Create a Book Blurb in Your Author Template

Introduction

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to enhance your author website by incorporating a concise book blurb using a post excerpt field in Breakdance. By integrating a tightly crafted summary directly above the fold, you’ll capture readers’ attention, improve your site’s SEO, and streamline your content management. Whether you’re refining a single title or an entire series, this step-by-step guide will help ensure that your book’s core message is both discoverable and compelling.

Add the Book Blurb Post Meta Element

• From the Structure Panel
• Click on the Book Details Column
• Add a POST EXCERPT ELEMENT
• Click SAVE

In this build I am using the POST EXCERPT as the Book Blurb. I’m doing this for a couple of reasons.

1. Forces a tight blurb. Post Excerpt’s the short snippet summary of what a post is about is ideal to use as a place for the book blurb. It’s target length is 160 characters which is similar to building an elevator pitch for a book or series.
2. Reduces workload. You‘ll see in later lessons we put post excerpts to good use to help nudge visitors along the journey to choosing your books. Excerpts also play a big part in SEO for Authors.

This single field does multiple jobs and placing it above the fold on our book template ensures that we give it the attention it is due when writing it.

If you prefer longer book blurbs then you can absolutely use a Book Blurb Custom field mapped to a text element in Breakdance instead.

Book Blurb Design Tab

I happen to know, because I’ve built this layout hundreds of times for clients and creating this course, that I will need breathing space between the Book Blurb Post Excerpt and the primary call to action button we will add in the next lesson.

Rather than hop back and forth between elements in lessons I’ll add that extra spacing now.

• Go to the DESIGN TAB
• Go to SPACING
• Go to WRAPPER
• Add 3 rem of spacing to the bottom margin

This 3 rem will be added to the default 3 rem giving us a 6 rem gap between this blurb upcoming primary cta button element.

Summary

You’ve now seen how to leverage the post excerpt as a dynamic book blurb in your custom Breakdance template. This concise text snippet serves as an engaging elevator pitch for your readers, helps improve search rankings, and simplifies content updates. With strategic spacing already applied, your layout remains user-friendly and professional. Moving forward, this efficient approach sets the stage for adding compelling calls to action, driving conversions, and strengthening your overall author platform.