The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 50 – How to Create a GOOD Book Description

Did you know that after your book cover, your book's description is the most important tool for selling your book?

It's true!

And in this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, we break down not only how important a good book description is, but how to create one for your book!

For more info and tips on how to write a book description, check out Jesper's book at https://www.jesperschmidt.com/books/how-to-write-a-fantasy-book-description/

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

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Read the full transcript below.

(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s): Hello, I'm Jesper and I'm autumn. This is episode 50 of the M writing fantasy podcast and we are going to discuss the book description and some also call it the blurb. It's basically what you write on the back of your book and S a sales description on sites like Amazon. So we're going to discuss what makes for a good book description how'd you write one con, which can convert to sales and that's all coming up on this episode. Excellent. I can't wait because this is so important to your book sales and interesting readers, but yeah, we'll get there.

Autumn (1m 7s): But first we have some news. So you had quite the week. I understand. Yes. For.

Jesper (1m 14s): Yeah. I don't think that our listeners want to hear any of the details because I've just been sick with the stomach flu for several days and then it was not a pleasant experience. And and the details I will spare you

Autumn (1m 27s): does not sound like fun. I mean, that definitely puts a dent in everything. I mean, it's like a full stop when you're truly, truly sick and in bed, so I'm glad you're feeling better. Yeah,

Jesper (1m 39s): much better now. Yeah, I was, I was in bed for three days with, with 40 degrees fever, so you can, you can imagine now that I'm feeling better and I got back to my work and whatnot. There's just a ton of things that I'm behind on now, but that's the name of the game.

Autumn (1m 53s): It is a it. Yeah. It's always seems like I know you and I know us and we always have our to do list that we'll never see the bottom of because we're always adding new things and so you not working on something for a few days and must have looked like a mountain grew.

Jesper (2m 8s): Yes, exactly. Yeah, I've been, I would say today, uh, uh, my time, we're recording this in the evening, so, so all day today I've been really busy trying to catch up on stuff, but I think I have some stuff I need to catch up on tomorrow as well. But for the most part I'm quite pleased with the progress I made today. So I got a lot done today, so that's good.

Autumn (2m 32s): That's very good. Now for me, I mean I was told you I was maybe struggling with a little bit of a cold. I had a small fever, nothing like you had, but I think my computer is like cursed right now. Honestly, I've never had one of those weeks where like you try to go do something simple and whatever you try to do either needs updated just isn't working right. You gotta reboot, you've got to reload. It just seems like everything I've tried to touch on my computer this week has been fighting me, so I'm, I'm about ready to toss it out the window even though of course I can't cause I kind of need it.

Oh, it has been. Maybe a computer has the stomach flu as well. I think I might be at least, I know it's not a virus, but it might have the stomach flu and even my Wacom tablet. So you know, they do a lot of graphic design. You know, I go and work on something a couple of days ago I go to go back to it and first Photoshop didn't work. Uh, the new update complete. I can't open a file that was nearly finished, this really big full paperback rep and Photoshop open it. So two hours later, my entire time to work on it, I finally managed, just said to heck with it and reverted to the former addition of Photoshop and it would open.

And then, so at least I got it as far as opening. But then I go to work on a new cover today and my Wacom tablet, my, that I use for drawling isn't working. Every time I go to touch it with the pen, it goes to the upper left corner of my screen and I'm like, I could touch it. But every time I use the pen it zooms off. Some lie. So after some research that I finally decided it was probably the drivers and updated those. So I am ready to work again, but I'll get back to that later tonight.

I see,

Jesper (4m 25s): Oh my God, this is what like one thing, you know that I cannot stand. It's like all also, you know, if my, if my computer is not working or something like that, it's like I feel like what should, what should I say? Like, like the carpenter who was trying to do some carpentry and then his tools are not working as well. It's just like, it just has to work. I don't want to fix tools. They just have to work. They're there to serve me and I hated when they don't work.

Autumn (4m 53s): Absolutely. And it seems like, like, you know, especially for something creative, you're in the mind or like thinking about it that you want to sit down to write and like, you know, you either don't have paper or your Scrivener isn't working or something silly like that. And it's just like, it kills the energy that you have going that you want to give to whatever you're working on. And so yeah, that's I think part of the frustration too. You're just who wants to spend two hours trying to figure out a Photoshop update when they could be drawing and making happy pictures.

So that was my week. Writing fantasy

Jesper (5m 34s): so this is a sort of a bit of old news by now I guess I'm not old, but it's like a month old I would say. Uh, but I, I post a some, some details about it last week on, on Patrion, uh, because we have now got the ability to place Amazon ads in the Amazon UK and the Amazon German stores. That's right. So that's pretty cool. I mean, technically you could do it before, but you needed an Amazon advantage account, which was pretty damn difficult to get.

I tried like three times applying for it myself and I never got one because you're not supposed to it w it was sort of like a work around of the system if you like. So I never got in there, but now they have officially opened soda. You can actually place Amazon ads in DC, in the Yukon German stall by at the KDP dashboard itself. So I started testing out that and playing around with it somewhat. So that's pretty good actually. Um, I've started to see uptakes sales in the UK where it was very difficult to sell something before because if you can't advertise, we all know how you, how you drown in the, in the sea of books.

So, uh, Oh easily. Yeah. So it has helped a lot. Um, but I will say for those who's going to test this stuff out, uh, be careful of the currency differences please because, uh, if you are betting like let's say 50 cents in the U S that don't put 50 cent into the UK store because then it's 50, you know, it takes pounds. Join no, not 50 pounds, but yeah, but it's, it's all, all of a sudden a pound's currency. Right? So zero dot five is a lot more than zero dot five in the U S store.

Yes. So at the same thing for the Germans sort of start as Euro. So that's a 50 cent Euro and not 50 cents USD. So be careful. Otherwise you will pay a lot of money to Amazon all of a sudden.

Autumn (7m 28s): That's a very good tip. I'll have to remember that. I haven't tried that out, but I do need to beef up my advertising. Again, I'm trying to revamp, thinking outside the box on marketing because like you said, so many people are doing the exact same thing. And I just, I'm always hitting that wall going, what is next? What is new? What is no one else doing? And well, when I figured it out and get it working, I'll certainly let you know for now, I later, everybody will be doing it too. Maybe I won't let anyone know. Maybe I'll just let you know or maybe just start listening.

I don't know. We'll figure that one out. But I am bound and determined. If we find something new and innovative because there's gotta be something else, it can work because, Oh my gosh, Amazon is so saturated.

Jesper (8m 13s): Yeah. But to be honest, I think finding something new, it is difficult. Um, I think it might be more about just being better at the ass and everybody else so that you just learn how to do it. Even better. I mean, Amazon ads, it might not be the best example because that's like uploading keywords and doing some bidding. So, but at least if you're doing something like Facebook apps, there is a lot of different, very insisted you can, you sort of apply to ads in terms of how you're targeting and how you're placing the ads and all that stuff.

So I think there you can learn how to do it really well and, and then make, basically make a difference in. And we have some, uh, wealthy, this is way too early, talk about that, but I can never help herself. But we have some stuff that we already have prepared and developed for three costs that we're going to do in 2020, but I can almost say with certainty that is not going to be ready until after someone next year. But in there, we actually gonna, um, give you the possibility to, uh, to get your hands on an ad tracker that we use or I use so far, but it's for also used for our books.

Um, and it's gonna it will, well, I already wrote it, so I know it's, it's, it's explaining all the best practices and how to do it, how to target, how to, where to place your ads, how to think about your ad copy and, and everything is India. So we're going to give you that your PO, the possibility for, for you to get a hand of that in the last half of 20, 20. Uh, and of course if anything changes, I will of course updated as well.

Um, but yeah, and then once we get that to you, then everybody will start doing that. Then I'll need to figure out.

Autumn (10m 6s): But that's all they new. But that's all right. It is really such a cool sheet. So I mean, I was excited when I saw that and I need to get into using it and get my, like I said, my marketing tamed, but it's really excellent. Yeah. Um, so basically, yeah, that was some stuff I posted about on, on Patrion, uh, last week. And, um, I think if, if you want the listener to get some exclusive posts like that one that I mentioned here together with writing tips that autumn post regularly as well.

We also have early access to the podcast episodes, dedicated Q and a sessions and much, much more than a checkout amwritingfantasy on patron.

Jesper (10m 48s): There was a link in the show notes down below. So I just have to say that there was a lot of work that goes into producing these podcasts episodes every week. So if you do find them valuable, you know, as little as a dollar a month, we'll really make sure too that we keep the lights on here. So, so consider that please.

Autumn (11m 7s): Yeah. And we appreciate it. And especially though not just the patronage and getting some, you know, that dollar a month. But I know like Jay Zaid had once again mentioned that he, uh, he really liked the one reason podcasts where I mentioned that even though I hear in my forties, I just discovered this awesome purple beauty Berry that I didn't know exist, that there's actually a plant that has purple berries and I love purple. So it really connected home with him that, you know, even the most experienced character in his story is not going to know everything about the world or everything that's going on.

And I thought that was really cool cause one I helped another writer and two, it's, it's so true. It's another perspective just because you have a knowledgeable character that they're not going to know everything and it's so much fun to get to talk writing and help each other out and you know, get new perspectives. And we do that all on Patreon so it's kind of fun. I hope you join us there.

Jesper (12m 10s): Oh, so book description actually one of my quiet, it's a topic I quite liked, but I used to hate, I guess I could put like that. That's true.

Autumn (12m 20s): It's one you have to grow to love. And I see so many authors, you know, complaining about writing them and I have to admit that I used to complain to like, how do you boil 105 hundred and 20,000 words down to, you know, ideally you something around 500 but I know for me, I really conquered these when I wrote the 11 short stories that would into the beginning of the prequel to my dystopian a series and I decided to reach release all 11 individually and I think I was really getting excited about this and so excited I had the covers and then I realized, Oh my goodness.

And it means I need 11 blurbs. I love it that the rest of the series to right. What was I doing? And so that's when I just changed my tune and got much more scientific and much more organized about how to write this and you, yeah, I know you like this. You have a whole book on book descriptions.

Jesper (13m 21s): Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. We're going to put that in description field. Austria. Sorry, that was my old YouTube eh habit coming up there in the show notes. I mean we can't put that on the show notes. Two years of YouTube thing. I guess we can forgive you. Yeah. Uh, but, but I don't know. Maybe it's because writing a book description it's a bit, maybe people think a bit about it. S S writing ad copy almost. You know, so we used to putting together this wonderfully beautiful constructed word words in, in a full fantasy novel and all of a sudden we have to do ad copy in 200 words.

It's like, well we don't want to do that. You know, may, maybe that's part of part of why people don't like it. I'm not, I'm not sure. I mean if I think back originally was not because I did not like it do to the ad copy aspect of it. I think it's more like I just didn't understand how to do it in a way that it would not read like at either a very boring ad copy or it would be like almost like a summary of what the book is about.

And that's not the point either. So, and I, I think I just didn't know how to do it.

Autumn (14m 33s): That's very true. And it's so often you can see the ones who, you know, didn't put in the time, we weren't really sure what they're doing. And even, I know for you and I both, we've updated ours and kept changing and evolving it as, you know, as we learn and sometimes the comments that people leave and we will get into that as we talk about how do book descriptions, they can change what you focus on because sometimes readers will find things in your book that you didn't know you put there and it's what they love and it's the best hook to put into your blurb.

Jesper (15m 3s): Hmm. Yeah. I think when it comes to book description should know, we just cannot ignore this, that there is a business aspect of being an author and a no, we've said it before, but it bears repeating, you know, you have to sell books and whether we like it or not though the, the, the book description it's just a crucial factor when a reader decides to buy your book or if they just decide to ignore it. Tha that's really where the book description needs to do its job.

Autumn (15m 33s): I agree. I mean usually it's really a stage thing. So the often see your book cover and it makes them curious enough that they're going to go read your description and if the description does not make them the blur, make them curious enough to go get a sample. If not outright buy it, then that's where you're going to lose them. So this is the second most serious part of, you know, trying to sell your book.

Jesper (15m 58s): Yeah, I mean because the cover will not sell the book alone. The cover will get people to click on it and say, okay, that looks interesting. And then I should just say it in the book. Description is the one that needs to close the deal. It's sort of like, like the catchy teaser or something like, like for a movie trailer or something like that. You know, it's, it's the movie trailer that gets us into the theater and buy the ticket. Right. But, but the movie poster is the one that makes us go and check out that movie trailer. Right. So it's sort of the same journey that we were going through here when, when we're selling books.

So I think that's, it's just, it's really important.

Autumn (16m 37s): Definitely. And so I know we both have am cause I, I happened to have edited and formatted, uh, your book description book so I'm very intimately familiar with it. But I've also, I think before we started working together, I had written a very small pamphlet, a little worksheet on how to do them. And we have very similar processes, which go figure that's how we teamed up in the first place. Yeah. So I know we both have a theory like how many paragraphs in which ones, you know, what each one is supposed to do.

And that really helps you focus on what needs to happen in your book. Description so for the opening, what is the first thing that readers see potential readers see? What do you like to have on top?

Jesper (17m 23s): Yeah, I mean at the top. So I have five steps to write a great blurb and am that at the top. You, you basically you, well maybe I should just say the five steps first. So you have what I call the tech line. The second one is character introduction, the third one is inciting incident and fourth is escalate tension. And number five if is dire straights and call to action. So we can go through, through them in a bit more detail here, but, but at the top is the tech line.

And um, I think probably one of the most, I don't know if I can call it famous, but one of the best examples of a killer tech line. It was one that, um, Adam Croft group. So Adam Croft is a seven figure othen, probably one of the biggest indie authors in the world. And and by the way, we are going to have him here on the amwritingfantasy podcast between Christmas and new year's, like a special treat. So that's going to be awesome.

Yeah, that's a little present to everyone. Yes. A bit of a Christmas present. Um, but with his book, uh, her last her last tomorrow, he wrote the tech line that went like this, could you murder your wife to save your daughter? You know, that's the kind of thing that entice readers to buy a book. That's like what, okay, I need to read what that is about. Right. That's, it's an incredibly effective way to catch people's attention. And um, and I, I, because I think the other part that you need to be mindful this about that not everybody will, will, you know, browse for you book on the laptop or something.

And so not or not, depending on what device you're using to actually browse the books you pop description might not really show up except for the tech line. So it's important that what is on top there is really, really eye-catching. Oh yeah. So that it doesn't get the clip and then people are allowed to just like, okay, I've got a half a sentence of something that doesn't make any sense to me.

Autumn (19m 25s): No. And I love your example had it was a co, it's a full sentence. It's a question, but a lot of them are often just phrases and those work too. Like some of the ones I've found that I just, when you read them, you could almost start thinking, Oh my gosh, I could write a book about this. Uh, Royal assassin, a fallen princess friends, enemies bound by prophecy. There's so much into these. Another one that I've always really liked is heirloom of forbidden magic. A corrupt sourcer who seeks to rule. You're starting to see some key components, but they kind of give you the tingles.

A really good tagline makes you go, it kind of perks you up and you're like, Ooh, what's that? And you kind of read the next line. And so that's what I think is so cool there. They're fantastic. Once you figured out your tagline, you're going to post this everywhere. It's going to be your tweets, it's going to be your Instagram, it's going to be what you put actually for now, if you go to my website, all of my books, I used to have the book description like next to the picture of the book and then he, then the bio links and stuff like that.

People don't like to see that many words. Now I literally have pared that down to just the tagline. No description so I have the tagline, the picture of my books, and then the links to go get it. That's, that's how important it is. It should sell the book basically on its own. That's what, like I said, you'd been marketing images this, you're kind of put the tagline. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, I guess just to cement the point to how, how important it is, because I know that, uh, Mark Dawson, who was another seven figure in the author, he actually surveyed more than 10,000 readers and he asked them what triggered each person to read his book?

Jesper (21m 8s): Was it, he's covered, he's reviewed his book title and so forth and so forth. And what you learned out of that survey was that almost five times as many readers picked up, he spoke because of the book description as opposed to getting enticed by the cover. So you see that just, it just thrives home. The point that it is incredibly important, the book description is, and I, and I really don't, honestly, I don't think that most people understand that. You know, most, most authors thinks it's something like, yeah, I'll just, I'll put something together there and then slam up there.

Ghosts. I think that's how most authors approach it and it's a huge mistake. I agree. And it definitely takes some practice to get the right one and it, even when you think you have the right one, you don't. That's what your mailing lists other authors.

Autumn (21m 53s): Cool. Ask them, I mean post in our amwritingfantasy Facebook group, that is a fantastic way to get an idea of how your blurb is working and some, you know, feedback on what you might need to tweak. Yeah, yeah. I usually say right, 15 different variations of the tech line and it'd be, it has to be short, catchy and memorable.

Jesper (22m 14s): And then just as the autumn is saying, than my usual advice is that once you have nailed it down to your own three favorites, then start posting those and ask other people's opinions, ask them to vote for their favorites and then maybe the winner will not be the one that you expect. But uh, but if you get enough people voting on it and giving your opinion on it, then yeah, you should probably follow what people are saying. But I guess the one caveat to that is that make sure you are asking people who actually read fantasy yes, that's true.

Don't ask your mother and your uncle and whatnot what they think is best because unless they read fantasy already, then their opinion matters. Nothing. Exactly. And make sure you ask the people who are actually going to not only read fantasy but give you an opinion.

Autumn (23m 1s): Not like everything you do is wonderful at year. Oh yeah. That part as well. So, okay, so let's move on to step number two. After the tagline. You said it's what you have, the character introduction is how you put it. Yeah. So this is where we need to introduce the character.

Jesper (23m 21s): And uh, this is actually where the, where the book description begins because technically the tech line is just a teaser. So now here in step two, this is where the actual book description Texas beginning, and it's usually a short paragraph and it should appeal to general, like human emotions and desires. So it should be exciting and not like, you know, Frodo is a habit of 33 years old and he lives in a place called the Shire blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, we don't want to read that. So it should be something exciting, but, but we do need to introduce the character as the first thing because the character is what the readers need to identify with.

And that's why they should care about reading this book. Exactly. And I think it's one of the things I like to put in.

Autumn (24m 6s): So you're S E this is where you're trying to figure out, you know, you go with your main character, this is who you're going to feature and highlight and do something that's going to hook the reader, catch their emotions so that they kind of want to know what's going on without giving too much away. But you know, for me, when I was doing this the first time, I have am for main characters in my first novel and my debut because I'm just sadistic and I wrote this, I, I, we, I think I counted once.

How many, uh, how many characters I have by the end of book six. And I'm not nearly as good as game of Thrones, but I ha yeah, if you don't read fantasy and you try to get through mine and you don't like multiple characters are going to be like, what the heck is going on? So choosing the one main character is really hard. But I definitely learned as I grew and developed as an author that you need to pick one at the most two. And this is not the time to feature how clever you are at naming places, people, things, creatures.

Literally you don't want to throw too many new weird things that people don't understand unless they've read six of your books. So pick your main character, choose the name and everything else should be her best friend. Her enemy. Stick to keeping just one name because the more weird words you throw out there sticking points and the reader's going to be like, they don't know, they don't care. There's no, they're not going to be overwhelmed by how cool you can name things are going to be like, Oh my gosh, that's a whole book going to be like looking up a thesaurus to try to figure out what's going on.

So that's my biggest advice when you're doing the character thing is just, you know, awesome place names. I'm glad you can come up with them, but when you get to the description cut them out, you just want to focus on one thing and you want what the reader to focus on. Not the names, but that emotional pool of something really important.

Jesper (26m 5s): Yeah, I think that's serious that you just mentioned. I think that was the one where where you emailed, when would you got to bake book six and you said, what the hell am I doing? Why? Why did I include this many characters? Now I have to complete all these acts and we were really frustrated with yourself. It wasn't, that's actually why I switched to Scrivener. I was writing book number five out of the six and I realized the plots or so complicated the subplots you have that many characters do.

Autumn (26m 31s): How many subplots I was juggling. I said to heck with it and I went from pages to Scribner like that and my book plotting has never been better. Yeah, I, I don't think it's on on writing, but it was somewhere where I read one time that Stephen King also had a problem that he, all of a sudden you had way too many characters in the book and he had no idea what to do.

Jesper (26m 53s): So, so he just blew the whole thing up and killed most of them. And then that was salt. Yes. This is a total tangent, but I read a great, a great men today that said, yes, I have too many characters. I'm thinking of killing up, killing off a few of them that should really spice up my autobiography. Yeah. So okay, there's writers writing humorous.

Autumn (27m 15s): So I have a few examples of ways of, you know, things I think are pretty interesting. So on a planet far from earth, descendants of a maroon space, Tyler's fight a decades long war skies, shy scholar Victoria knows nothing of this conflict and felt pirates kidnapped her to sell her to the sadistic tyrant behind it. And so you know, those are getting on you. You were trying to find a way of giving some, a little bit of a setting, a little bit of an emotion, some kind of nuance of who the character is without throwing out, you know, they could have send it out the name with a plan that they could've sent out.

So many other things that name of the places woman was living, but you just want to have the only real name is your main character. And then trying to find some ways of, you know, you know, emotions she's been kidnapped. Do you kind of draw in the reader to keep going to the next part emptied and the next part is inciting incident. Um, so that's probably sounds familiar to most of you I would think.

Jesper (28m 22s): But, uh, so the, the inciting incident from a blip, blip perspective. So that should be a big revelation. Eh, I don't know. It could be like Frodo receiving the ring or somebody who's on the run or perhaps something happens that no one expected, you know, the, the trick is just to ensure that it relates to the character somehow. So it's not like in a far off land a BIC, a atomic bomb exploded. I don't know why that would happen in a fantasy novel, but just came to, but it has to, I mean, unless it's because, uh, like, uh, radiation will come to the character in 24 hours or what do I know?

You know, unless it's something that affects the character, then it doesn't qualify as an inciting incident. From a blog perspective. It has to be effecting the character. And again, you're probably looking at something like only a paragraph long or something like that. Nothing more. Yes. And I like to say about this. So I mean this is one where you can actually use your inciting incident from the novel.

Autumn (29m 24s): So if you've, if you use the plotting, if you use even just the seven stages in your crafting the blurb, you and I, we've talked about this, I tend to actually sort of develop a theme in almost a rough blurb before I start writing cause I kind of know what I'm writing. It's a good way of building out the whole novel outline. So this one, it helps to use your inside the incident. I know a lot of authors who they feel like they're writing this blurb and what they're trying to put in here is actually the climax. And that's too far along your, that's way too much information.

You just, your goal as you're writing your description is to get the reader to get through that first couple of chapters of your novels just until that's where they're going to sell that they're going to be so hooked on the character. And what's happening that they don't care. There'll be like, there'll be surprised by what's coming in the climax as well. So this really is when you're writing your description, you're kind of only focusing on that first third if he'd been that much of your novel. So really this might be the inciting incident that you know, the reader is going to get to in the first chapter, two, three chapters.

So they're going to get to this incident pretty quickly. But that's very satisfying for them because they kind of like go, Oh, this is what this, you know, this is why there, they read the description and they go by the novel. So they wanted to have that solution. But by the time they get to that resolution of what they read, the description for they're already so invested in the book. They read another a hundred thousand words, not a problem. Yeah. That's should be the aim. And then the next book in the next book. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, because the next one is escalate tension.

Jesper (31m 2s): So I think that that builds on what you just said as well because it's more about finding like that next beat that directly affects the protectionist after the inciting incident. So you're basically, I don't think it would be correct to say that you are building like a short like mini mini story in the, in the blurb because that's not quite what you're doing but, but it builds upon itself. So you have a tag line, which when people read it, it should prompt them to say, okay, that's interesting. Let me read a bit more than, than if they read the next paragraph would, was to coach introduction and say, okay, that sounds interesting.

I read a bit more. And then the inciting incident stopped to pull them in and then you get to escalate tension, which then just builds on what came before. So it's more like you, you keep them reading and you're sucking them into basically drive them down the funnel until they get to the next step. Step number five, um, where you are trying to make the sales basically. So that's, that's the underlying idea. And I know that sounds simple, but it's absolutely not, is not and for this one.

Autumn (32m 9s): This is the part that it's actually useful to ask questions and you want to show clear stakes. You know, this is where you can say will they survive, will you know or will they be defeated? These are the ones where you're asking those questions. And so if you are following like the seven steps of story structure, this is sort of those initial openings of the reaction phase where the character is reeling, they're questioning, you know, they want to go back to to what would their life life was like before or they don't. But you're of asking those questions.

That character is basically dealing with right after the inciting incident in the story. So this is where you want to look for those sorts of emotions to pull out. And these are, like I said, this is a great question, great place to actually ask questions. Don't answer them. Let them sit there so that the reader is like, well, will they survive? They want to. You want to capture that little like, Oh my gosh, what's going on? How will they, how will they get out of this little event that you've, you've already drank the reader on to this tiny little 500 word story that you're writing?

Yeah, I think for me, I, I need to be a am I view at least we need to be a bit careful here because escalate tension, that step, you need to be really careful that you're not jumping into step number five, which is dire straits because basically in step number five, you have the low point.

Jesper (33m 37s): And this is where, this is the part where you can stop asking, you know, the question is how, not necessarily that you write this question but at least get the reader to ask the question in their own mind. You know, how are they going to survive this stuff? And if you already put that too much in the escalate tension step, then your blurb is gonna run out of steam into last crucial part. So you need to be really careful on how to balance it. Um, so basically you could almost view escalate tension like the bridge between the inciting incident and then the low point, maybe towards the end of the novel.

So it's like what, what sits in between there that you can sort of build the tension with. So think of it like you are pushing the person reading the blurb from the inciting incident and towards like the disaster point of the novel that, that, that is going to prompt them to say, okay, nobody can survive this. And if you can get them to say that, then they will pick up the book. Because then I wanted to understand how in the world is this going to work?

Autumn (34m 39s): Absolutely. Until, yeah, that's a great lead into the final paragraph. Yeah. So, so obviously you're not trying to, with dire straits, you are not trying to reveal the ending of your novel in any way or give away any twist or surprises that stuff. The point, right. So as we already said, it's, it's a teaser.

Jesper (34m 60s): It's like the movie trailer. Uh, and if you think back on the movie trailers you hate the most, it's the ones that where you can sort of see what's going to happen that that's really bad. So you don't want to do that or where they take all the good scenes of the entire movie and put it in the movie trailer and like you can just watch that and skip the movie. So yeah, so the, yeah, exactly. So the idea is just to leave the reader wondering how in the world is to here, we're gonna make this, just leave them there. And then once you have left them down that fictional cliff there, you let them hang there and then you give them the cultural action.

And basically culture action could be something as simple as the LA last line, just reading buy the book today or something like that. And it sounds stupid because you would think that, well, if they are sitting there, they've clicked the cover, they are on the book page, maybe on Amazon and they're reading through the entire book, aren't they're there because they want to buy the book? Yes. And most of them will probably be, but studies have shown though that a direct cultural action, like by the book today, it does increase the conversion rate.

So there's no reason not to leverage that fact and just write that those few words at the end of it and, and, and just, you know, convert a few more sales. Join I mean, why not, right, exactly. I've always thought that was funny. It's was like, well wait, you there on Amazon reading the blurb and you have to tell them to go buy it. But it makes a big difference to get them emotionally hooked so that they go and press that, you know, by now or download a sample.

Autumn (36m 27s): Now it really does help. And I also say there's am sometimes I like to include something called the emotional cell, which comes right after dire straights. And that's where if you happen to have some really good reviews or awards or just something else that kind of builds up like what fans are calling the new great Epic fantasy, you know, pick it up today. It doesn't hurt to have, if you have something else to put in there that's kind of an emotional sell to get them to really get excited, kind of validate you as an author or your book from other people's perspectives.

They're saying, Oh yes, this is a very good book. So if you've got a a review quote or something else or an award, something you could put in there, it can really helps to ferment, Hey, this is a great book, and then tell them go get it and they will run off and go buy it.

Jesper (37m 15s): Yeah, it's, it's that social proof and, and I will also say if you, let's, let's say that you release the book like five years ago and in the meantime it have accumulated maybe, I dunno, whatever hundreds of years. Let's just say that. Then don't feel too shy to to go back and update your review and just add that stuff into the, to the cultural action section here. Last autumn is saying, you know, just say like hundreds of 5.4 4.5 star reviews on Amazon or whatever.

You know, just at that one line at the end there just to increase the conversion rates because at the end of the day, every single sale caps absolutely selling books. It's not like, uh, it's, it's not uploading and then the sales were just tick U U unique to convert everybody.

Autumn (38m 3s): You can get to land on that landing page. Absolutely. And I will say too that there is sometimes you'll see blurbs on Amazon that go past the call to action and keep going. And I know some people really wonder about those and that's partially because Amazon and other places give you over a thousand words to put into your review. And I think, I forget who it is, I'm almost thinking of this 5,000 words. That's a lot of words and you don't have to fill it, you don't have to use it all. But there are people who know the algorithms and they know the times that they can put in their keywords fantasy blah, blah, blah.

They're going to rank higher. So there is sometimes a, you know, you can have a question and answer session or an interview. I've seen those things after the call to action and I, I'm kind of ambivalent about that. I don't know how you feel about it. Jesper, I know why they're doing it. They're usually doing it to hit all the key words they need to rank higher on Amazon, but it can kind of dilute everything that came above it.

Jesper (39m 7s): Yeah. In my view, you need to be really careful. You're not diluting the blurb. The blurb needs to read well and it needs to be a good blurb and stand on its own. Uh, and the Amazon algorithms are getting so smart that they actually index and read the blurb anyway. So I think you were stuffing is one of the, well, it's the old days advice. It's still good to have keywords of course, but, but then if you write a really good blurb that talks about what the book is about and it's an Epic fantasy or whatever, you know, and you're going to have the keywords there anyway.

So just stuffing more and it's not going to help. Actually. I maybe from an algorithm perspective you might get a few more keywords in, but from a really friendly perspective you're going to lose. Right. So I don't know. I won't say that it cannot be done, but you really need to be careful with what you're doing if that's what you're trying to do. And I think it's just more safe not to try to be clever like that.

Autumn (40m 8s): Yeah, I agree. I think that's a good way of looking at it. How you said it. It's something that used to be done. Keyword stuffing. I think we've moved beyond that. And I think if readers don't realize what it is, I just think that yeah, it's diluting it. So it's probably not current best practice, but you still see it done. But, and maybe you've done it so you might need to go back and Hey, update your burp blurbs. It doesn't hurt to double check. You know, your blurbs after even a couple of years as your book ages and see, you know, make sure that it still sounds as good.

And like I said, sometimes if you read your readers' comments, you'll find some new new things to add. And that's always a good thing. So you might be able to update your blurb and make it more exciting. And maybe you pick up a few more readers. Yeah, that's the cool thing about being an indie author. It's so easy to do these updates. Uh, it, you know, you can always go in, you can upload a new blurb on, on your book and it, it takes like 10 minutes, you know, it's so incredibly easy. And in all the days that was, would have been impossible, but nowadays is so incredibly easy.

Jesper (41m 11s): So, you know, if your blurb is not working, if it's not converting Ville and all this stuff, you know, try to write a new one and to do something differently within. And of course, if, if you need help, uh, then, uh, as we set up on the top, uh, I actually wrote an entire step by step guide on how to write not only just a blurb, but actually a fantasy book description. So it's specifically focusing on fantasy book descriptions and uh, allow the link in the, in the show notes for that. And uh, it comes with a lot of examples.

It tells you exactly what to do step-by-step. It also has a, a bonus chapter on a nonfiction blurbs. So for those of you who might be looking at writing nonfiction like autumn and I do a then am, there is a bonus chapter on, on what to focus on for nonfiction perhaps as well. So next Monday we are going to share the three pieces of advice that we wish we had received when we first started out.

Yay.

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