My debut book, a Middle Grade fantasy called Away with the Fairies, is finally ready to publish. I’ve checked and double-checked the text and layout. I’ve selected relevant keywords and categories. I know the prices I will use. I’m very pleased with my book and series descriptions—descriptive without giving away the plot, not too wordy, and with a nice hook.
I start with the paperback inputs for KDP (Kindle). Everything looks fine. The categories have changed a little from the ones I was expecting but I easily adjust. The descriptions fit within the allowed limits.
Everything looks good but I delay hitting the “Publish” button until I’ve also done the IngramSpark and Draft2Digital submission pages. Planning is good. Delay will ensure consistency and give me time to spot any typos.
Initially, I use the same book description for IngramSpark. Then I come to the “Short description.” It has a 250 character limit.
What? I need a new, shorter description.
I try to wing it. My first attempt is too long. So is my second. Is there a way to know the number of characters before I paste my text into the tool?
Pro tip: Determine the number of characters in Microsoft Word™:
- Select the text
- On the top menu, choose “Review”
- Select “Word Count” in the Proofing section
- Word™ provides the number of words, the number of characters not including spaces, and the number of characters including spaces
- For these forms, you are interested in the Characters (with spaces) number
Once I have a suitable short description, I move on. IngramSpark’s equivalent to KDP’s categories are BISAC Subjects, which “help determine what the book is about;” Thema Subjects, which describe content for international discover and sales; and Thema qualifiers. Of course, these bear little relation to the KDP entries.
No matter. IngramSpark has an AI tool to help with keywords and categories. I decide to give their tool a try.
Oops! My book description isn’t long enough for the tool to work. That requires at least 1500 characters and my original description is only a little over 600. Time to rework the description. I need to include as many of the keywords I believe are relevant while still keeping it smooth-flowing and engaging. That’s probably a good idea anyway, given how search engines work.
The new, longer description is finished, It does not help much with the keywords—mine were already fairly good—but it truly is better than the original.
I copy the new description over to KDP. Fortunately, the same long and short descriptions work for Draft2Digital.Phew!
When everything is ready and checked for consistency, I hit “Publish” everywhere. For better or worse, my book is released into the world.
That’s not the end of the description saga, though. I need a 350 character description for a book promotion and a 600 character description to list my book on the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). The toughest one is writing a fifteen word description for the American Library Association Conference catalog.
Bottom line: Before starting to fill out the forms for publishing, make sure you truly understand the most important aspects of your book. That way you will be able to adjust the description in whatever way is needed.
~ Leoma