Author PR 101: The Product Description

It is surprising how little is written about the product description, considering what a vital role it plays in a reader's decision to purchase a book. I'd rate it as the #2 influencer, placing it beneath only the book cover, in terms of overall importance. After a potential reader has clicked on your book cover, they will then read the product description.

If you're a writer, you're a master of words—here is your first, and perhaps, last chance to ensnare a new reader through the use of your writing skills—don't waste this valuable opportunity. Think of it as a movie preview/trailer—what can you say here to set expectations about your book in the most enticing way? It's literally the back cover of your virtual book, so that you should give careful thought as to the content placed there.

Check out how product descriptions are being used by other authors. Before you write your own product description, you should go online and read the product descriptions for the Amazon Top 100 Bestsellers within your genre. Each genre has a different tone and style (you wouldn't write the product description for a paranormal romance in the same manner as you would a horror/thriller, for example). See what is working well (i.e. selling well).

If you uploaded your product description using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), you may not be aware of Author Central. To add formatting to your product description such as italics, bold, numbering and bullet points, you'll need to update your product description through Author Central, not KDP (which does not offer formatting). It is easy enough to access Author Central—your regular Amazon customer account name and password (that you use to buy books and products on Amazon) works as the sign-in.

Once in Author Central, click on the 'Books' tab and select the book title for which you wish to edit the product description. Next, you'll click on the 'Edit' button next to 'Product Description' which will open a dialogue box that allows you to copy and paste text or to type text in directly. You'll be able to preview your text before saving your changes, but be sure to double-check your product description page once it is updated and live on Amazon.

The final results can be a bit funky. Invariably, I'll see odd spacing and weird line breaks that were not in the preview or saved text, but you simply need to go back into Author Central, edit it again, and the next version is usually fine. Paragraph breaks can be especially troublesome—try Enter and Shift/Enter, until it works correctly. Amazon says that it takes 3 to 5 days for updates to appear, but it's usually much faster, a day, at the most, for product description edits, in my experience.

Now what information should you be including in your product description? In addition to an overview of a book's content, I like to include highlights of blogger reviews, as well as any outstanding Amazon reader reviews (you don't really expect readers to read all your reviews to find the best one, do you?). I italicize all quoted reviews, so that is where the formatting comes into play.

You might also cite any limited-time deals in pricing; be sure to let readers know of any promo related specials. If your book has hit the bestseller charts, well, that is worth capitalization and even the use of bolding. The only item that shouldn't be included in your product description would be an excerpt or teaser. Amazon's 'Look Inside the Book' service provides a sample of your book, so that you don't need to waste the space in your product description to provide one.

Your product description should evolve and improve over time. When you have more content you may wish to expand by using other Author Central tabs such as 'Reviews,' 'From the Author,' 'From the Inside Flap', 'From the Back Cover,' and 'About the Author.' Feel free to experiment, to be creative, and to try different arrangements of your book's details. Just track the results. Your goal is to find what works best to market your own book.

Author PR 101 Blogger: Carrie Green
Carrie provides marketing and PR services in the technology field.  Her media hits include BusinessWeek, CFO, CIO, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Computerworld, Crain's Chicago Business, Entrepreneur, Fortune Small Business, Industry Standard, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, among many others.  Projects have ranged from PR to digital content marketing along with the promotion of traditionally published business books from McGraw-Hill, Jossey-Bass (Wiley), and Edward Elgar Publishing.  She is the bestselling author of Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue and Sugar Is Sweet.

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