5 Ways To Add Humour To Your Kindle Book

Injecting your Kindle book with humour that will actually make the readers laugh and not roll their eyes is not an easy task. Humour is often so tricky and easy to get wrong. However, that's why I'm here with this article today, to provide you with some solid tips on how to use humour effectively in your Kindle book.

1.   Use The K Rule.

The “K Rule” makes use of the fact that words that have the “K” sound are inherently funnier and more amusing than other words to a lot people. A lot of this is instinctive and we don’t quite know why it works, but, it does. Examples would include the words quintuplet and sex.

Similarly, words with a prominent hard “G” sound are also instinctively perceived as funny by a lot of people, examples would include the words guacamole and gargantuan.

So, we recommend sprinkling words with prominent “K” and/or “G” sounds in unexpected places in your book for humorous effect.

2. Use The Rule Of Three.

The “Rule of Three” is one of the foundations of good humour. The way it works is that you present two ideas in a list that are consistent with each other to establish a pattern, which is called the setup. And then present a third completely incongruent idea that completely misdirects and throws the reader off and strongly breaks the pattern, which is often the punchline. The more amusingly incongruent the third item on the list is, typically, the funnier it is.

We highly recommend you using this tried and tested rule of three in your Kindle book, sparingly, to pleasantly and humorously surprise your reader.

3.  Use Funny Comparisons.

Think of funny comparisons as metaphors used specifically for humorous effect. To come up with a really hilarious comparison joke, the best thing to do is to brainstorm a bunch of different metaphors and then choose the one that is the both the funniest and communicates the point you are trying to make the best.

A good way of gauging whether a comparison is funny enough for the book is to test it with your target audience either in real life or over the phone.

4.   Turn Cliches On Their Head.

One of the key things to remember when crafting effective humour for your book is the art of misdirection. The less the reader expects what’s coming next, generally, the funnier it will be to them.

For this reason, one of the strongest bases for a joke in your Kindle book is a cliché. The very nature of a cliché means that the reader will instantly be expecting a specific end to the statement, which they have likely heard many times before. But, in this case, instead of ending the statement with the remainder of the cliché, you end it with something unexpectedly funny.

Be sure to not overuse this technique within the book though, as, as soon as the readers have caught onto the technique, they will expect the end of the next cliché to be funny and thus it will cease to have as strong of a humorous effect.

5.   Use Funny Anecdotes & Stories.

One of the most effective way of incorporating humour into your Kindle book is to have one or more characters tell funny anecdotes or stories.

These anecdotes don’t have to be really outlandish and super creative to be funny to the reader, but having one or more characters recount an amusing anecdote or story from their perspective is a sure-fire way of injecting some humour into your Kindle book.