Chris A. Baird | February 18, 2022
Non-Fiction Book Descriptions That Sell Books

 Ever wonder how you could attract buyers through your book descriptions? Let me tell you how to make non-fiction book descriptions that sell books as well as some tips to help you win at self-publishing.

 Today's topic has three points and you're going to want to stick around for the third point. Because it is a secret as to a very easy way to get a bump in sales by making one particular adjustment to your description.

So today's topic, we're discussing non-fiction book descriptions that sell books. When you're first getting started with self-publishing, you're going to have to come up with a description.

You don't know exactly what the description should look like or what it should contain. That's why I created this article and by the end of this article, you're going to know what role descriptions play when it comes to selling your books.

You're going to have the steps necessary to go through your description and fix it to increase sales. You're going to feel great that you're not leaving money on the table just because you didn't understand the role that the description in your book plays.

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But before we proceed, check out my free Self-Publishing Checklist. And if you would like to join me with a one-on-one free Discovery Session, go ahead and just book your session and we will meet up. I can take a look at your specific book and we'll map out what the next steps for your self-publishing process would be.

So just go ahead and check that out. From my own story, when I first got started, my very first book descriptions were breaking all of the rules there were about achieving goals. But the one goal I wasn't achieving was getting a lot of sales on the book.

Not optimizing the description played a very big role in this area. The first thing I did was my entire description was one huge block of text. I gave a summary of the book which also was a problem where I just told what the book was about and it gave this huge wall of text.

So the thing was that a wall of text is hard to read. When a person sees it, you feel like well, I don't have time to read through all of this. It's just so difficult to chew on but that was what they got when they purchased my book.

It is very unfortunate because that will cost sales. Because functionally, if it's there, they're not going to read it with this huge wall of text. The next thing is that all of the text was the same size. There weren't fonts or headers or anything like that.

It was just a huge wall of text, all the same size. So nothing stands out and they're not going to read this particular text. The other thing was that it didn't call the people to buy it or to do anything.

So it was just sitting there and you read through it. I understand what the books are about. I mean, I guess that's good if they actually read it but then it's not clear.

The next step is how we think they might know that but it wasn't clear to my readers. In reality, it all did terribly and one of the reasons was specifically because of the book description. And when I discovered the power that can be released by a properly written book description, it made a huge difference when it came to the sales at least like one.

Sometimes, it's hard to identify which thing you fix and how it impacts specific sales. But when you're going through the process of putting together the description and you're optimizing different things on your book, you discover over some time that maybe it's that you don't know which one of these things you fix.

Descriptions are incredibly important and this is one of the reasons why I'm hitting it today, non-fiction book descriptions that sell books. The first thing when it comes to your book description is about tempting the person to buy your book. It's not about telling them all of the books, this would apply to fiction as well.

The Pain And The Benefit

 But for non-fiction, we're not telling them all of the tips that we're going to show them in the book. Rather, we're going to open a bunch of loops. We're going to use questions that we're going to be asking them.

Do you have a problem with this? Does your puppy have a problem sleeping at night? You know, my usual classic one is the Puppy Training model. So we're looking at these specific things.

We're helping them to feel the pain. We're also looking at the benefit, what it would feel like if your puppy slept tonight. Imagine if your puppy was trained to go to the bathroom outside as opposed to inside.

So we're looking at the benefits and not the how-to aspect. It's what a lot of people are thinking about when they get to your description. We're trying to tempt the person to buy and those are done by asking open-loop questions.

Do you suffer from these problems? And then we simply throw the benefit which is you will get this out of the book. By the end of this book, you're going to simply have that benefit.

You're going to feel great about your puppy no longer doing these things. Or that your puppy is just friendly and cozy and following the rules that you've set out. Does that make sense?

So in other words, they were only two things, we're not telling them how we're going to solve their issue. We're simply asking do they feel this pain and what is the benefit they're going to get if they read the book.

Those are the two things that they have to buy the book. To get to jump over the chasm between "I'm sitting with this problem which you're talking about" and then the benefits they're going to get out of it.

This is something that no matter what you're selling but specifically with your books, you need to make sure that you are not telling them how you're going to do it. You're not going to say "I'm going to show you how by using this little clicker" and give them a little scooby snack every time.

You don't put this into the description because we don't want to tell them how we're going to solve it. We just simply tell them what it's going to feel like and this problem will be resolved. Number two, by the end of the book, you should be using bullet points and different fonts.

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To make it easier for the reader to use the 3 to 5 seconds, they will give it. Many readers, when they get to the sales page and they see your description, they'll remember the goal as quickly as possible to communicate if this book is for them. If it isn't for them, then they simply do not purchase but they're going to give you about 3 to 5 seconds.

The way that we do this is with headers and bullet points like we were talking about before. Your headers are going to say "Do you struggle with this? Do you struggle with weight loss? Do you struggle with your plants or your tulips die?".

Do you see how this goes? We start, we have a question, and then we say "by the end of this book, your tulips are going to be amazing and you're going to impress your neighbors". Or "you're going to watch the pounds fall off". You're putting promises into the thing but you're not telling them how you're doing it.

So if it's a Paleo book, you might start with the problems you experience. But those are the two things you have before and after. This is the reason why the model before and after is so powerful.

Here's what you're going to be like before state and here's what you're going to feel like in the after state. But in between, you need to buy the book by the program whatever it is to get over that chasm that is there. So we do that, we're going to do with these bullet points and these headers.

When the eyes see it quickly, I see there are only like three of these main ones. Then you have the bullet points under each and they can quickly scan through it. We're also going to help them by using boldface text.

Now you may have to learn a little bit of Html and some websites do this. You can look at that, it will show you how to properly format your text. So that when you put it onto Amazon, it's going to have boldface things.

They immediately will see those boldface things and those boldface texts. Those are the keywords that the person is looking for. If it's puppies, a back pain book, or something, the promises are there and the boldface helps them do it.

The Use Of Bullet Points

 If you give your description to somebody in 3 to 5 seconds, let's say we give them 5 seconds where they can quickly look at that description and then we pull it away. Are they going to be able to say what value this book is promising to deliver?

So when they're looking at that description, they're going to be like "this is exactly for me" and that's what our goal is. You're going to solve this problem by this. We're not going to tell them how.

We don't want to spoil, like for example a fiction book, spoiling the story inside of our description. Fiction has a little bit different but you still don't use the wall of text there either. You're going to be pulling them into the story.

Making the main character and you're going to have open loops there without spoiling anything. But with the non-fiction, it's all about helping them. Asking the questions whether they feel the pain of this particular problem that you're going to solve.

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Then, how it will be, the benefits that they will get when they solve it. Using these bullet points is a key issue to getting this done. Let me know if you have any questions about how to do that or that website I can share if this is of interest to you.

Number three the secret answer of the day is to make sure you have a call-to-action at the end. It's going to increase your sales by about 10. And what do we mean by call-to-action? It's that when we get to the very last thing, they're going to use our header.

This large font at the bottom says to click the Buy Now button at the top to purchase this book. We want them to exactly click the button. You have to tell them "click the
button at the top of the page to purchase this book now/today".

So you're telling them a call to action. Now, you might be thinking if they want to buy the book, they're going to do it. This is incredibly important.

I don't care what it is you're dealing with, for most people it has to be you leading them down. You're showing them how you're going to solve their problems through this book of yours. But when they get to the end, they might be like, "well maybe I should think about it".

That means they will never purchase this book. Rather, we want to say "you need to do this right away". I remember if you watched infomercials in the old days, this is what they would be doing. They wouldn't say "you know what, go think about it for a week whether you want to purchase this fancy mop or this cleaning solution or whatever it might be.

So they would say you need to hit it now because now is the time you while the number of supplies last or along these lines. Does that make sense? But what we're doing is that the description is a clear match.

We're not selling or saying anything that isn't true. But we're using words, the call-to-action plays out with this to push and move this person through. So that they will look at it and go "this is a fantastic deal".

"This is exactly going to be great for me. This is something I want to do". And so that is another aspect of why you want to do this call-to-action. It is very effective no matter what you're selling but specifically these non-fiction books.

We want to make sure that person does not miss their opportunity. They click that Buy Now and then they move forward. So, what mistakes in your descriptions have you made? I want to know so please let me know below in the comments.

I need to understand if you found any other mistakes that you've made. Or maybe things that you have made from what I've just mentioned. Check out my other blogs and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.

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