What’s the first thing most readers look at when they pick up a book? If they’re anything like me, their attention is first snagged by the cover art, the title, and the author name, and from there they flip the book over and a take a gander at the back cover or the inside jacket flap. This is where those crucial split-second decisions are made (to buy or not to buy?), and it’s also where the reader will make his first encounter with your story, your plot, and your characters.

This is not a post about writing a killer blurb, but rather about realizing and utilizing the power of that summary within the story itself. How many books have you delved into without knowing anything about the premise? Most of us at least scan the back cover before cracking open Chapter One. After all, why waste our time when we can use the crucial info on the back to narrow down our reading choices? That’s just savvy readership.

But what does this mean for writers (other than the fact that poor cover material leads to poor sales)?

Chapter One Is Not Your First Opportunity to Impart Information to Readers

All too often, we face the impossibility of cramming “crucial” information into the first chapter. We approach the plate, bat in hand, behaving as if the reader doesn’t even know the rules of the game. But if our savvy reader has read the back cover, he probably already knows quite a few things, including:

• The hero’s name.
• His occupation.
• The setting.
• The basic conflict.
• The antagonistic force.
• The theme.

The back cover is a crucial part of the reading experience. It not only creates certain preconceptions and expectations, which the author must fulfill, it also creates them with more certainty than the foreshadowing found in the pages themselves. Because the info on the back cover is stated as fact, and because the narrative voice of a summary is understood to be reliable, readers always expect the promises on the back cover to be executed precisely.

This knowledge is often (if not always) overlooked by authors. And, in so doing, we not only neglect the opportunity to use the back cover to our advantage, we even abuse it.

Ways Writers Abuse Their Book’s Back Cover

Dozens of novels start off Chapter One by bombarding readers with information they’ve already learned from the back cover. Inevitably in these situations, I squirm and mentally urge the author to get on with it. The carefully constructed suspense doesn’t fool me when I already know the basic premise.

To go off on a little tangent: The otherwise marvelous 2003 movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (affiliate link) contains a scene that always makes me roll my eyes. In the movie’s opening sequence, as the call to arms is being beaten, the camera shows us the (faceless) ship’s captain scrambling into his sword belt and coat and getting ready to go on deck. Then, suddenly, the camera dramatically pans up and reveals—surprise!—Russell Crowe.

Only I wasn’t surprised because, naturally, I had seen the DVD cover and knew who starred in the movie.

Back cover info often creates a similar situation. As authors, we carefully construct our opening hooks (the hook that will reveal the premise to the reader), but we overlook that the reader is usually already privy to this premise. Hence, we risk our authorial flourishes being overlooked or even scorned.

Ways You Can Use the Book’s Back Cover

Acknowledging the back cover means you get to enjoy a teeny bit of wiggle room in crafting both your opening chapter and the general suspense throughout the novel. Of course, a good back-cover summary gives away as little of the crucial plot information as possible. We always want our readers to know as little as possible about our climaxes. But it also means we can take advantage of what they do know.

In a sense, the back cover is the mini-hook before the hook. If the summary on the back doesn’t grab him, the reader probably won’t flip on ahead to Chapter One. This creates two very important opportunities for the author:

1. We don’t have to worry about explaining everything in the opening scene.

2. We must be careful we find the right balance between explaining the necessities and boring the reader with what he already knows.

A word of caution: Although authors, in crafting their openings, generally overlook the back cover, keep in mind not all readers read the back cover. And those that do don’t always read every word. The story between the covers must be complete in its own right. We can’t lean upon the back cover as a crutch for our narrative deficiencies. But that’s no excuse for not being aware of it and its effect upon our readers.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! What information will your book’s back cover blurb provide readers before they even open the book? Tell me in the comments!