Your title and back cover copy
The title and back cover copy are the first words a reader meets, and often the only ones they base a buying decision on. Yet they're also the texts writers tend to write first, when the book is still an idea, and never revisit. They should instead be written last, when you actually know what book you've made — not what you thought you were making at the start.
The title: memorable, not descriptive
A good title doesn't explain the plot, it sticks in the mind. "The story of a woman searching for her missing brother in South America" is descriptive and forgettable; titles that work are almost always shorter, more evocative, stranger — a phrase that intrigues without clarifying everything.
The title also communicates genre before the reader has read a line: certain constructions signal thriller, others literary fiction, others fantasy. A title that signals the wrong genre attracts the wrong readers, who then leave disappointed reviews — not because the book is bad, but because it wasn't what the title promised.
Testing the title: pronounceable, searchable, not already taken
Three practical checks before locking a title. Does it come out without hesitation when you say it aloud? If someone hears it on a podcast, can they search and find it, or is it too generic to surface among a thousand results? Is there already a well-known book with the same title, in the same genre? Titles can't be legally protected, but sharing one with a recent bestseller means competing for attention in a battle already lost.
Back cover copy doesn't summarise: it sells the promise
The most common mistake on the back cover is telling too much: half the book compressed into three paragraphs, with second-act events and sometimes hints at the ending. The back cover isn't a synopsis — that's for agents, not readers. The back cover presents the book's promise and stops.
The structure that almost always works: one or two sentences introducing the protagonist and their normal situation, a sentence introducing the element that breaks that normality, a sentence raising the stakes — what they stand to lose, what they have to face. Then it closes, often on an implicit question or an unresolved threat. What happens next, the reader finds out by buying the book.
The tone of the copy has to match the tone of the book
Copy written in an ironic register for a bleak novel, or a solemn one for a comedy, betrays the reader twice: it draws them in with one promise, then disappoints them with a different book. The back cover is a small sample of the book's voice: if the novel is taut and spare, so is the copy; if it's lyrical, the copy can afford an extra image.
What not to put on the back cover
Off the back cover: the names of too many secondary characters, subplot details, worldbuilding explanations, dates and places that don't help intrigue, and above all anything that happens after roughly the first third of the book. Every extra element dilutes the central promise, and a back cover a reader can't follow in a bookshop is a back cover that doesn't sell.
Write them last, revisit them after editing
A title and copy written before the draft almost always describe a different book than the one you ended up writing. The right moment is after editing, when the plot is final, the protagonist is the real one, the tone has settled. In NovLore, the book's text, synopsis and submission materials can live in the same place as the manuscript, so when you revisit the title or copy you have the real book in front of you — not the version you imagined months earlier.
Frequently asked questions
How long should back cover copy be?
Generally between 100 and 200 words for a novel. Shorter risks not giving enough to decide on; longer loses the reader before the end. The exact length matters less than the structure: promise, disruption, stakes, and a stop before the ending.
Can I change the title after I've started promoting the book?
You can, but it has a cost: links, reviews and mentions already published point to the old title. If you have a serious doubt about the title, it's much better to resolve it before launch than after. That's why it's worth testing it — on readers, not just on yourself — before making it public.
Should the copy reveal the story's main hook?
It should reveal the premise — the situation that sets everything in motion — but not its resolution or the twists that follow. The back cover's hook is the promise; the pleasure of finding out how that promise develops is what the reader buys.