Keywords, Descriptions, Jacket Copy
By Dale T Phillips
This topic is critical to success, and there are whole books on these particular subjects with different schools of thought about the best ways to include everything. Browse the Resources Appendix for further information.
You’re going to have to be very aware of where your book fits in the publishing world (category), because you’ll need to add keywords (descriptive book tags) when you publish it. Each distributor allows you a certain number of keywords to include for your book, and of course you’ll want the best ones. These keywords are critical for helping readers find your books, because that’s what the big search engines use to locate the type of book you’re selling. The more your book comes up in a search on certain keywords, the more chances you have of someone checking it out. To sell more copies, learn what you need to keep your book search-term relevant. Search engines work on optimization, or SEO, which is why it’s so important your book show up under a search on that keyword. One great tool that you’ll want to look into for finding these in depth is (KDP) Publisher Rocket. Some say you should use all the characters allowed, and fill every category.
Descriptions and Jacket Copy are important as well, and they’re used to quickly tell a browser if it’s the type of book they’ll be interested in. More detail than the tagline, they are included as part of the book listing online, and for a print book, on the back cover (jacket) at the top. Some distributors use two descriptions: a short one, about three sentences long, and a slightly longer one.
Here’s the elements you should include:
Hook the readers right away with a compelling first two lines.
Make it easy and exciting to read. Readers won’t spend much time; they’ll skim quickly to see if it’s what they want.
Establish what’s at stake and make it important.
Only a character or two, no more.
Don’t reveal everything. Leave them wanting to know what happens.
To determine whether your descriptions are good, look for book descriptions of successful books that make you want to check out the book. What picture do they paint in just a few words that make it sound compelling? You’ll want descriptions for your books that sound similar. Get help from your team, Beta readers, writing friends, etc. on what does well.
A disadvantage of Smashwords as a distributor is that the keywords and descriptions are the same for all distribution channels. Not a deal breaker, but important to realize. And in Amazon, the title, subtitle, and description are all searchable.
