Non Fiction Book Descriptions and YouTube Subscriber Party in LA [LIVE Replay]

Hey everybody. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I am Julie Broad with Book Launchers. So excited to have you here. When you're tuning in, be sure to say hello, let me know that you're here. If you're watching the replay, say hello then too. Sorry, I'm just gonna move this forward, maybe, maybe try to do things in mirror. There we go. Yeah. So, fantastic show planned for you today, I hope. We're gonna talk about book descriptions, non fictional fiction book descriptions. And there's multiple reasons why. One is we haven't talked about it yet, but also because when you have a book and you've taken the time to create a fantastic title and an eye catching COVID then the next thing that you really have to worry about is you've got the attention of that ideal reader. Now what does your book description say? So that it makes them go, oh my goodness, I have to read this book. And a lot of books don't do a good job of this. So if you're looking around Amazon for some inspiration, then you might be struggling. And it's something we've been working in house on a lot lately. Hey, Ann, welcome. Hey Sarah, welcome. Thanks for joining. When you do join, say hello and if you have questions, you can post them even if they're not about book descriptions. Book descriptions is the main topic of today, but you can join and ask any questions and I will do my best to answer you or tell you where to find answers. Okay, so yeah, so back to book descriptions, you know, incredibly important and something we spent a lot of time in house working on and we have professional copywriters that craft the copy for our clients. And still we spend a lot of time rewriting and reworking that material to create something that's great because it's so important. So I wanted to chat about that today and give you guys some examples, give you guys some parameters and really help you build some great book descriptions. So I also have prizes, of course. So if you are a viewer and subscriber to the YouTube channel, you probably already know, and the YouTube channel is Book launchers TV, so you probably already know that if you leave a comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some fantastic book launcher swag, which is one of the questions I have for you today. I am getting ready to order some new swag because I only have two of our no Boring Books mugs left. So of course I'll replenish that supply because they are super popular and last time I didn't replenish them. I heard it loud. And so I will be replenishing that supply. But I also was curious what other kind of swag you guys would like to see. We previously had these journals right here so you guys can see. So I use this one all the time. It's really nice. It's soft. But what else would you guys like to see? I put this on the YouTube channel previously and I put it inside of our authors group. But let me know what ideas you have. I have some of my own and I'm kind of waiting to see if anybody hits them the same idea as me before I throw it out there. So yeah, we'll do prizes. So we're giving away some fantastic book launchers. Swag. And that is to anybody who comments on the day a video is released. So we have quite a big. I've got Robert Workman's mug. If you guys weren't here a couple weeks ago, you might have missed this. I've got them his mug again. I can't really drink out of it. It's kind of. You can see my little hands on this. But it makes for a great little drawing tool. So I've got all of your names inside of here. Again, if you did comment on a recent video. So as you join, please do say hello even if you're watching the replay, especially on YouTube. I reply to every single comment posted on YouTube if you're watching the replay. So make sure you do say hello. And if you have questions, you can post those at any time too. Okay, so let's just dive in and chat about book descriptions, shall we? It is crazy busy around the office right now. You guys probably seeing all these people. I don't know if you can see them, but if you notice, my eye is kind of going like this. That's what's going on. Okay, so I've got some notes so I can make sure that I hit all the really important points for you. And let's see. Wrong page here. Okay, so the book description is really, really. I'm missing a page on my notes. Just one second. It is probably underneath all of these folks right here. So the book description is really important because here it is. It's the primary thing that readers will use once the covers got their attention. The book description and the table of contents, I'll argue both is what people will use to decide whether they're going to part not just with their 10 to 20 bucks, but with their time and, you know, the obligation of having another book sitting on their shelf or another book sitting on their Kindle. So you have to have a book description that makes them go, oh, my goodness, I have to read this book right now. And it's an advertisement. And I think one of the mistakes that a lot of authors make in their book description and in evaluating a book description is that they think it has to summarize their entire book, and it does not. If you think of a movie trailer, a lot of times it doesn't summarize the entire movie. It's just a one scene or a couple of scenes that make you go, oh, I wonder what else is in that movie? So that's the goal of a good book description, is to make them go, ooh, I wonder what else is in there? What does that say? What does that mean? And that's your goal. So it's an advertisement, not a summary. Really, really, really important for you to get that. And the opening sentence, I think, is the most important. And I make this argument all the time. Regular viewers already know I have a video on YouTube about, you know, how to open every chapter of your book, how to make sure that every single chapter has an important opening. But that's because that's the first sentence, and that is where people are going to decide if they even want to carry on. And so one of the big mistakes I see, and I got an example of a name that you will know that has this mistake, as far as I'm concerned. But one of the mistakes people make is opening with something about the author. The reader does not care about the author. The story might be about you, but it's not for you. And the book description is definitely not for the author. It is all about the reader. And so the first sentence should not be about the author. It can be a teasing statement about a story, and I've got an example for that. But it should not be about the author. It really has to attention and draw you in. And in most cases, because we're talking nonfiction, that means it needs to be the hook. The hook of the book. Again, a video on my YouTube channel, Book Launchers TV. You can just search, you know, book launchers hook of your book, and you'll come up with that, that video. But the hook is really the big promise. What is in it for the reader? And this usually comes down to, you know, how are you going to make them richer, prettier, more popular, more respected, more well known? Are you gonna make them a celebrity? Are you gonna make them rich? You know, what is your book going to do for them? And tease the idea of how that's going to happen. That is really what you should open the first sentence with. Now, if you've got a memoir or biography, then you're looking at kind of probably the most surprising or something shocking or something that's going to make you go, ooh, what's this story about? So you want to think about those things super, super important. Again, if you're just joining us, do say hello. And if you're watching the replay, hello as well. So I know that you and checking it out. And you can always post questions at any time. Okay. So I'm going to give you a couple examples just to give you what I think are good opening sentences. So there's a book. I'm sure you've seen it if you peruse nonfiction at all. It's called Educated by Tara Westover, and it's a memoir. We have quite a few clients with book launchers who write memoirs. So I wanted to offer this as an example. The sentence is born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho. Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. So, yeah, it's about the author, but it's, you know, she was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. That's curiosity creating. And I think that does a great job of kind of making you go, oh, I'm born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho. The whole sentence, every single word, I think, does a great job of making you curious about what this author's gone through and what you're going to experience. Right. Still about the reader. So what's the reader going to experience through the eyes, through the perspective of the author? So I thought that was a good job. Exactly what to say by Phil Jones. The first sentence is often the decision between a customer choosing you over someone like you is your ability to know exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to make it count. So that is a great opening sentence because it makes you go, ooh, I wonder if I know what to say in the right situations. Am I losing customers because I'm not saying the right things? Thanks for the thumbs up. It always floats across my screen. It makes me so happy. So thank you for that. So that's a good example. One of our clients, Carol Sanford, her book is in this little stack back here, right there. I won't pull it down because I don't want to have my books topple everywhere while you guys are watching. I'm pretty clumsy. But her book, her book description starts with peer review is the foundation for measuring employee performance. But does it help employees realize their full potential? It's a question, and I think a question can work if it now makes you think, ooh, she's going to offer me a different process or different option to feedback. So I thought that one did a really good job as well. So, three examples. I'll give you an example that I think is very poor and I'll tell you why. You can get away with a poor example and you'll know as soon as I say the name of how they get away with a poor example. So this one is the book. It's called where's the title of the book? This is Marketing. That's the book title. This is the book description. Seth Godin has taught and inspired millions of entrepreneurs, marketers, leaders and fans from all walks of life via his blog, online courses, lectures, and best selling books. That is a terrible, terrible opening sentence. And the only reason this book has done decently well is because it's the Seth Godin book and he already has a massive, massive following. But there is nothing in that sentence that makes me want to read that book, that makes me care about this book, anything. It's all about Seth and how amazing he is and how many people he's taught and how many, how many people have learned from him. So it's a very, very poor first sentence for a book description as far as I'm concerned. Okay, so hopefully those are some examples of how you want to start it off. That's really, really important. The book description must cover some sort of an emotion. And this is one thing a lot of nonfiction authors, and this is part of why we're always a little about no, you know, our hashtag is no boring books is your book. Just because it's nonfiction doesn't mean it can't have emotion. I mean, there's almost everything we do in life is driven by emotion, even in business. So connect with that emotion. Is that ideal reader feeling pain? Are you going to offer a solution to that pain? Maybe give them hope? So connect with those emotions that your ideal reader is feeling and that they will feel after they read your book again. It's really about that connection and creating curiosity and engagement. So pain is important to hit on if you're solving a problem with your book. Tension, if it's a memoir, curiosity. Those are all, Curiosity is kind of an emotion, but those are all things that you want to use. And most importantly, you got to create curiosity about what's in there. And I think that if you're, if you've got a memoir, then some paragraphs is okay. But if you have a typical nonfiction how to book, you need to have some bullets, bullet points, and they need to really draw out what makes your book different. Do you have a cool acronym that you could almost be trademarked or you should trademark that? What do you say that's different? What is a commonly held belief in your industry that you completely disprove in your book? Tease that out in those bullets so that you are now creating curiosity and having people go, oh, my goodness, this is not like every other book I've read in this industry. And if you read the three to five bullets in your book description and you're going, I think this sounds. This is safe, right? This is comfortable. This doesn't feel like anybody's going to be, you know, upset or curious or engaged by this. Then you really have to dig a little bit deeper and get in there. Okay, wait, hold on. Okay. There should be a sentence or two about the author. There needs to create. You need to create credibility for the author for why a reader is going to want to hear what the author has to say in regards to this. So that's important. It's not about the author, but it is the purpose of telling the reader about the author is so that they go, oh, wow, okay, this person knows what they're talking about. This person is going to be interesting to learn from. They're going to have a perspective that I haven't heard yet. So it's not all about. Usually on back covers and in Amazon, there's going to be a bio where you can go into greater detail. So this is really just one single sentence. It's going to highlight, you know, the biggest achievement or the decades of experience or the hundreds of clients. One of those pieces that's going to be highlighted there in the description for credibility purposes so that the reader trusts what they're being told and taught and what they're going to be reading inside of this book. Again, they're parting with hours. So what are you giving them? And why should they trust what they're being given to part with that time? Because the time really is bigger than the money that they're going to spend. Okay, keywords, Keywords. That's kind of the final thing I want to touch on here. I'm just checking my notes to make sure that I didn't miss anything. The keywords. You want to include as many keywords as you naturally can. And this is really, really important for search engines. So if people are searching for a topic On Amazon and even Google, if you're going wide distribution, you want to be found for those keywords. But it becomes doubly important if you're going to do any sort of Amazon advertising. If you're doing Amazon advertising and you do not have these keywords built into the book descript, you will not be found. It will not have good relevancy for those words. When you try to run ads for that keyword, it won't bring your book up very high. So you're going to struggle. And then the conversion will obviously be very poor on your ads. So it's really, really important to think those through and naturally put them into that book description. You are not writing the book description for the bots that are going to be putting your ad first. But you do have to consider them and really try to incorporate those keywords so that your overall success of your book is getting. It's getting show to everybody who's looking for this content. And there's so many factors that go into that, but this is really, really important. Now a couple notes on word count, and then I'm gonna do the draw. And that's it. You guys are quiet today. So it's a fast show. We just hit it hard and we'll get out. But I do want you. So if you're watching the replay, because I know a lot of people catch this on YouTube after the fact, and if you're watching on YouTube after the fact, do tell me what kind of swag we should get. And then I have one more question for you at the end. So make sure you're sticking around for that final question so that I can get your input because it's really important and fun. Okay, so word count for the back of the book. The book description has a couple of purposes. One is, of course, the back of the book. So let me just turn around here and grab a couple of books here. So it's going to go on the back of the book. This is Todd Tresiter's book, the Leverage Equation, and this is Ron Neitzel's book, the Green Wizard. So you see the back. Back matter. The back book matter, if you will. So the book description is for that. And then there's also a book description that will be posted anywhere your book is online. So Amazon, Goodreads, you know, chapters Indigo in Canada, Barnes and Noble, so forth. So we target two different sizes of book descriptions. We've got the book description that's going to go on the back of the book. And we're looking at 120 to 160 words, max. So really short, tight, concise copy. For the online version, we will allow that to expand. You don't want it to be too long because you want to leave room for the best kind of media testimonials. You know, if you happen to get a piece in Forbes or somewhere else where you can put that on in your book description, you know, you want to have that in there too, for more credibility. But, you know, kind of 220 words, max. 220. But it's loose, right? It's not as strict because it is online. You've got more space. So those are kind of the two ranges. So 120 to 160. For the back of the book, we do have a few that go 180. It just means you either need a bigger book or you're not going to have a bio if you have a hardcover with a dust jacket. So we have a couple here. I'll pull out Alison's book as an example. Then you have more space. She actually opted for just testimonials on the back of her book. And then inside you've got her author bio there. And then over here is your actual book description, which is very short and has to be even more concise inside of there. So there's lots of options. But no matter what, for the book cover, you're going to have really tight, short copy. And then you can have a little bit longer. So more keyword rich, more options for keywords. For the online portion, avoid being all about the author. Avoid being too short, because if it's too short, especially online, you're missing out on keyword opportunities. But also, you're probably not going to sell somebody. Generally you do need a few sentences, really key bullet points. Probably the only book description that I've seen that really sold a book with only a couple paragraphs was the book for Bad Blood. The description for Bad Blood, which I was going to pull it up as an example today, but they've rewritten it. The book Bad Blood has done so well. It's now been optioned off to be a documentary. So for hbo. And I think that they've rewritten the book description. I don't think it's actually as strong as it used to be. But I previously bought the book based on the book description and the compelling reviews when it was first launched. So that's another kind of another exception. I would say the books, the story and the foundation of that book is incredible. It kind of sells itself. So generally you want to avoid being too short and avoid being boring. So make it sound different than every other book your ideal reader has read. And I often default to real estate because, you know, that's where a lot of my background is. But, you know, you. You don't want the back of your book to be like, okay, in this book, you're going to learn how to calculate cash flow, what makes a great property, how to find. How to find deals of cash flow, because that's what everybody puts. So what do you say that's different? What do you say that is actually contrary to what everybody believes? You know? And I don't remember what was on the back of my book, but one of my big points was passive income is a myth. Passive income is not real. More properties does not mean more money, doesn't mean more income. It actually means more problems. So these were some of the things that I talked about in my book that I would want to showcase because it was different than what everybody was talking about at the time. So think about that. Pull out the boldest claims that you're making in your book. Pull out the biggest promises and the things that are very different that are proprietary to you, your unique processes or processes and your systems or tips that are super cool that nobody else is telling, and tease that on your book description. And I think you're going to do so much better selling your book. So hope that helps. Thank you. Of course, if you have questions, you can let me know. Okay, so book swag. Just a reminder. Tell me. Not book swag. Tell me your ideas for swag for giveaways and today's draw. So every day that a YouTube video comes out, if you comment the day the video is released, you will be entered to win some swag from book Launchers. And so I'm borrowing Robert Workman his. As one of our clients, I'm borrowing his swag to do the draw. And this is for a hashtag noboringbooks mug. So here we go. Drumroll. Okay, just so you guys can see, I'm not looking and trying to. My hand's kind of stuck in there. Okay, there we go. Oh, I've got two. All right. How am I supposed to choose between two? Okay, so we'll go like this. Which one? Which hand, guys? Left or right? Hey, Kevin, you're still up. Okay, Kevin, help me choose here. Left or right hand? I've got a name in each. Which hand? Left or right? This is going to make a good thumbnail after the fact. Okay. Left or right? I'm just waiting left. Okay, thanks, Kevin. Here we go. Congratulations to Fee O'. Shea. You are the proud owner of a NoboringBooks mug. So all you have to do is email team t e a mooklaunchers.com and you will be entered to win. Okay, final thing, super, super important is we're almost at 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. So thank you, everyone. By almost, I mean we're 1,000 away. Oh, you're a lefty, Kevin. You'd fit in well with my family. Everyone, everyone is left handed and I'm the only one in my right mind. That's a family joke. I'm sure it's terrible. I'm sorry. Okay, so back to the important News. So we're 1,000 away. So in my mind, that's almost realistically, that means we're probably looking at hitting it late April, early May. So what I'm thinking is we're going to have a party and I'd love your input on what we'll do. So in la, we have great office space that we work out of. WeWork and we've got some great space for a party. I was kind of thinking we would do maybe a training evening, some sort of, you know, where we, you know, share tips or brainstorm book ideas or do something and we'll livestream it. So maybe it's just a Q and A session with, with people from my team and then you guys can come live if you're in la. If you're not in la, we'll live stream it. Sorry, I'm just laughing at Kevin. I'll bring it up after. So I think we'll live stream it. Of course, if you're here, we'll have some food and I don't know about drinks necessarily, but we'll try to make it an event. And so I posted already on YouTube. Seemed like we have a good response. There'll be at least 10, 15 people who would come out, which would make it good enough. And then we'll live stream it. So just tell me, what should we do? Should we do a Q and A? Just give me ideas for that event because I want to thank you. I want to thank you. It is completely for you guys because I appreciate your comments. I appreciate people like Kevin who stay up late at night and watch the live stream and comment on every single video. So it's really something I want to do for you guys to celebrate 10,000 subscribers for YouTube. So let me know and let me know the swag that you want and of course, any topics you want us to cover in future live streams. I'd love to hear that as well. So thank you so much for tuning in. And Kevin said left handers use the right side of the brain. Right handers use the left usually. So obviously left handers are in their right mind. You would get along beautifully with my entire family. Yeah, it's all good. Right hand, left hand, whatever. We can just be friends. How about that? All right. So thank you, everybody. Thanks for joining. Have a wonderful sleep, Kevin, and thank you. And again, if you're watching the replay, do make sure you've said hello. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the YouTube channel, book launchers TV and comment on the day a video is released to be entered to win some of that swag that you're going to tell me what I should get next. Okay, bye.