Cover copy (or jacket blurb) is important to a book, no question. It is one of the main things, if not the main thing that makes a reader buy a book. It is carefully crafted, often refined from the author’s pitch and query letter, and calculated to make the reader want to find out more.
I know that when I browse for books, the title catches me first, then I read the jacket. I don’t much care what the cover art looks like, as far as making a buying decision goes. And I find I rarely glance at the first few pages, although I know many people do. So the jacket blurb is of utmost importance to my buying experience.
I was in the pharmacy earlier this week, and I browsed the paperbacks while waiting. I found a book that I’d heard tons of people talking about – it’s all the rage. Since I really didn’t know what the book was about, I read the jacket. It seemed interesting—until I got to the glaring typo in the very last line. An extra word! That mistake immediately turned me off from the book. I suppose the part of me that is a professional editor wondered about the quality of what I would find inside the book, if they made such a mistake on a small blurb on the back. And while I may still read the book sometime, my strong negative reaction surprised me.
I’ve been thinking that the adage “You can’t judge a book by its cover” can also be applied to the cover copy. There have been times I’ve bought a book with a great jacket blurb, only to find that the story didn’t live up to the promise—sometimes it hardly seemed like the same book! And there are times when the book far exceeds the expectations raised in the blurb.
Authors often protest that it isn’t fair for their entire manuscript to be judged by a single-page query letter. Is it any fairer that your book, once published, is judged by a single blurb on the back? Which is precisely why we authors have to be so good at summing our book up, even though we find it so difficult sometimes!
How important is jacket copy to you when you buy a book? Should there be a better way for readers to be able to judge a book, instead of relying so heavily on cover copy? If so, what?
In The Query Trenches
One of the goals I am hoping to achieve this year is getting an agent. I know that goal is not completely dependent on me, but my goal is to take the query steps I can to make that happen.
So, since I have a manuscript ready to submit, I started the process in December. After many hours exploring agents, I discovered the top ones in my genre. I created a database of 50 agents, and prepared to contact them in January.
I worked on my query both with my 2 co-authors for this manuscript and with “outside” eyes for objectivity. After we had the skeleton, I wrote all the query letters, personalized them and formatted them as the agent specified in their submission guidelines. I pasted the appropriate number of manuscript pages and any other requested material (such as synopsis) after the letter. Also, I made sure my contact info and links to my website and other social media were included after the signature of the letter.
Every Monday I sent out 10. If I got a rejection back, I would send out another immediately. By January 23rd all the queries but 2 who were closed to queries until February were sent. I had ended up with a total of 51 queries because one agent referred me to a fellow agent as a better fit.
So how’s it going? With 49 queries out, I got 11 rejections, 2 full requests, and the rest are still pending. Eventually I will have to start marking the “no response means no interest” people off my list, but I usually wait at least 2 months for that.
Now that the queries are out, it’s a waiting game. I am moving my attention back to another manuscript that I hope to have ready to query sometime this year. So if the current one on submission doesn’t land me an agent, maybe the next one will!
Anyone else on the query-go-round? How are you holding up?