Dust jacket flap

There is an aspect of book writ­ing and pub­lish­ing that folks don’t talk about much, but is actu­al­ly quite impor­tant: what is called flap copy. Flap copy is the brief descrip­tion of the book that appears on the inside flap of the book cov­er. There is also the bio. And there is copy on the back of the book.

Con­sid­er how peo­ple select a book to read. The title. The cov­er. Very impor­tant. And very often they read that flap copy to see what the book is about, (sub­ject mat­ter) the kind of book it is (sci­ence fic­tion, mys­tery, romance, etc.) and per­haps the style (fun­ny, sen­ti­men­tal, scary) and so forth. It is key in help­ing the read­er decid­ed if they are going to read (buy? bor­row?) that book.

Who writes that copy? Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing it is the edi­tor who writes it. Some­times some­one from the mar­ket­ing depart­ment does. Often, but not always, that draft is shared with the writer. Do I like it? Do I think it gets the book right? Do I approve? Want to change it?

Remem­ber, one has only a few words in a small space.

There have been times I have had very lit­tle to say or sug­gest. There have been times I have rewrit­ten that flap copy entire­ly. Today I received flap copy for my col­lec­tion of short sto­ries, The Most Impor­tant Thing, which will be pub­lished (Can­dlewick) in 2016.

It was fine, but there were ways I thought it could be smoother, a bit more engag­ing. So I worked on it, sent it in. The edi­tor felt it was improved. It’s anoth­er exam­ple of the col­lab­o­ra­tive nature of pub­lish­ing but a facet rarely men­tioned. But, oh, how important!

But it’s always worth mak­ing a flap.