How do I format the back-cover blurb?
The back-cover blurb is not a single block of plain text. Click ✎ Edit blurb… to open the editor.
What the editor does
- Bold, italic, and underline.
- Alignment set per paragraph, not for the whole blurb.
- Headings, for a pull-quote or a review line that should stand apart.
Per-paragraph alignment is the one that changes how a back cover reads. A typical blurb wants:
- the tagline centered at the top,
- the body justified (flush on both edges, the way a book's interior is set),
- the review quote centered or left, under it.
You can now do all three in the same blurb.
Justify
Justify spaces the words so every line but the last reaches both margins. It's what gives a back cover the clean rectangular block you see on trade paperbacks. It suits a body paragraph of a few lines or more; on a very short paragraph, or a narrow panel, it can open up distracting gaps between words, so check the preview.
Alignment options are Left, Center, Right, and Justify — set per paragraph in the editor, or for the whole blurb from the Blurb alignment menu.
Typing HTML directly
The blurb box accepts markup if you'd rather type it: <b> <i> <u> <h1>–<h3> <p> <br>. The editor and the box are the same content, so you can switch between them.
Size
Auto-size blurb fits the text to the space available, which is the easy setting — if you add a sentence, everything re-fits. Turn it off to set the size yourself with Blurb size.
Whatever you choose, don't go under 9 pt: that's uncomfortable to read on paper at arm's length, and the Cover check will flag it. Most trade paperbacks sit between 9 and 11 pt. If your blurb won't fit above 9 pt, the blurb is too long for the panel — cut it rather than shrink it.
On a photo background
If there's a back image behind the text, see Can I put a photo on the back cover? for the frost panel that keeps the blurb readable.
Dust jackets
A jacketed hardcover has front and back flaps with their own text fields, separate from the back-panel blurb. They take the same formatting.