My MFA Classmates Hate My Jacket Copy (Good)

My publishing professor just told me I made another student cry. That's twice this semester.

Not because my work was bad. Because my feedback was too honest.

"Your comments on student A’s piece were upsetting to her," Professor X wrote back. "The tone came across as harsh."

I told a student that her jacket copy read like a Wikipedia entry, not something that would make anyone pick up a book.

Here's what I should have said: "Great start! Maybe we could explore making it a bit more mysterious?"

Fuck that.

Here's what I actually said: "This reads like a Wikipedia entry, not something that would make anyone pick up a book."

She cried.

Good. That means I hit something real.

---

Next to me writing this is a stack of bestsellers and my commonplace book. It's a little red notebook where I write everything by hand. Yeah, I still write by hand even though my handwriting looks like a drunk spider fell in ink, but something about pen on paper makes you actually think instead of just typing words.

Started doing this when I was a fitness trainer writing copy to convert. Was told to connect the brain with the hand and all of the sudden you'll start noticing patterns among ads. You learn fast what works and what's just masturbation.

My classmates think they're being helpful by explaining everything.

I know confusion sells books.

That's the difference between us.

---

This is one of the first essays I'll be sharing on marketing for writers. Why start here?

Because once you can sell your story, you can do anything. Readers will want more. They'll share your work. And if you're into that type of thing, agents will request manuscripts.

Copywriting is arguably one of the most important things to learn, even with AI, because you can learn to cut your prose and demonstrate you fucking know your story.

But MFA programs teach jacket copy like it's a technical writing exercise.

Here's what they teach: "Understand your key selling points. Craft your hook. Flesh out your description. Show your authority."

Sounds reasonable, right?

They want you to answer: Who's your protagonist? What's the conflict? What are the stakes? Make it clear. Make it informative. Make sure readers know exactly what they're getting.

Here's the problem: That approach assumes people buy books with their logical brain.

They don't.

They buy with their gut and justify it later.

---

My classmates followed the MFA playbook perfectly.

Student A's jacket copy starts: "27-year-old Gunnar Iverson writes elegant code, and his talent has been rewarded by one of the largest medical hospitals in the world."

Boring as fuck. Tells me Gunnar's age, job, employer. Everything except why I should give a shit.

Then he explains the entire plot: "What he doesn't know is that he works for the last medical hospital in the world, called 'the factory.' A consortium of AI doctors has run it since the pandemic of '59..."

Dude just spoiled his own book in the first paragraph.

Student B opens with: "Fleeing from her abusive home in Jacksonville, Florida during the night, biracial Ayasha Nowak wishes for only three things: to graduate from high school, to raise her little sister once she's saved enough money, and to heal from the trauma her uncle has caused."

That's not jacket copy. That's a character biography.

My copy: "You've been kneeling your whole life. You just called it surviving."

Zero plot details. Zero character names. Zero explanations.

But it makes you stop scrolling. Makes you wonder what the hell that means. Makes you need to find out.

Their copy answers questions. Mine creates them.

Their copy informs. Mine infects.

---

Look at American Psycho jacket copy:

"Patrick Bateman is handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream."

No plot summary. No character arc. No three-act structure.

Just one terrifying line: "His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom."

What the fuck does that mean? You need to find out.

Bateman's copy creates dread. My classmate's copy creates boredom.

Or look at Chuck's approach with his latest book, Shock Induction. He ends jacket copy with: "CAN YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS HEADED?"

Six words that create more tension than my classmate's entire paragraph.

Here's another student example:

"In the Syahlean Empire love is magic and magic is the family fortune, the economic bedrock, and the deadliest thing to the young royal bastard; Cahlm Tracker who was born allergic to it. He has survived the first dozen years of his life due to love, caution, isolation, and his family's large but waning reputation..."

That's one fucking sentence. One.

It explains the world-building, the magic system, the character's backstory, his family dynamics, and the central conflict before you even take a breath.

Compare that to Chuck's approach: "CAN YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS HEADED?"

The student thinks more information equals better copy.

Chuck knows that curiosity beats clarity every time.

This is why my classmates' feedback focuses on grammar and sentence structure instead of whether anyone would actually want to read this shit.

---

So how do you actually do this?

Stop explaining. Start accusing.

Don't write "Sarah is a 32-year-old marketing executive struggling with work-life balance."

Write "You've been pretending your job doesn't own your soul."

See the difference? One describes a character. The other calls out the reader.

Don't answer questions. Create obsessions.

My copy doesn't tell you what David's problem is. It makes you realize what your problem is. Then you need to read the book to see how someone else handles it.

End with a hook in their brain, not a neat summary.

Here's my full copy: (rough draft in process)

You've been kneeling your whole life. You just called it surviving.

Every morning you practice being the person everyone else needs you to be.

David Kline knows this. He's Manhattan's celebrity trainer, sculpting perfect bodies for people who already have everything. His wife Gabriella built THERON, the luxury lingerie empire that dresses the world's most powerful women in perfect lies.

Together they built the life everyone dreams of stealing. The Manhattan penthouse. The global empire. The marriage that makes other couples hate themselves.

Safe Words For the Damned is what happens when the performance meets imperfect reality.

Some chains you choose, others choose you, but the most dangerous chains are the ones you don't feel until they pull.

Notice what I don't tell you: Plot points. Character arcs. The inciting incident. What David's actual problem is.

Instead, I make you feel something. That opening accusation. The performance anxiety. The hidden chains.

I create questions: What performance? What reality? What chains?

And I end with tension that demands resolution.

"Some chains you choose, others choose you, but the most dangerous chains are the ones you don't feel until they pull."

Now you're wondering about your own invisible chains. That's not an accident.

---

Writing jacket copy is never about you. It's about the reader. It's about creating so much curiosity, they feel like they need this story to understand their own life.

My classmates want to be understood.

I want to be unavoidable.

There's a difference. And it's the difference between books that get workshopped and books that get bought.

If this gets 25 restacks and 50 comments, I'll do a live workshop on writing jacket copy that doesn't suck. Details if we hit the numbers.Now go make someone cry with your feedback.