Two months ago I received this in a letter from Jay:


Discuss!

I'm just going to keep double posting, moderators forgive me, but it's easier to organize my thoughts this way. To aid the discussion I took pictures of many, many examples for you. <grin> These are all paperback books that I pulled off my shelf, the ones that were most convenient. All fiction. Half are HWers self-published books.

To continue; what do these books have in common? What are common elements of back cover copy? What all can be included? Between all the books here is a list of elements that can occur:

Publisher name
Book title
Quote from book
Tagline for book
Barcode
Copyright information
Book price
Cover design credits
Series information
Page Decoration
Additional Illustrations
Genre
Recommendations

In fact, I did not include the many, many books which consisted of only recommendations on the back cover. Here's a list of how many elements the previously given example contain:

Rose in Bloom - six elements
Red Rain - three elements
Supervillain of the Day - three elements
Fire and Ashes - three elements
Finding the Core of Your Story - four, possibly five elements
Radialloy - four elements
A Little BushMaid - seven elements
Faces of Fire - four elements
Song of the Wanderer - Four elements

And here are a few more examples:

The Theif - six elements
The Queen of Attolia - six elements
The King of Attolia - six elements

The interesting thing about these three books is that the elements on each is different, but the number remains the same. Leading me to believe that perhaps the key to a good back cover is to put many elements on it, regardless of what they are?

Very fascinating thoughts. Admittedly, while I have studied cover design and interior design some, I had never considered the back cover. Good catch.

I notice that we self-publishers have less elements. Granted, we don't have to put publishing house information on there, but perhaps we should be adding more content instead of letting the synopsis overrun the page.

Also, I thought Red Rain had my URL on there... does that count as a fourth element?

*grins at back cover seven*

I too have noticed this on back covers. I believe the back cover is the difference between a book looking self published or traditionally published. From what I've seen, it seems to me that the back cover gets neglected over the attention to the front. I definitely think more elements is a plus; the more interesting info you have on the back without giving the plot away, the better in my opinion.

I would count your URL to be another element, Philly.

Ooh, this is interesting!

Since you posted a picture of the first edition of Finding the Core of Your Story, I've provided a picture of the much-changed second edition back cover. Just in case somebody wants to compare.



Personally, I don't think the number of elements on the back cover is as huge as the quality of the elements. Between my two editions, I seem to have actually removed some elements, yet I believe the new edition's copy is much stronger.

Though, admittedly, my book is nonfiction. There might be some differences in selling technique.

I think yours is the only nonfiction book I included, Jordan. but I put it in there because it looked so pretty. But you're right; non-fiction is kind of different. For example, on the first version I had a hard time tagging the elements because... they were all different. You had bullet points and things that don't apply to fiction. I'd say your new one has four elements as well, because there are two headline areas, a little boxed area, and then the barcode. You also have page decorations; without which the back cover would be much more boring.

Quality of content is important, obviously, but the style in which the content is presented is also important, and I think that's a design thing. It's a matter of making the text eye catching by separating and distinguishing it somehow. Making it jump out and be noticed. *should get Becky to come comment*

That's a good thing to consider.