Jacket copy

My edi­tor and I have been work­ing on the jack­et copy of my forth­com­ing book, Sophi­a’s War. That is to say, we are writ­ing and edit­ing the text that appears on the dust jack­et. This is the descrip­tion of the book—what the book is about—on the first flap of the jack­et.  Since read­ers often read what it says there to decide if they might be inter­est­ed in read­ing the whole book, it is very impor­tant.  I men­tion this because the cre­ation of a book entails a lot more than just writ­ing the text.  Beyond the writ­ing of the sto­ry, con­sid­er the many aspects of a pub­lished book: Flap copy. Cov­er art. Paper. Font. Design. Illus­tra­tions. Print­ing. Bind­ing. And more. One of the things that makes print­ed books distinctive—as con­trast­ed with dig­i­tal publishing—is a print­ed book can be, should be, a work of art in itself. I think the bet­ter the pub­lish­ing, the bet­ter the read­ing experience.