The back cover ...

You're in a bookstore, shopping in your preferred genre, with no specific book in mind. As you walk down the rows, you scan the titles, find one that tweaks your interest, pull it off the shelf, and check out its front cover. Then what?

I don't know about you, but I flip it over and read its back cover––the blurb that gives a hint of the story, a teaser designed to make you want more. If it intrigues me, I head straight for the cash register. Are well-written back covers important? You betcha!

Proverbs 23:12 (NIV) says: "Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge."

Let's relate this verse to our writing. Examples of success can instruct us, and words from those who have achieved offer us knowledge. In my next few blogs, I will feature back covers from published authors. If you are published and would like your back story included, please message me in Facebook with the title of your book, its back cover, its genre, and if its your first book or how many you have had published.

Since I just issued this call to published authors today, I'll start with the back cover for Face From the Past, my as-yet-unpublished Christian romantic suspense novel:

"A stranger chases a young woman through a dank, eerie swamp. She takes a quick look back. He's getting closer, but she can't make out his face. A nightmare? Yes, and it has traumatized Beth Thompson for as long as she can remember. Is it an omen, a memory, or neither? She doesn't know. Doesn't care. Just wishes it would stop.

"Then, all of a sudden, the nightmare becomes reality. Beth is thrust into the clutches of a relentless killer who shares in a dark secret hidden from her since childhood––a face from her past who is determined to bury both Beth and that secret forever.

"Can the man she loves save her? And will God answer her desperate plea even though she has turned her back on him?"

Come back tomorrow to read a back cover from a published author, and please pray that some agent or publisher is intrigued with mine.