A plain text book description is hardly eye-catching, so to make it stand out, you can add text format improvements.
Hidden deep in Amazon’s KDP help section is a page titled “Supported HTML for Amazon Book Descriptions.” It might not sound very exciting, and it may be a bit daunting for those without an understanding of HTML.
For those unfamiliar with HTML, it is a code or tag you can use to enhance the characteristics of text.
But it is extremely useful and offers a very simple way to help your description attract more attention.
It’s very easy to do
If you’re not familiar with HTML, I’ll show you below how easy it is to enhance your Amazon book description.
One note first. This method will help you modify your book description from your KDP dashboard.
Select your book, and go to your book’s details page.
Scroll down to your book description.
Click the Source button, and you will enter HTML edit mode.
Now you can add some HTML enhancements.
Note that this method will NOT work if you edit your book description in Author Central.
You can certainly use HTML for Amazon book descriptions in Author Central edits.
But you need a little HTML knowledge than this article covers.
A better-looking book description in less than five minutes
It’s quite easy to make your book description more attractive to a potential reader.
You want people to buy your book.
So anything you can do to make your book’s sales page more appealing is worthwhile.
Let’s get started.
I will take a bland book description and add a new, attention-grabbing headline.
I’ll italicize a few review quotes. Then, make the last line a bold attention grabber by simply adding some HTML tags.
<h2>When it comes to love, it’s never too late …</h2>
<i>..anticipated a sad story of death….but just the opposite…</i>
<i>I thoroughly enjoyed this book. In fact, I hated to see it end.</i>
<i>Wow, some people have the ability to make you feel the story through their words.</i>
<b>Life has the habit of delivering its twists at the most unexpected times.</b>
You can see the code I have added at the beginning and end of the lines of text I want to modify. <b> makes a line of bold text. <i> makes a line italic. <h2> was a surprise because it makes a line extra bold.
The most important part here, and what Amazon does not explain on its HTML page, is that you MUST close these tags correctly.
You can see from my example above that I open a line with <b>, and then at the end, I added a forward slash. </b>.
If you don’t add this forward slash, it won’t work.
If you want to modify your book description, you can copy and paste the codes from my example above.
An example of an enhanced book description
What did these small HTML tags do?
Here is the result below of my book on Amazon.
Lastly, I recommend editing your book description in a text editor.
Please don’t do it directly online in your KDP dashboard.
Copy your book description, paste it into a plain text editor, and make your changes.
Then copy and paste it back into your book details on KDP and republish.
If you make a mistake or something is amiss, don’t worry. Just wait for your book to become live (usually only 6-12 hours) and try again.
Once you grasp the concept of using these HTML tags, it becomes quite easy.
It only takes a few minutes to make your book description stand out from the crowd and help attract the attention of book buyers.
Is there an easier way?
Yes, there is.
If manually adding HTML for Amazon book descriptions is not for you, you can use an online WYSIWYG text editor.
All you need to use is the free Amazon book description generator tool from Kindlepreneur.
It’s a simple text editor, so it is very easy to use.
You can also generate your formatted description for Barnes & Noble and Kobo, as well as add editorial reviews to your Amazon book page.
Summary
After your book cover, your book description is the most important part of your book’s sales page.
Your cover might attract a quick look, but your book description needs to stand out to encourage people to buy your book.
That’s why taking the time to improve the look of your text is well worth the effort. You can use HTML tags, or if you prefer, use an online tool to help you.
Either way, you will have a better chance of keeping a potential book buyer’s attention and hopefully convincing them to buy your book.
Related Reading: How To Write Author Bios And Book Descriptions With AI
Thank you so much for all of your valuable advice.
New to me too, about html. Always some great info. Thanks!
Thank you for sharing this. I had no idea about html. Am off now to see what I can do with my ‘blurb’.
Hi, Derek. I wanted to say thanks for posting this article. I used your advice to improve my book’s description on Amazon. I don’t know if it will help sell more books for me, but I feel it looks more professional now. Can you tell me what you think?