Your Book Summary: An Important Marketing Tool (part 2)

 What does a summary need? 

It needs to be short. Consider The Fellowship of the Ring by Tolkien--it has 3 paragraphs (about 7 sentences) as a summary even though it is over 430 pages long. These are not overly complex long sentences, either. The summary for A Game of Thrones is also about 7 sentences despite being over 700 pages. A summary should ideally be 2-4 paragraphs long and no more than 25 sentences. The more succinct you can be with your plot, the better--as long as it meets minimum standards. 

It needs to be well-edited and clear. Authors with typos in their summaries usually have typo-ridden books that are difficult for readers to wade through. Summaries that are written so only the author or someone who has already read the book understand them are also not helpful. 

It needs to let the reader know the (correct) genre if that isn't evident. For example, in The Fellowship of the Ring, the summary lets readers know the book is going to be an epic fantasy because it talks about magical elements and a journey. Be careful, however, if you feel you need to blatantly state "this is a historical fantasy." Many times authors who state what their book is don't know exactly what a "historical fantasy" is. I recently read a summary that claimed the book was a historical fantasy in the first sentence, but the book was set in a fictional world and not a real, historical earth setting. An example of a "historical fantasy" would be Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which takes place on earth in an alternate reality of the past, where magic occurs during the 19th century. There are many other genres, such as urban fiction or paranormal romance, that need authors to be aware of what they entail. The reverse of this is my own sci-fi romance mashup and sci-fi cozy mashup serials--I had at least one person say that these weren't sci-fi because they rely on arranged marriages and some "old-fashioned" societal rules--despite being set on another planet in another star system with advanced technology. I think people forget that many sci-fi books and movies use a technologically advanced but societal archaic theme--think about Star Wars, which basically incorporates swords and magic into sci-fi or Dune, which also has a technologically advanced society based on arranged marriages. 

What to keep out of a summary? 

Avoid words that reflect opinions of your book like "award-winning," "new," and "gripping." Opinions shouldn't be in the summary. There are places on your Amazon book page where you can add paid review information. It is expected that you, the author, believes your book should win an award and is a superb contribution to literature--your own opinions about your work don't belong anywhere on your sales page. Using "new" is slightly ridiculous because your book is not going to be "new" forever. 

Avoid plot details. Your added a bunch of really cool details and characters to your book, so of course you want to talk about them. The problem is that you are going to bog down your summary with things that are not necessary to conveying the plot. The Fellowship of the Ring summary mentioned above is a good example. It tells the reader who the main bad guy is and who the main good guy is. Are there other important characters in the book? Of course. But the whole trilogy is about Frodo getting to Mount Doom to destroy the ring and Sauron trying to stop him. In a romance summary, you should only have the main male and female mentioned. In other fiction, if there is a group of good guys/bad guys, you could say something like "Frodo Baggins and his fellow travelers" or "Luke Skywalker and those who gather around him" or "Ponyboy Curtis and his friends." In the summary for A Game of Thrones, which switches viewpoints between many people, the main characters are "the Starks of Winterfell." 

Avoid giving away the end of the story. Some indie authors do give away their work for free, but a summary of your work for the purpose of marketing it (free or not) should never contain the ending. Most readers aren't going to read a long version if you give them access to an abridged version of your story.

Avoid letting AI write the summary without any oversight. I get a lot of scam e-mails talking about my books. In this age of AI--which can read reviews, your summary, and other aspects of your book that you have talked about online--many people use technology to make their work easier. The problem is that AI does awful jobs of actually summarizing stories--I find them easy to pick out. If you struggle writing a summary, AI might be able to give you the groundwork, but if you don't know what you are doing, you won't be able to fix it appropriately. There are some services that will give you free or cheap professional reviews complete with a summary. It is better to use these services than to attempt having AI do it for you.

Your Book Summary: An Important Marketing Tool (part 1)

Before choosing a book to read, most people look at the book summary. Still, it boggles my mind how many indie authors write horrible book summaries. Being able to summarize a book without giving away the ending is something most children are taught in grade school. Some people are naturally better at writing compelling summaries than others, but some people, who are writing entire books that they want others to purchase and read, completely fail the assignment. I have even read some books that were good but which had horrible summaries. In those cases, I usually try to summarize the book in my review, but few people look at the reviews before they look at the summary. 

The problems with bad summaries generally fall into three categories: (1) confusing, (2) rambling, and (3) below minimal.

(1) Most indie authors use rambling summaries for their books. These go on for 6+ paragraphs. Instead of hitting the main points, they add in a bunch of unnecessary details. Summaries should answer the basic: Who? What? When? Where? questions. Who is your book about? When and where does it take place? What is the major conflict (not all the subplots)? It shouldn't take more than a couple of sentences to answer each of these questions.

The conflict is important for a summary because that is the main plot you are selling to your audience. All fiction books need to have a central conflict if the author wants them to be well-received by the audience--even if that conflict is minor in terms of world events (i.e., how does the main character bridge the gap between his daydreams and reality). Non-fiction books often serve a purpose that is useful, which takes the place of conflict--but this purpose needs to be in the summary, too. For example, a book about raised-bed gardening would explain to its readers how to do this. Other non-fiction books, such as biographies or memoirs are interesting because they detail someone's life--and hopefully included the conflicts that person had. 

(2) Authors who haven't really thought about what their books are about tend to write extremely confusing summaries that also tend to ramble. They pick out subplots instead of identifying the unifying plot. One summary by an indie author, for example, talked about the main female character going on the run with the main male character because she saved a dog, and then the male was framed for a crime committed by a prince. It then talks about miners--without explaining how they are significant to the main characters being chased--and a princess who has some undisclosed bad thing happen to her. It goes on to say astronomers and a named bad guy (who is not the guy chasing the couple) see something in the stars, and the bad guy starts murdering people so he can be emperor. Huh? Since none of the above is connected, you probably think I left something out, but that is all the information you get from the indie author's summary. This book has good reviews so far, but I struggle to believe the author can keep all the plots in the book together since the summary is so disjointed. 

I think confusing summaries are also because authors want to make their descriptions "cryptic." They are not merely keeping the ending from readers. Instead, they are not giving us enough of the correct information. Since two bad guys are mentioned in the above summary, I have no idea who is the real bad guy or how either are connected. I also have no idea what the major conflict is? I suspect the real summary should have told readers who should have been the ruler, who was the ruler, who wants to be the ruler, and who is going to try to get the right ruler on the throne. You can summarize what characters are trying to do without telling the reader if they will succeed or not. 

(3)Which brings me to the last point: the less than minimum summary. It's important to not give away the conflict resolution in your book when writing a summary. People often do this by being so ambiguous readers don't really know what the book is about. This usually confuses readers, too, but it can be clear without telling the reader important things that will help him/her select a book. A less than minimum summary would be:

This amazing historical romance has Jamie and Dalton struggling to fall in love after they meet. Read it to find out if they overcome the oppression! 

A better summary would be:

Jamie and Dalton both went to their 1953 Senior Prom with the wrong date and then married them. Years later, they return to their hometowns with a divorce under their belts and excess baggage. When they are recruited to be chaperones for their Alma Mater's Senior Prom will they finally end up leaving with each other?