In the smallest possible space, the back cover text should present the most unique aspects of the book and stand out from the crowd. How do you formulate a back cover text that fulfils these requirements? How long should the text be? How much should you tell about the books content? Here are some tips and guidance. 

The back cover is one of the publisher's most important tools for marketing your book. Good back cover texts are concise, pithy and effective. They focus on the benefits and have the target audience in mind. Good back cover copy is sales-oriented. 

The aim is always to write the text in good time and avoid ruching the book's sales pitch towards the end of the project. For this reason, we start working on the text in connection with the first proof of the book. 

You will then be asked to write a draft back cover text that he publisher will use as a basis for the final back cover text. As the author, you are the one who knows the book best, and we want to capitalise on this. This means that your words will for the basis of the text. We will then help to emphasise the most important arguments. You will of course have the opportunity to comment on the text during the process. 

Once the publisher has finalised the back cover text, it will be about 1000 characters long, including spaces. However, it does not matter if your draft is slightly longer that this. The back cover text is proofread before the cover is printed. 
 

Your draft to the publisher. 

The text on the back cover is divided into an author presentation(preferably combined with a photo of you) and a marketing text. The following information needs to be included in the material you submit to the publisher. 

Draft of the author presentation

  • Start with your name and title, and state where you work and what your main research interest is. 

  • If you are the editor of an anthology, mention other contributing authors by name only. 

  • Try to keep the text short, 250-300 characters including spaces is reasonable. 

 

Draft text about the book. 

  • Explain what is unique about your book. 

  • Clarify the function of the book and its purpose-what benefit does the book bring to the reader. 

  • Keep in mind that it can be effective to emphasise that the book, for example, breaks with commonly held beliefs, sheds new light on an issue or shows completely new aspects of something. 

  • Never try to say everything about the book, but try to find the main messages. 

  • Be short and concise, avoid too long sentences. 

  • Don't start each paragraph with the book, in this book, The book is about similar, rather repeat the title of the book in one of the places. 

  • End with a line about the main target group of the book. 

 

Digital material

If your book has digital material, mention it in the back cover text according to this pattern:
"Youth Health includes a digital version of the book."

The text is used in different contexts

The back cover text, as well as the author presentation, will be used in a variety of contexts - both online and in print. The first few sentences are important - these are the ones that automatically go to online bookshops and this is where we need to capture the reader.
This is something we take into account in our processing of your draft. We make sure that keywords appear early in the text and that the main message is made clear. This increases the likelihood that the reader will absorb it and that search engines will find the product.