Sales Writing Problem

Topic of the Night: Sales Writing.

Over the last five days I have had the bad luck to actually have in my hand five different books I might have been interested in reading. Might have been, that is, until I read the sales copy on the backs.

Dull, passive, too long, confusing, and buried leads. Every book I saw.

And what annoyed me is that four of these books were from writers who should know better. Only one, a really bad one, was from a New York publisher.

My first point: If you are going to indie publish your work, learn how to write sales copy. You got away from New York where the sales copy was out of your control. So don’t do the same to kill your own book, folks. Take the control and learn it.

My second point: Passive and dull and all plot is bad for sales copy. I know you think that plot twist in chapter ten is cool, but it doesn’t belong in your blurb. Again, learn how to write sales copy.

A year ago now I spent a week or so here writing sales copy, talking about it, and then putting those blogs in a book that is for sale out there. And then Kris and I started an online class on how to write Sales Copy for your work. Almost no one has taken that class. (Only one person signed up in August and trust me, she’s going to get some great one-on-one attention from me for her sales copy.)

Ironic, head-shaking silliness.

A writer spends months and months writing a book. A writer takes craft and business classes to learn how to be a professional writer. Then when they put their book out to readers, they do a dull, passive, plot-laden blurb that pushes readers away.

And then the writer wonders why they don’t sell many copies.

Duh…

If you aren’t selling many copies, might want to put your ego aside and actually look at your blurbs. And your covers. Just saying…

A New World

This is a new world, folks. You have to learn how to sell your work. And writing a decent blurb is an easy task to learn, the most basic, actually.

And the most important task in selling your book, right next to doing a cover that sells your work.

Yet so, so, so few writers bother. And that just makes me wonder why?

So let me wonder why aloud here… (snark warning)

Why?

1… Writer doesn’t realize that blurbs get readers to open books or put them down. (Clearly this writer has never bought a book in their entire lifetime.)

2… Writer thinks their blurbs are just fine, after all, it tells all the great plot points, one right after another. (Clearly this writer thinks plot sells books, again never having bought a book in their lifetime.)

3… Writer thinks the word “is” should be in a blurb because it is in their book. (This writer doesn’t understand the concept of active language which makes readers wonder how dull the book is as well.)

4… Writer is too lazy to learn how to write sales even though they know it is important. (This writer thinks it is easier to just complain about poor book sales than learn how to write a blurb.)

And that, folks, is me, once again, just having my nightly session of shouting into the wind.

And no, I will not read your blurb. Last thing I want is to make you angry at me. You can read my posts from last year and look at your own blurbs.

Or maybe I should set up a service to look at your book cover and blurb for a small fee per book. That way I can get paid for making someone angry. (Not happening, don’t even ask. My life is far, far too short already. But I will be helping writers at the master class on this.)

But let me give you a couple hints I gave last year (or you can learn how to fix in the blog posts, my book, or the sales workshop.)

1. If your blurb contains plot from more than the first chapter of your novel, you are in trouble.
2. If you can substitute the words… “and then this happened and then this happened and…(so on)” for your plot elements in your blurb, you are in trouble.
3. If you have any of the verbs… is, was, has, will… (and so on) in your blurb, you are in trouble.
4. If your blurb is a massive, long paragraph, or two, or three massively long paragraphs, you are in trouble.

Tags…? Got any?

Got any author information besides the fact you were born and love cats?

And so on and so on…

So, are your book sales not what you think they should be??  Then just maybe your actual sales tools are bad.

Your book might be great. But few people will ever read it in this modern world if you push them away.

Just saying…