The Final Frontier: Finding the Right Book Description Writer

Now that I’ve found a great edi­tor for my self-pub­lished nov­el, GOLIATH FALLEN, the next step is to find a book descrip­tion writer. Back when I start­ed out­lin­ing the steps in my self-pub­lish­ing jour­ney, hir­ing a book descrip­tion (aka book blurb) writer did­n’t even slight­ly cross my mind. How­ev­er, this indi­vid­ual, who­ev­er they end up being, is as cru­cial as the edi­tor and cov­er artist. Writ­ing a sol­id blurb is no easy feat, and I have tried it before. How the heck had­n’t I thought of hir­ing an expert on that until now?

Realizing my needs

The book descrip­tion includes just enough about what is going to hap­pen in the book, to make the read­er yearn for answers to all the ques­tions flit­ting through his or her mind…if the author has suc­ceed­ed in writ­ing a cap­ti­vat­ing description.

Excerpt from “How to Write a Book Descrip­tion that Attracts Read­ers” on SelfPublishing.com

It’s the book descrip­tion that’s print­ed on the back cov­er and in the ebook list­ing. And, not to be an alarmist, but it can make or break a book launch. You can have a killer cov­er, but if the descrip­tion sucks, your book will sink down into the abyss of the mil­lions of oth­ers com­pet­ing for the reader’s attention.

Since I had shared Goliath Fall­en with beta read­ers on sites like Wattpad, I had already tried writ­ing my own descrip­tion and real­ized how freak­ing hard it is. Only but a few authors have that gift of sum­ma­riz­ing their intri­cate, fleshed-out plot full of twists and turns and com­plex, mul­ti-dimen­sion­al char­ac­ters into a few para­graphs that can entice a prospec­tive read­er. Writ­ing a good book descrip­tion is an art in itself, and I was deter­mined to find the right pro­fes­sion­al for the job. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Reedsy was­n’t so help­ful this time around. I received a total of only four results when I searched the site for free­lancers spe­cial­iz­ing in “meta­da­ta and blurb opti­miza­tion,” as it’s called. Not great, but they did offer a com­pre­hen­sive arti­cle on writ­ing a book descrip­tion your­self. But, again, I had already tried that and spec­tac­u­lar­ly failed (at least in my opinion).

Finding my book description writer

While I was brows­ing the web for book edi­tor rec­om­men­da­tions (and what to look for in find­ing the right edi­tor), I stum­bled upon “My favorite 21 peo­ple in self-pub­lish­ing,” an arti­cle by Derek Mur­phy from Cre­ativin­die. It’s full of great rec­om­men­da­tions on inspi­ra­tional authors, mar­keters, book edi­tors, cov­er artists, and… book descrip­tion writ­ers! It was there where I dis­cov­ered Bryan Cohen from Best Page For­ward. 

Bryan sure sounds like he can sell stuff, and from what I’ve read, his book descrip­tions deliv­er results. I usu­al­ly approach ser­vices that sound too good to be true with cau­tion, so I ran a quick Google search on him.

After some dig­ging, I stum­bled upon this interview/workshop video on YouTube where Bryan com­ments on the indus­try, the process of writ­ing an effec­tive book descrip­tion, and book mar­ket­ing. From hear­ing him talk, it was clear to me that he knows his stuff very well. I fig­ured it couldn’t hurt to at least reach out to him for more information.

At the time of writ­ing, Bryan’s price tag is $297. This includes one book descrip­tion and an addi­tion­al ten descrip­tions I can use for ads. Com­pared to edit­ing and cov­er design costs, this amount seems rea­son­able for such an impor­tant element.

Making up my mind

I could spend more time look­ing for oth­er book descrip­tion writ­ers, but:

• I haven’t found any­thing but good com­ments on Bryan, and I know he can do the job well.
• It’s been a long road get­ting to this point, and I’m eager to final­ly see my book on the shelves.

With that said, I’m plan­ning to book Bryan in the com­ing days and come back to share our results!

With my book descrip­tion writer in place, I’ve final­ly round­ed out my self-pub­lish­ing crew. I’m hop­ing for the best as back­fill­ing any of these roles (the book edi­tor, the cov­er artist, and the book descrip­tion writer) would be painful. Any­ways, I’m off to update my ini­tial, very opti­mistic budget.

Stay tuned for the next entry in this series on self-pub­lish­ing my novel!

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