So What About the Back Cover?

 MAKE SURE YOU CHECK 

OUT COTT'S EXCITING NEW VENTURE:

article by Lisa Lickel

Join us in June as we premier COTT's book club! Karen Witemeyer and her COTT winning novel, A Tailor-Made Bride is up as our first read (The books is offered as a free e-book here; if you don't have a Kindle, you can download the program to your pc or mobile device free here). More details and to vote for July's book, CLICK HERE.  

Read this week's excerpts here and vote!

What's the Big Deal About the Back of the Book?

I hid behind a copy of the NYTimes at the local bookstore, my trench coat belt pulled tight and my fedora at a swanky angle. Totally incognito, I was on the case. My assignment? To discover once and for all the answers to an author's most persistent questions: Do readers really care about the back of the book? Would they buy based on a catchy blurb or teasing headline or a really cool picture of the author?

I thought back to my own published books which I'd flipped over and compared that morning. Were they exciting enough that someone would buy them? One had an endorsement by an editor; one had my picture and bio – scary. They all had a pretty enticing one-line teaser. One had the illustration continued from the front; one had the picture I originally wanted on the front; others had none.

A half-hour at the book store was all I needed to see for myself. The evidence was in. Serious readers turn the book over—or, open and read the fly. People that are on a mission to buy gifts for someone else grab and pay. Perusers even read a few pages. One guy read the last few pages. Persnickety readers might actually put the book down after reading the back. Even on the discount table. That's how important the back cover copy is: The blurb can make or break a sale.

My informal poll to the ACFW book club group resulted in the following:

Do you look at the back cover first or second? Only one person (an author, go figure) looked at it first; most said they looked at it after checking out the front; three said they don't usually look at the back cover; two said they rarely look at all.

What do you like to see on a back cover? Accurate, enticing teasers without giving too much away, one person said reviews and a couple people said endorsements; one person said something about the author.

Did you ever buy a book because of the back cover? Most said yes, the back cover blurb has sold the book.

I had to include all these responses; they were too good to pass up or condense. Enjoy!

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I always read the back cover copy and if it interests me, then I look at the first few pages before I buy the book. The "blurb" is very important with books ordered on-line as that is all we have to go on. I've skipped a few because what I read didn't click with me. With authors I know well, I usually don't look, and only once or twice have been disappointed when the book didn't live up to what I expected.
~Blessings, Martha Rogers

The FRONT cover is the main thing I look at. Frankly I hardly ever read the back of a book. They really don't tell you exactly what is in the book. If the front cover grabs my attention. I read the FIRST page of the book. If the author had grabbed my attention in the first page. I'm going to be interested in the rest of the book not matter what it's about. So, no the back of a book has never convinced me to buy a book. The few times I've read the back first and then checked out the first page of the book. I wasn't grabbed by the first page and put the book back on the shelf!  

I know I might be an odd duck not to read book blurbs on the back of books but they have let me down so many times! Or made it more confusing than helped. Oh, I forgot one more thing that I check about a book are the DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!! Since I try to mostly read books I think will be a fit for book club discussions. I check out the discussion questions. This tells me one, the heart of the author and what they think is important and some of the topics that will be discussed in the book.

~Blessings, Nora :D

1) look at the front cover first (enjoy looking at beautiful covers—it's what draws me to a book first. If the publisher cares about presentation, they'll care about the story--usually)
2) Then the back cover. I found the back cover on Laura Frantz's Courting Morrow Little to be lovely!
3) I read the blurb; and that usually will convince me "aye or nay" to purchasing the book.
~Pat Iacuzzi

I usually look at the type in the book.....I know, it is weird, but often the font in the book convinces me if I want to read or not read a book. I usually read the back cover of a book after I read the first chapter and am wondering where the story is going. I read a back cover one time that basically told the whole story in short form (It was a book from the 1940s) it ruined the book. Yes, often the back cover has convinced me to buy the book. I do not want too little info on there, and I do not want too much.
~Martha Artyomenko

I look at the back of the book right after the cover. I like to see a synopsis on the back and do pay attention to endorsements and what they say, especially so if they are from other authors I know and respect. Without question, the blurbs have a lot to do with whether I buy the book. 
~Pat Rowland

I look at the back cover immediately after I look at the cover. Both are important to me.

I like the back cover to give me a blurb that leaves me wondering what I’m going to see inside.

And YES, the blurb makes a lot of difference whether I will read the story. Sometimes after I purchase my books, and then re-read the blurbs, that also determines to me which book I will read first.

~Shirley Kiger Connolly

Lisa Lickel is a Wisconsin writer who lives with her husband in a hundred and fifty-year-old house built by a Great Lakes ship captain. Surrounded by books and dragons, she has written dozens of feature newspaper stories, magazine articles, radio theater, and several inspirational novels to date. She is also the senior editor at Reflections in Hindsight.

Social Media Monday: Critique Groups

Critique groups are the first thing I ever used the internet for. Only back then it wasn't a group per se, rather a message board on nanowrimo. But I was using the computer to make social connections for the purpose of feedback on my writing. I've come a long way from simply slapping a scene on a message board and waiting for comments from goodness-knows-who. I'm much more selective now of who I take advice from and even who I give advice to.

My first connection blooming beyond the message boards was with someone at the site as well. Jacki Newberry and I kept in touch and chatted, read each others' work, and encouraged each other years after meeting at nano. We're still facebook friends. I may get her for an interview one of these days yet!

Some of my best mentors have come from interacting in the blogging world. Reading other blogs and leaving comments or asking questions led to my relationship with critique partner April Gardner, one of my most well-respected critiquers. That relationship introduced me to Lisa Lickel and the three of us have given each other feedback as a group for awhile now. I've also critiqued with all of the members of COTT at one point or another and their talent and ability is phenomenal.

Recently I began critiquing with Carol Moncado, Pepper Basham, and Casey Herringshaw--all of whom I met through the ACFW loop. They are all very talented authors. (Shout out: Pepper is a Genesis double-finalist, so she knows what she's talking about. *wink*)

My foremost critique partner is Jessica Patch. If you don't already follow her blog, you should--she writes the most goosebump-raising devotionals, wacky personal stories, and hilarious but touching accounts of moments with her son, Myles. You gotta keep an eye on this one, folks.

With these different groups and partnerships, I get a wide cross-section of perspectives in my feedback (which is vital) and I also learn so much by reading their work and critiquing for them. My writing has grown my leaps and bounds through this process. I've come to believe that you can read all the how-to articles in the world, but working with talented critique partners is like dumping yourself into a foreign country to learn the language rather than relying solely on flashcards and a translating dictionary.  Don't get me wrong, the dictionary and flashcards are necessary too. But you learn much more about practical use and application through living with those who speak the language. Good crit partners "speak the language." And guess what? Chances are you speak the language too--in a different dialect. So hook up with some awesome peeps and glean from each other. It's one of the biggest benefits of social media, in my opinion. =) 

I love seeing my besties drop by and I love making new friends. If you are usually a lurker, I want to meet you! For the next 30 days, when you comment on any post on my blog, you will be entered into a drawing for a $10 Amazon gift card. If you mention me and link back here on your own blog, you'll be entered a second time. Have a great week!

Who have you met through online connections? Where have you found your best critique

partners?

Story Improv

It's Fiction Friday again! I just returned from watching my 10 year old compete in a relay race at school. And they won! There's something about that passing of the baton that is so fun and holds so much meaning. It's hard sometimes to pass control to the next person but exhilarating to see what they do with it. So let's have our own relay. . .

My husband will start us off, and you guys come and grab the baton from the previous commenter. Keep your sprint to a few lines and then hold out the baton to the next person. But feel free to come and take another turn. We'll keep it up all day today and tomorrow. Remember, keep it clean. But today we're going speculative!

Have fun. Oh, and send your friends over too! =)

I died on my fifteenth birthday and it was so lame. I'm still getting the hang of being dead. Before you glamorize me as some sort of ‘self-healer’ or immortal vampire, let me tell you it’s not that cool.

Another COTT Victory

This week's Clash winner is none other than Roseanna White, for her opening pages of

A Stray Drop of Blood.

She triumphed over the very worthy excerpt from Michelle Griep's Undercurrent.

Congratulations, Roseanna!

It's fair to say that Stray Drop was a labor of love. The storyline was first born in Roseanna's heart when she was only 15 years old. It grew over the next six years culminating in the novel we have today.

A snippet of the winning opening:

Abigail’s tears were unneeded. Mourners enough had been hired by her mother’s husband, and their loud keening drowned out her grief. She risked a glance at Silas, who stood with an appropriately sorrowful expression in the corner. Her mother’s husband, but not her father. Her father was dead. Mother too. And this family would never be her own.

About the book:

For seven years, Abigail has been a slave in the visibullis house. With a Hebrew mistress and a Roman master, she has always been more family than servant . . . until their son returns to Jerusalem after his years in Rome. Within a few months Jason has taken her to his bed and turned her world upside down. Maybe, given time, she can come to love him as he says he loves her. But how does she open her heart to the man who ruined her?
Born free, made a slave, married out of her bonds, Abigail never knows freedom until she feels the fire of a stray drop of blood from a Jewish carpenter. Disowned by Israel, despised by Rome, desired by all, she never knows love until she receives the smile of a stoic Roman noble.

A few COTT visitor's comments:

Wow! Both books sound exciting! Wonderful teasers!
 Thank you for sharing your talents, and good luck.
 Love the book. This truly is a story to enchant a reader.

You can read Roseanna's interview with COTT Assistant Editor Michelle Massaro here. 
And to get in on the voting action at Clash of the Titles, just click now to be taken to their current Clash of the Back Cover Blurbs