Stop sabotaging your book with bad covers and blurbs

How to make the two most important bit of your book marketing to not suck.

May 05, 2025

I’ve helped a lot of authors fix terrible covers and blurbs over the years. And let’s be real: most bad covers and blurbs don’t come from lack of effort. They come from confusion. Specifically, authors not understanding what their book actually is or who it’s for.

Once you can articulate your book, everything else gets a whole lot easier.

So let’s fix that.

Step 1: Identify Your Tropes

If you don’t know what genre you’re in (and honestly, many authors don’t), go read The Trope Thesaurus by Jennifer Hilt. Start with the original, then dive into the genre-specific versions. While you’re at it, subscribe to her Substack, TropeTalk. It’s a goldmine.

Understanding tropes is about learning what readers expect, so you can give them that satisfaction and your unique twist.

Step 2: Nail Your Universal Fantasy

Next, read Seven Figure Fiction by Theodora Taylor. It’ll help you understand what readers crave emotionally from stories.

This is where you move beyond plot and genre to the deep desires your story taps into. Universal fantasies are what make a book go from good to must-read. Subscribe to Theodora Taylor’s Official Universal Fantasy™ Substack for ongoing insight.

Between tropes and universal fantasy, you’ll know what kind of book you’ve written—and who’s desperate to read it.

By now you should know the genre of your book and the main tropes. It’s important to note here that if you have a mismatch, you might need to rewrite your book, or you might have to be okay with it just not selling and make your next book closer to the market.

With every series you should be getting closer and closer to the market using what I call the Bullseye Method.

Step 3: (Optional) Get an AI Gut Check

Once you’ve figured things out yourself, drop your outline, or even your full book, into an AI and use this prompt:

“Act as a book marketing expert that is world class at designing and packaging books for the indie market. Tell me the best BISAC categories for this book. Then, give me 5 comp authors whose books sell in this genre and seven Amazon keywords relevant to my book that are optimized for SEO.”

You’re not trying to replace your own brain here. This is about checking your work. Learn the skill, then let the machine pressure test it.

Step 4: Analyze Current Cover Tropes

Go look at the Top 100 in your genre on Amazon. Not to copy, but to pattern-match. What fonts do they use? What colors show up again and again? What kind of character positioning, lighting, and vibes are common?

You’re looking specifically for books that aren’t trad published (b/c you probably won’t follow their distribution/marketing patterns) and aren’t from “famous” authors (since they might be living on their name and not the quality of their cover).

Many indie authors will credit their cover designer, and you can usually find it by just checking out the look inside.

Then hop into a cover design group on Facebook or Reddit and ask: “Who is killing it in [your genre] right now with covers that sell?”

This will give you a short list of designers who know the visual language that converts browsers into buyers.

Step 5: Hire the Right Cover Designer

Do not just hire your friend who knows Photoshop. Do not hire someone because their art is pretty. Hire someone who sells books in your genre.

Covers should not impress authors. They should attract readers.

Ask for their Amazon portfolio. Check their sales rankings. See if they understand the tropes of your genre without you explaining them.

If they do, and their designs align with what’s currently trending in your genre, hire them.

Step 6: Learn How to Write a Blurb that Sells

Blurbs aren’t summaries. You are not writing a book report. Blurbs are vibes. They are a sales hook, not a plot outline. You’re trying to get people to understand and fall in love with the stakes of your book.

Here’s a structure that works pretty well and is easy to implement:

Start with 3 staccato sentences to capture tone and tension:

Big World Problem.
Protagonist’s Dilemma.
Driving Question.

Then, 3-5 paragraphs like this:

MAIN CHARACTER is stuck in THIS SITUATION. They currently go through life LIKE THIS, but have always wanted THAT. One day, everything changes because REASON. And now, they finally get their shot to DO THE THING.

End with a compelling question:

Can they [do X], or will [Y terrible thing happen]? Read now to find out.

That’s it. That’s your blurb. 100-250 words max. It’s not a summary of your book, it’s a tease to the reader.

Here is an example from my catalog:

Magic destroyed the world once. Now, magic users are the enemy. To be marked with magic is to lead a cursed life.

Rosie is completely average. There is absolutely nothing extraordinary about her in any way. For most people, that would be a blessing, but Rosie wants nothing more than to have a spark of magic, even if people say that all mages are evil.

She wasn't born with magic, though. She's sure of it. After all, she is 17, and magic always presents when you are 13. Always.

So, when she's suddenly able to wield magic, Rosie is initially confused, then thrilled…until the soldiers come for her, and she realizes everything she's about to lose.

No more school. No more friends. No more freedom. Her life is over…at least the life she knew.

No. She won't allow herself to be locked in a cage. She must escape.

There is one place that is truly safe for people like her.

The lost city of Toledo – a haven for witches and warlocks since before the war, and the only place Rosie can be free.

But it's only a legend. Nobody has seen the city in decades.

Can she find the lost city before the army descends upon her?

If you love alternate history fantasy, coming-of-age magic stories, and non-stop action, then pick up The Marked Ones today.

Get it now.

That’s not perfectly this format, but it’s pretty close, and it works.

Should take a couple of hours max. And even a generic version like this will likely be 100x better than the vague, overwritten blurbs I see every day.

Once you know your genre, have optimized keywords, a cover that matches reader expectations, and a blurb that gets them excited, you’re in the top 10% of books on Amazon.

Seriously.

Assuming your book doesn’t suck, you’ve just solved most of your discoverability and conversion issues.

And that’s what most authors miss. They’re great writers, but they fail to package their books in a way that tells readers, “This is for you.”

This process is frontloaded with hard thinking. But once you get through it—and really get what your book is about, it unlocks everything else. Covers get easier. Blurbs flow faster. Marketing makes sense.

You can’t sell what you can’t describe.

But once you can?

You’re unstoppable.

What do you think?

Do you have trouble with blurbs?
Is your book cover to market?

Let me know in the comments.