What self-published author (including this one) doesn’t want to write more powerful and intriguing book descriptions?

With that in mind, I bought Brian Meek’s 2019 book, Mastering Amazon Descriptions: An Author’s Guide, to help both you and me.

Book descriptions are super important, so you really want to get yours right.

Will this book help you? Here’s what you need to know.

More powerful and intriguing book descriptions convert

Meeks, who writes both fiction and nonfiction, explains that a book description that resonates with readers will help you convert more “looks” to “buys.”

You see the value in that, of course, especially if you’re paying for advertising.

If you’re running Amazon ads, you’ll spend less to get people to buy when your description convinces them to do so. If you’re not advertising, you’re selling more books than you would with a lackluster description.

Instruction is brief

The first few chapters explain the importance of a compelling description.

The true “here’s how to write more powerful and intriguing book descriptions” instruction is just a few pages long, starting with Chapter 4 and concluding at the end of Chapter 7. There isn’t a lot there, but there doesn’t need to be.

What’s in those few chapters is helpful. I would have liked to have seen a formula or template to go with it, but you can use what’s there to create your own.

Sample book descriptions and re-writes

The bulk of Mastering Amazon Descriptions is 40 before-and-after book descriptions. Meeks shares the original description, a short critique, and his re-write. “Read them all,” he advises, rather than flipping through to find those in your genre.

I read maybe the first 10, all for fiction. Then I started skimming to find nonfiction examples.

I found one.

One.

One nonfiction book description out of 40.

That doesn’t mean that nonfiction authors can’t learn from the instruction and the descriptions for novels – they can.

But it does mean that Meeks should include that detail in this book’s description because it’s important. If I bought this as a nonfiction author rather than as someone working to help authors identify helpful resources, I would have been disappointed. (And maybe even annoyed.)

Table of contents doesn’t help

Why didn’t I just check the table of contents to find the nonfiction examples, you ask?

I did.

But the chapters are numbered without titles. Not much help there, ya know?

And without chapter titles in the table of contents, you can’t identify the padding – and there’s a lot of it – without continuing to turn the page as you move through the book.

More fluff than a Rice Krispies treat

Speaking of fluff … I take notes when reading books I plan to review on this site. Here’s what I wrote for a couple of chapters:

• Chapter 29: Bizarre
• Chapter 37: What the what?
• Chapter 44: Huh?

I realized by the end of Chapter 29 that it was originally either a long Facebook group post or a blog post written while Meeks was attending an authors’ conference. It has nothing to do with writing compelling book descriptions.

Here’s a sample from the chapter: “To those who are not here in Las Vegas this week, we shall miss you.” It concludes with another sentence referencing “tonight.”

I think you can understand my confusion.

Skip those chapters.

Still, the fluff is obvious, which makes this book quite skimmable, in fact. You’ll see quickly which chapters are padding and which are relevant.

Kindle price is $9.99

I paid $9.99 for the Kindle version. That seems high for a book with so much filler text, but if it helps me sell more books, it will pay for itself.

For that price, though, I expected more tools and less random content.

And I’ll admit that sometimes I felt like I was being pranked. For example, right up front, Meeks tells us to copy and paste text promoting his book – and with his Amazon Associates link no less – into a Facebook post to see how many more likes we get than we usually do.

I mean, have people actually done that – recommended his book before they’ve even read it just because the author told them to?

Some might see that as clever … others might decide it’s insulting to the reader.

Do I recommend it?

Did I get $10 worth of value from this book?

I did.

Will you?

It will help, especially if you write fiction. You’re likely to see at least one before and after for your genre. If you’re like me, examples help provide clarity.

It will help nonfiction authors, too, but because there’s only one nonfiction example – and examples are the bulk of the book – it’s less useful to them.

This isn’t the wildly enthusiastic review I was hoping to write (especially because I laughed out loud during the first few pages). But I did learn from the book, and for that, I’m grateful.

What book would you like me to review next? Please tell us in a comment.