Amazon Book Description: Steps to Write one that Captures Reader’s Attention

After putting maximum effort into the writing process, you have decided to self-publish your book on Amazon. You merely can’t upload your manuscript and safely assume that it becomes a bestseller. Even if you have written a good book, you need to work to make it to the top.

Numerous factors make a book on Amazon a bestseller. Namely, the factors include an appealing book cover, choosing the correct categories, doing ample keyword research, book reviews, and a good book description. 

This article will look at how to write a good book description that would boost book sales. 

Significance of a Good Book Description

With an eye-catchy book cover or an intriguing book title, you can bring potential readers to your product page. You have won the first battle by instilling interest in them and increasing their curiosity. But they aren’t entirely sure whether they want to buy the book or not. Here is where the book description comes into play. 

Once they come to the product (book sales) page, they want to read the book description to make the decision of buying. If their expectations don’t match the stellar book cover, they won’t take the chance of buying that book. 

A good book description can turn the potential buyer into a reader. It is the first time the reader is coming in contact with your writing, so you need to create the best first impression. 

Key Points to be included in the Book Description

A strong book description is your elevator pitch. It is not the synopsis of your book or the same as your book’s back cover. Your book on Amazon is the same as any product out there. So, you need to provide a description that best describes the content inside and persuade them to buy the book. 

Your book description on Amazon should have the following essential elements:

• It should give the readers an idea or hint about the story or the content inside in an appealing way.
• It should specify the genre or sub-genre of the book. There are chances that a reader might have started browsing about one book and end up on your book page, so they need to be aware of the genre.
• It needs to have the keyword phrases you have chosen for your book, so if the potential reader types in that specific keyword or phrases for your book appear in the list. 

If you publish a fiction or non-fiction book, it is essential to read the book descriptions of other books to know the expectations and the style required for the description.

Steps to Write a Book Description

Let us look at the steps to write a strong book description for both fiction and non-fiction books. 

1. Hook the Reader with the Opening Lines

Amazon only displays the first one-two lines of the description. So, you only have a small window for attracting the potential reader. You have only that limited space to grab their attention to click on your book to know more. You need to write a striking headline or opening lines to grab their attention.

A good headline or opening lines should include the keywords with which people are searching on Amazon. It can be the following:

• Genre or sub-genre
• The theme or main plot
• If any brands or personalities are involved
• Awards or Recognitions

You can start the book description with a one-line comment from a reputable source, a famous person, or a newspaper or magazine. If that’s not available yet for your book, you need a short and striking headline. 

2. Let the Readers know what the Book is about

After the striking headline convinces your reader, this is where they will search for the meat of the story. In this part, you don’t need to give a detailed story. Just a broad outline will do. You do need to use keywords associated with the genre.

If your book is fiction, try including something about your protagonist, the central conflict, and the stakes. Remember not to give away the whole story in this section.

If your book is non-fiction, let the reader know the problem or challenge the book is addressing, and how the book addresses the challenge. Let the description tell the readers what the takeaway would be once they read the book. 

3. Tell the Readers ‘Why’ the Book is for Them

Your reader has reached the sign off section now. They are almost ready to buy the book or close the window and walk away. You have one last chance to tilt their choice in your favor. That is in the sign-off. You need to tell the readers WHY they should be reading the book. What do they gain from reading it? What do they lose from not reading it?

Formatting the Book Description 

If you have looked into book descriptions on Amazon, you would have noticed that a few descriptions make the best use of the formatting. The description would make use of options like bold, italics, subheadings, numbering, etc.

You can have a look at Amazon’s guidelines for getting your book’s description ready accordingly. Or, the easiest would be to use our book description generator to have the description in the way you want. You can choose the font style, bold, italics, etc., and create a custom formatted book description. 

With Amazon, you don’t want to take the risk with metadata and book description. So, pay close attention to these factors, and make your book the next bestseller.