by Ane Mulligan  @AneMulligan

The back cover copy is usually what sells a book, along with a killer first line. While deciding how I wanted to write this, I surfed the web to gather a little fodder for the post, see what others are saying.

Do you know over 90% of the examples are for thrillers, suspense, and mysteries? What about romance, women’s fiction, historical, and general fiction? Fortunately, there’s conflict in all fiction or at least tension. And that gives us an idea of what needs to go into the back cover blurb or copy.

The contents of a back cover copy are:

Tagline: the shorter the better.

Who: protagonist. If it’s a romance, both.

What: what is the problem your protagonist faces?

Why: is this a problem

Trouble: what opposes your protagonist?

Cliffhanger/Question: most back cover blurbs end with a question. Those are the basic 6.

From my book In High Cotton:

Tagline: Southern women may look as delicate as flowers, but there’s iron in their veins. (14 words)                            

Who: Widow Maggie Parker

What: barely surviving raising her young son alone.

Why: it’s 1929 and times are hardscrabble in rural South Georgia.

Trouble: banks begin to fail, her father-in-law threatens to take her son and sell her grocery store.

Cliffhanger/Q: can Maggie and her friends band together, use their wisdom and wiles, to stop her father-in-law and survive the Great Depression?

Put it together with a tad of detail and tweaking and you have:

Southern women may look as delicate as flowers, but there’s iron in their veins.

While the rest of the world has been roaring through the 1920s, times are hardscrabble in rural South Georgia. Widow Maggie Parker is barely surviving while raising her young son alone. Then as banks begin to fail, her father-in-law threatens to take her son and sell off her livelihood—the grocery store her husband left her. With nothing to rely on but their faith, can five Southern women band together, using their wisdom and wiles, to stop him and survive the Great Depression?

Here’s another with romance from By the Sweet Gum:

Tagline: She’s bound by duty. He’s tethered to a dream. (9 words)

Who: Genessee Taylor and Tommy Mack

What: Genessee dreams of life beyond her mill town. Tommy dreams of playing professional baseball. Together they want to change child labor laws

Why: Mill owner not honest & children are dying

Trouble: Owner will stop at nothing to keep cheap labor

Cliffhanger Q: loss, deception, & sacrifice

Put it together with a tad of detail and tweaking, and you have:

She’s bound by duty. He’s tethered to a dream.

In the beleaguered mill town of Sweetgum, Georgia, Genessee Taylor dreams of a life beyond running the mill-owned hotel with her family. Though the work is honest, the owner of the mill is not. If he learns she’s campaigning to change child labor laws, he’ll stop at nothing to silence her.

Tommy Mack dreams of playing professional ball and marrying Genessee. When he’s contracted by a big-league team, his dreams are within grasp. Then tragedy strikes Sweetgum. Tommy can’t stay and Genessee can’t leave.

Can they battle through loss, deception, and sacrifice to find their way back to each other?

From On Sugar Hill:

Tagline: She traded Sugar Hill for Vaudeville. Now she’s back. (9 words)

Who: Cora Fitzgerald, ventriloquist

What: Fled home for New York’s vaudeville

Why: Her senator father abused her

Trouble: Stock market crash, senator kills himself

Cliffhanger/Q: Will home keep her from a brilliant career/future?

Put it together with a tad of detail and tweaking and you have:

She traded Sugar Hill for Vaudeville. Now she’s back.

The day Cora Fitzgerald turned sixteen, she fled Sugar Hill for the bright lights of Vaudeville, leaving behind her senator-father’s abuse. But just as her career takes off, the stock market crashes, and she’s summoned back home. The senator is dead. Her mother is delusional, and her mute Aunt Clara pens novels that have people talking. Then there’s Boone Robertson, who never knew she was alive back in high school. Will the people of her past keep her from a brilliant future?

Now, it’s your turn. Look at your story. Who is it about? What is it about in the fewest words possible. Like: A reluctant teacher inherits a school for orphans. Now that, all by itself opens a world of questions which is what you want your tagline and back cover copy to do.

Join the conversation. Tell us your favorite back cover copy.

Ane Mulligan lives life from a director’s chair, both in theatre and at her desk, creating novels. Entranced with story by age three, at five, she saw PETER PAN onstage and was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. One day, her passions collided, and an award-winning, bestselling novelist emerged. She believes chocolate and coffee are two of the four major food groups and lives in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler. Find Ane on her website, Amazon Author page, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, The Write Conversation, and Blue Ridge Conference Blog.