s mostly a hodgepodge of worn chestnuts and conservative maxims, like a fistful of old coins and buttons found between the stained cushions in a MAGA lounge.

And far too many people have been obsessing about Noem’s fantastical tête-à-tête with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Come on — who among us hasn’t mistakenly believed that we once faced down the leader of the Hermit Kingdom? As I told Joseph Stalin, “We all make mistakes.”

But the central moment in Noem’s memoir is that transcendent scene of South Dakota gothic.

Picture it: Harvest season, “the Super Bowl of farming.” But it’s hunting season at their lodge, too. “Balancing both at full throttle is enough to break a family,” Noem says. She does everything possible to make sure friends from Georgia bag some pheasants, but Cricket — “out of her mind with excitement” — ruins everything. “I was livid,” Noem writes.

Then, on the way home from that disaster, Cricket attacks some beloved, irreplaceable chickens at a neighbors’ house. The mother — holding a baby, no less! — runs toward the melee, sobbing: “My chickens! No, not my chickens!” Noem pays for the birds and hauls Cricket into her truck. “She whipped around to bite me,” she says. “I hated that dog.”

Once home, Noem leads Cricket to the gravel pit and dispatches her. Then she spots a smelly old billy goat that she wants to kill, too. The first shot goes awry. She has to run across the pasture for more bullets “to finish the job.”

Construction workers taking a coffee break at her house witness all this carnage. “When they saw me heading their way,” Noem writes, “they put their cups down, got up and went back to work — in a real hurry.”

Gripping, right? Disturbing, even. Forget Travis and his beloved yellow cur. For a few glorious pages, Noem feels like a Flannery O’Connor character with tax cuts. Honestly, as someone who had to endure all 260 pages of “No Going Back,” I wish Noem had shot more dogs — or me.

Ron Charles reviews books and writes the Book Club newsletter for The Washington Post. He is the book critic for “ CBS Sunday Morning .”

No Going Back

The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward

By Kristi Noem

Center Street. 272 pp. $30

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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Indianapolis sports columnist won’t cover Fever following awkward back-and-forth with Caitlin Clark

Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark arrives on the Red Carpet before the world premiere and screening of Episode 1 of the upcoming ESPN+ Original Series Full Court Press, Monday, May 6, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indianapolis Star sports columnist Gregg Doyel, whose interaction with WNBA No. 1 draft pick Caitlin Clark at her introductory news conference was criticized in the national media as being inappropriate, will not cover the Indiana Fever in person this season.

Gannett spokesperson Lark-Marie Antón said in a statement the corporate owner of the Star does not comment on personnel matters but added: “Indianapolis Star sports columnist Gregg Doyel will not be covering the Indiana Fever.”

Former Star sports writer Bob Kravitz, citing anonymous sources, first reported the decision and also that Doyel had been suspended for two weeks, which Antón would not confirm. Doyel’s most recent column appeared April 29.

Doyel has apologized for the interaction with Clark during a news conference in Indianapolis two days after the Fever chose the Iowa star with the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft. When it was Doyel’s turn to ask a question, he made a heart shape with his hands toward Clark, who is known for making the gesture toward family members at her games. That was followed by this exchange:

Clark: “You like that?”

Doyel: “I like that you’re here, I like that you’re here.”

Clark: “Yeah, I do that to my family after every game, so... Pretty cool.”

Doyel: “Well, start doing it to me, and we’ll get along just fine.”

The interaction was roundly panned as being awkward at best and inappropriate and even creepy at worst. Doyel apologized on social media and again in a column.

“In my haste to be clever, to be familiar and welcoming (or so I thought), I offended Caitlin and her family,” he wrote. “After going through denial, and then anger – I’m on the wrong side of this? Me??? – I now realize what I said and how I said it was wrong, wrong, wrong. I mean it was just wrong.”

Doyel did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Wednesday. The Fever are expected to be one of the biggest draws during the WNBA season that opens next week.

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

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The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard; A View from the Stars by Cixin Liu; Flowers from the Void by Gianni Washington; The Dark Side of the Sky by Francesco Dimitri; The Hungry Dark by Jen Williams; To the Stars and Back by various writers

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard ( Atlantic, £16.99 ) This debut novel is set in an isolated valley caught between its own past and future. To the east is a valley 20 years ahead; to the west, the same place is 20 years in the past. To protect against catastrophic changes to the timeline, the borders are fenced and patrolled by armed guards. The governing Conseil grants a few brief supervised crossings every year, to elderly mourners desperate for a glimpse of their loved ones when they were still alive. Odile is a shy, studious girl training for a place on the Conseil when she glimpses two visiting mourners lurking outside the school. Recognising them as older versions of the parents of a funny, talented boy she likes, she faces an impossible choice. He is doomed to die, but if she tries to save him, she will destroy her own future. The experience changes her life and never stops haunting her until, years later, she must confront other ethical dilemmas. This is an unusual approach to time travel, a philosophical thought experiment and a deeply moving, ultimately thrilling story about memory, love and regret.

A View from the Stars by Cixin Liu ( various translators; Head of Zeus, £20 ) Essays and short stories from the past three decades by the author of The Three-Body Problem . His stories are filled with a sense of wonder as they push ideas about the future of humanity to their extremes, and the personal essays offer a rare glimpse into attitudes towards science fiction in China and how the genre has changed. A fascinating collection.

Flowers from the Void by Gianni Washington ( Serpent’s Tail, £14.99 ) The stories in this wide-ranging collection of horror and fantasy run from the gothic grotesque to even more disturbing tales about weird obsessions and fatal misunderstandings. Some border on science fiction, with alien creatures and lifesize living dolls, while a fantasy about an African witch trying to join an all-white coven in colonial Massachusetts is so richly imagined it feels like a novel in miniature. An impressive debut from a very talented new writer.

The Dark Side of the Sky by Francesco Dimitri ( Titan, £9.99 ) The tale of a cult told from the inside, through the voices of its members, collectively known as the Bastion. To outsiders, founders Becca and Ric are dangerous con artists, but those in the community believe they have found a better, more spiritual way to live, and that the Bastion is truly the last defence against our world’s destruction. They have seen the stars change when they gather in the pine forest, and are aware of being watched by hungry eyes on the other side of the sky. An absorbing, fascinating novel, cleverly devised so that the reader is never quite sure where reality ends and fantasy begins.

The Hungry Dark by Jen Williams ( HarperVoyager, £16.99) After seven fantasy novels, Williams changed direction to crime thrillers. Her latest involves the hunt for a serial killer, but sits firmly in the British folk horror tradition. As a child, Ashley was haunted by the sight of silent grey figures gathering around her, and had a premonition of a tragedy she was unable to prevent. As an adult, she makes a living as a psychic – but it’s all faked, until those strange figures appear again and lead her to the body of a missing child. Atmospheric and suspenseful, a well-plotted blend of supernatural and crime.

To the Stars and Back: Stories in Honour of Eric Brown, edited by Ian Whates ( NewCon Press, £13.99 ) All new stories from some of Britain’s top SF writers, including Alastair Reynolds, Justina Robson, Ian Watson, Philip Palmer and other friends and admirers of the author Eric Brown, who died last year.

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