As a writer, I have often gone back and revised my Amazon book descriptions. It’s not always easy to give an accurate sense of your own work. Sometimes it seems like boasting, or more often the description becomes too long and rambling or too short and terse.

A client recently asked me for help with his book description. He’s the author of the fine memoir Diary of a Bipolar, which has always had steady sales, but had a rather short and basic blurb. (The author is also a non-native English speaker.) Since I’d edited the book recently and had emotionally connected with the material, I was happy to assist. Here’s what I wrote for him:

In 2001, George Ison was a young, well-educated, middle-class entrepreneur with a lovely girlfriend and a great life. But then, out of the blue, bipolar disorder hit. In honest, intimate, sometimes agonized diary entries over the course of several years, Ison charts the beginnings of his illness, from choosing doctors and med regimens through times when his close relationships foundered and family pulled away, and he was close to suicide.

Immensely relatable, Diary of a Bipolar is a fascinating read told from a male perspective. It will educate both those with the disease and their loved ones, as well as readers who are curious about what having bipolar disease is like—day in, day out.

When I asked the author for feedback on whether the improved book description had improved sales, he confirmed happily that it had: “Sales are up around 15 percent since we improved the description.”

I am glad to be able to offer this as an additional service for clients whose books I work on. After all, when you edit or proofread a book, you become quite intimate with its subject matter and of course you want to see the book do well! You can find more info about book descriptions in the Rates section.