When you achieve something extraordinary, like wrestling yourself through all the pages of this book until the boring end, you deserve a reward, an ‘extra’, a free bonus, a gift from me, the writer, who appreciates your effort.
“42-39-56” (summary of a whole lotta Rosie, according to AC/DC)
Many writers on Wattpad.com ask for help about what they call ‘the summary’. A summary is what you have to write for school: “Read Romeo and Juliette and write a 1.000 word summary about it.” A summary would include info about how the story ends. Others call it ‘blurb’, but to me that sounds like my goldfish suffers a hangover. What they mean is the ‘cover text’, the short text that you use to present your story to anyone who’s interested.
The most important marketing tools for every novel, the ‘trident’ to hook the reader, are the title, the cover photo and the cover text. The first thing any reader will see from your novel is the title and the photo of the cover. If that looks appealing, the next step most readers take is to turn the book around and read what’s written at the back. That’s the cover text. You can leave the cover to a professional, but title and cover text are part of your job.
What do you say when you meet someone for the first time? Imagine that you want ‘something’ from that other person, perhaps a nice chat or perhaps a job, a marriage or a million dollars. First you want to make a good impression: you flash a smile, reach out your hand and say some form of ‘hello’, followed by your name. In my case most people know enough and start running away, but you would probably have the possibility to add some small spoken information. What you say will depend on yourself and on the occasion.
When you enter an office for a job interview, you might say: “Hi, I’m Ronaldo7. I’m the writer you’ve been looking for. I’m successful, professional and I write great plots.”
When you see someone in the local library, and you would like to talk with her about books, you might say: “Hi, I’m Ronaldo7. I like to read Science Fiction and Fantasy and I do a little writing myself.”
When you meet a gorgeous girl (stunning boy, if you prefer) in a burning skyscraper, you might say: “Hi, I’m Ronaldo7. I am looking for a hot girl like you to hang out with. Please allow me to rescue you from the flames.”
When you meet a serious man, dressed in blue, with a helmet or a cap, holding a notebook and having a deep desire to see your ID and driver’s license, you might say: “Hi, I’m Ronaldo7. I wasn’t really speeding. I was just testing if this car could break the sound barrier, like promised in the commercial.”
How you present yourself depends on the occasion and on you, but I’m sure you don’t have any problems with it. If you’re good, you’ll use ‘active’ verbs, ‘positive’ words, express ‘happy feelings’ and give your info right to the point, to inform the other about what (you think) he is interested in.
How you present your book is even simpler. The occasion is always the same: you present your story to a reader who just got curious about the title and the cover of your story and now wants to know a little more.
Here’s the key: a LITTLE more. You should not spoil the fun by telling the whole story. You should not scare your reader off with half a chapter of info. All he wants is the short version, to know what it’s about, the introduction. You will not tell the girl in the burning skyscraper the story of your life; you just want her to go with you so you can tell that story later. I personally don’t want to know that the writer is from Farfaraway and that he’s married with two kids, but if you think that’s important info for your reader, you can add it.
How you present yourself is not the same as getting what you want. Don’t make the mistake to think that your cover text should convince everyone who picks up your book: you’ll get disappointed lots of times. You wrote a story about witches / football / romance so the best you can hope for is that a reader who is interested in witches / football / romance will pick your story between thousands of others. If he doesn’t, it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad writer or a bad person, it doesn’t even mean that you wrote a bad cover text.
My friend Marina has a small coffee shop in the centre of our town. She serves the best coffee and tea, always with a smile, and her terrace is the best place to sit, but still only 1% of everyone who passes by really stops there for a drink. What would remain of Marina’s smile when she would focus on the 99%? She just thinks about the 1%, treats them well and hopes they will come back. They do. I do.
If you finish your novel, you can feel its potential. It would disappoint you if you didn’t get published. After being published, it would disappoint you if you didn’t make number 1 on the New Joke Times Bestseller List. After making number 1, it would disappoint you if your novel were not signed up by Hollywood for a blockbuster film contract. After watching the movie, it would disappoint you if you didn’t win all the Oscars. And what happens? The Oscar for the best soundtrack goes to another movie. That’s disappointing! If you don’t expect too much from life, life will never disappoint you. Happiness means being satisfied with what you have. If you did your best, you did well.
A good cover text contains:
1. A short introduction of the main character(s).
2. A short description of the start of the story.
3. A short description of the main problem that the characters will face (and solve) in the story.
4. A ‘cliff hanger’, like a question or a phrase that invites you to read more.
5. And finally the “teamwork” between the title, the cover photo and cover text should make it clear what genre the reader can expect.
Good cover texts are between 50 and 150 words (when you check the cover text of this book, 250 words, you can draw the conclusion that this is a lousy rule or, better, confirm that I’m a lousy writer of cover texts myself) . Every word should hit the bull’s eye. Make sure you add keywords (like ‘beautiful princess’ and ‘jealous stepmother’ in a Snow White cover text). Question every word: is there a better way to say it? The best way to learn writing cover text is: read as many of them as you can (in a bookstore or website with books for sale). You’ll be attracted by some of them. You’re a reader too. Other readers are not that different from you as you might think. When you found out, write as many cover texts as you can. Writing has something in common with most other skills: we develop it best by practicing it.
You spent 200 hours or more on writing your novel. Why not spend 20 hours on writing cover texts? Write 10 or 20 or 50 cover texts of your story. Practice. Work. Learn. You’ll become a better writer and you’ll have lots of texts to pick from. Writing the cover text is the best part of writing: you’ll get the chance to explain to everybody why your story is so interesting, so well written, so good that nobody can resist reading it.
I’ve just read an article in the Guardian about a female writer who divides her time about 50/50 between writing and promotion. I can only draw the conclusion: “You don’t really like writing. You like talking about yourself so much more, about how wonderful you are…”, but okay, she sold 100x more books than I, earned 10.000 times more money than I (and spent it all on marketing) and she has a leading article in the Guardian, so she’s right and I’m wrong.
Wanna-be-writers sometimes cry: “I have a full time job (or: I have to go to school and do all that homework) and after all that work I’m so worn out that I have to relax. I can’t find the time to write.” You don’t have time to write but you do find time to watch TV or chat with your friends for an average of four hours a day? Writing is much more relaxing, therapeutic, and rewarding, than watching TV is. If you wrote during the hours you lost watching TV, you could finish a 70,000 word novel each month. Chatting with your friends is better if you have something to say, like: “I just finished my novel. It was a lot of work, but the final result is so great… You can’t find the time to read it? Too bad, because you would love my story.”
I have one piece of advice for the cry-babies: cry ink (mascara also works) and drop your tears on paper. Crying is a way to produce emotions too, though… There is a market for writers who write great stories, but I never heard of a cry-baby being successful. Writing, like life itself, is hard. The hard part is called: work, learn and ask for help. You have to give up a lot if you want to become a writer, most of all you have to give up looking for excuses for not having the time to write.
Why is writing cover texts difficult? Because you want to do it right. Try to write crap, for a change; you’ll see how easy it is. But you don’t want it to be easy. You want it to be good. You want your reader to sit in his chair, bite his nails, laugh until his face hurts, or cry bitter tears until he reaches that last page. You know that the first impression of your story is important. If you can convince your reader with the marketing-trident of title, photo and cover text, he’ll buy your book or decide to borrow it from the library. If your cover text is great and your story is disappointing, your reader won’t pick up the second part of your successful series, but he did read the first part. If you wrote a prize-winning story but produced a crappy marketing-trident, your reader will not even read your first book. You want to do it right.
So that’s why you suffer, for the quality that you have inside you, and for the reward. Heaven is when a reader tells you: “What a great story…” Paradise is when you finished your first novel, read it over and over to make sure that every dot is on the right spot and… you decide to read it one more time, just because it is so great that you never thought you had it in you.
That’s why I wrote this book: I want to read that great novel you’re going to write because it will inspire me to write better stories, so one day I’ll be as good as you.
My last words are “Thank you”, for James N. Frey, writer of ‘How to write a damn good novel’ and other great books about writing. I don’t like rules, but I do follow his 10 rules to become a damn good writer:
Read!
Read!
Read!
Write!
Write!
Write!
Suffer!
Suffer!
Suffer!
(What? That’s only nine? Okay. Rule number 10 is: Don’t use too many exclamation marks!!!)