Copywriting Tips for Writers

Today on the blog, editor Colin Brush provide tips on copywriting and tells us a bit about his new sci-fi, EXO.

Copywriting Tips for Writers 

As a copywriter for the last quarter century at one of the world’s best-known publishers, I’ve written over 5,000 blurbs on everything from self-help books to political biographies, thousand-year-old classics to the latest romantasy. As my first novel – Exo, a murder mystery set on an abandoned far-future Earth – is published, here are my six rules for writing great copy to sell your book.

What is copywriting?

Firstly, let’s be clear: copywriting is writing that aims to sell or persuade. It’s a craft, not an art. The aim is to get your point across clearly and succinctly, not to wow the reader with fancy prose or turn them off with a hard sell.

Rule 1: Open the Door

Stephen King says, ‘Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.’

When you are copywriting always write with the door open. In other words – think first about your audience. For any successful pitch, you need to connect not only with your audience but their needs and desires. Ask yourself, who are they? Try and picture your ideal reader. Then ask, what does this person want from a book like mine? Now we know who we are talking to and the kind of thing they are looking for.

In all probability, you’ll find yourself thinking of more than one person. Good. This means you’re giving yourself different ways to pitch your book.

Some more questions to ask yourself about your reader: What do they read? What do they like? How do they talk? How should I talk to them? Why should they care?

Remember, no book is ‘for everyone.’ When I was writing blurbs for my novel Exo, I pictured a person in a bookshop, holding the book. They seemed distracted. I needed to get their attention fast!

Take the book to your reader, don’t ask the reader to come to you.

Rule 2 Don’t Put It Off

Terry Pratchett said, ‘If you think you have a book evolving now is the time to write the flap copy – the blurb, in fact. Getting the heart and soul of a book into fewer than 100 words helps you focus.’

Write your blurb early. You can always rewrite it later if the story or the audience changes. When I wrote Exo, I had a hundred-word pitch in mind throughout. The one I started with was different to the one I ended with, but not fundamentally so.

Rule 3 Find the Backbone

The novelist and former Penguin Books copywriter, Elizabeth Buchan says, ‘Find the backbone. In one sentence, what is it that makes that book that book? I wrote Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman. Its backbone was: “living well is the best revenge.”’

Ask yourself, what makes my book my book? Identifying the core of your book can be key to anchoring your blurb. Suddenly you know what your blurb should be about. Not the plot, but the story you are telling.

What was the backbone for Exo? Face your fears.

Rule 4 Grab their Attention

Journalist Sam Leith says, ‘You will never get more people reading the second half of your article than read the first.’ You’ve got to get people’s attention right away. Start with a powerful, intriguing or unsettling statement – maybe even a question. What’s the hookiest thing in your story? Excite, unnerve, scare or surprise the reader. If you can trigger an emotion in them, you’ve got their attention. And if they are intrigued, they will read on.

In my novel Exo, the Earth has been abandoned, which felt like a powerful opening gambit – a hopefully tantalised reader will read on to discover why. This is what we settled on:Banished from Earth, humans eke out lives in orbital habitats—and look back with fear*.

*Note, we’re also using our backbone – face your fears.

Rule 5 Be a Magpie

C. S. Lewis said, ‘Don’t say it was “delightful” make us say ‘delightful’ when we’ve read the description.’

This is the classic writing advice of show don’t tell. Pick out interesting details from your story to bring your pitch alive. Details might be visual or sensory images. They well help bring the setting, situation or a character alive. Specifics will also help your story stand out from all the other stories. If you’re book is funny, make a joke. If it is scary, creep the reader out.

In Exo, we open with former detective Mae returning a lost child to her father only to finding him dead, an apparent suicide. A gruesome detail helps the reader picture the scene:

When she finds a mute child, Siofra, alone on the shore, Mae returns the girl to her father, rogue scientist Carl Magellan—only to find him hanging from a noose.

Rule 6 Tell a Story

Louise Willder, Penguin blurb writer and author of Blurb your Enthusiasm, says ‘a blurb is not a synopsis.’ We want to tell a mini story with drama, narrative and resolution.

We must simplify plot, yet leave the reader wanting more.

Consider which of the seven archetypical plots your story best embodies and try pitching it that way: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, Quest, Voyage and Return, Romantic Comedy, Tragedy, Rebirth. Then choose another and write that. It’s a great way of finding new approaches to pitching your book.

My novel Exo – about a murderous conspiracy involving who controls the secrets of the annihilating entity that has taken over Earth – could best be pitched as either Overcoming the Monster (stop those behind it!) or a Quest (discover the truth!). In the end, we used elements of both.

Word choices are also important. Classic pairings of opposite words – right/wrong, good/bad, beauty/beast etc – help add tension to your blurb. Opposites have a frisson in our minds.

Lastly, since we’re telling a story, give your blurb a beginning (set up), a middle (situation) and an end (stakes). A simple three-part structure.

Final thought

You are not selling the book you have written. You are selling the book your audience wants to read.

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Blurb for Exo

Banished from Earth, humans eke out lives in orbital habitats—and look back with fear. Centuries ago, the oceans transformed into a lethal liquid entity known as the Caul, drawing in and consuming every living thing that gets close. A few undaunted scientists seek to understand and stop it, while others—called penitents—scavenge its shores, resisting the Caul’s lure.

Among them is Mae Jameson, an octogenarian ex-cop who long ago came looking for her lost husband. When she finds a mute child, Siofra, alone on the shore, Mae returns the girl to her father, rogue scientist Carl Magellan—only to find him hanging from a noose. Unwilling to leave his suspicious death to the scientists Carl fled, Mae takes his journals—which detail his uncovering of the Caul’s mysteries—and investigates.

But Mae’s and Carl’s quests expose a dangerous conspiracy. Someone is using the Caul’s secret to shape humanity’s future—no matter how many lives are sacrificed. 

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About the Author

Colin Brush was born in Scotland and raised on the Channel Island of Jersey. After studying geology in Glasgow, he moved to London and started working in the book trade. Over the last quarter century, he has written the cover copy for over 5,000 books. He lives with his partner and their daughters on the southeast coast of England, a few miles from Dungeness, the sea-shaken wilderness that is the inspiration for his first novel Exo. He posts about writing and copy as colinthecopywriter at his website, on Bluesky and Instagram.