Pondering epub previews and what they mean for the writer

[Stella_Omega]

So, a lot of the books that I buy now, are published only via kindle or moby or epub etc. It make it harder to peruse a book, because I used to go to a book shop, read a few pages at the beginning, a few pages in the middle, a few maybe towards the end (cause I don't care about spoilers) and online, the browsing is dictated by the site. Amazon gives you the first 2%, (ETA-- people are telling me 10%) for instance.

In many nonfiction books, this consists of the copyright notice, the forward, the TOS and two pages of text telling me how useful this book is going to be. If I can't take a look at a sample, I have no idea if in fact it will work for me at all. Self help books are notorious for this.

We find samples of world building, atmospheric setup and character introduction with no clue at all what the meat will be. (I.E. Perdido Street Station)

We see samples which present the main characters to be unlikeable in one way or another, and no sign that they will become less so over the course of the novel. That's going to be a problem for Romance writers.

You know all of those arcs and quandaries that are the reason for writing a novel... All we can see is the barest of beginnings. It really sucks.

I'm wondering what to do about this problem, as a writer. We want to sell, after all!

Brainstorming?

 

[lovecraft68]

Hmmm, I seem to be at the other end of that dilemma as a seller

 

[Stella_Omega]

Hmmm, I seem to be at the other end of that dilemma as a seller

Yep, so what the hell can we do about it? AS writers, that is.

I know some of the smaller presses offer the kind of sampling that I prefer, hand crafted for that book. But amazon's not going to do that.

One solution I've considered is to choose a middle chapter and place a copy of it at the front of the document. Blech!

 

[MaxSebastian]

Great question. I do think that for those writers and editors primarily selling through ebooks (and who have an eye to the commercial side), it's going to change how they write.

For unlikable characters, there will have to be something more intriguing about them in the beginning, perhaps, to get readers to instantly engage.

For longer works, it could make sense to split novels into separate volumes, sell each one at $2.99, for example, rather than a $9.99 (or whatever) for the whole work.

With separate volumes, Amazon would then allow a small sample of the beginning of each one, plus the blurb would give a teaser of each part of the whole novel, allowing the reader some idea of what they will get by investing in the whole thing.

Then you could offer a unified Complete Novel at a bargain price (compared to buying all the volumes separately).

 

[Stella_Omega]

yeah, but the smaller the book, the smaller that 2% is...

For unlikable characters, there will have to be something more intriguing about them in the beginning, perhaps, to get readers to instantly engage.

This-- yeah. I've been seeing this discussion around a lot, internet-habituated readers are more willing to click right away from something that doesn't grab them.

 

[SamScribble]

Well, here’s a thought, Stella: maybe it’s only a matter of time before the first two or three pages of every would-be successful book are going to have to be written as an almost stand-alone ‘good read’. It would hardly be the first time that the internet has dictated structure. Look at the way it has changed the required structure of CVs. Of course it would mean that James Joyce’s editor will need to do a bit of work on the opening of Ulysses.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yep, so what the hell can we do about it? AS writers, that is.

I know some of the smaller presses offer the kind of sampling that I prefer, hand crafted for that book. But amazon's not going to do that.

One solution I've considered is to choose a middle chapter and place a copy of it at the front of the document. Blech!

I think it's more than 2% with amazon. You can read the first three chapters of mine.

I thought of putting an excerpt from a chapter before part one.

You know like the old paperbacks? You'd open the cover and there would be a small blurb from somewhere in the book?

I wasn't sure if they allowed that so I didn't bother.

Smashwords lets you choose 10-30% that the reader can check out.

Thing is with most novels the plot doesn't really start developing until several chapters in and usually you can't get a real good feel for the characters until later as well.

I think the problem lies partly with the reader. These days people are inherently cheap, they don't want to buy anything until they practically know so much why bother buying, and amazon is so vast with such a selection if something doesn't catch them right away its off to the next book.

Not sure that is fixable.

 

[lovecraft68]

yeah, but the smaller the book, the smaller that 2% is...
This-- yeah. I've been seeing this discussion around a lot, internet-habituated readers are more willing to click right away from something that doesn't grab them.

What's that expression? Don't judge a book by its cover.

What hurts me is I wanted my characters to come across as jerks, because the trick of the book is for the reader to start to identify with and actually root for said jerks, but they need an attention span for that and that is rapidly becoming a thing of the.....

wait, what was I saying?

 

[Stella_Omega]

MOre than 2%? i don't know where I got that number from now that I think about it

I like the "blurb before" notion. I can't see why not.

 

[beatrice_dreams]

MOre than 2%? i don't know where I got that number from now that I think about it

I like the "blurb before" notion. I can't see why not.

I think I heard somewhere about it being 10%, but I could be wrong!

If I judge by my own recent kindle-buying habits, it's the Product Description section which will sell me or not, rather than looking inside. Some reviewers will even give a near-complete blow-by-blow account of the entire plot. Not sure I like those reviews.

I definitely plan to make my Product Description count, with a short synopsis at least. Is that somewhere along the lines of your "blurb before"?

 

[lovecraft68]

I'll mention something else here that I would love amazon to change.

People should have to buy the book to review it. I got one negative review and they said right in it, that it was based solely on the preview.

I also checked the person's other reviews and found out that they're pretty much a troll nothing but 2 bombs and I'll bet bought none of them.

I'm only on amazon and Smashwords and SW makes you buy the book to review it and Amazon should do the same.

No one should have a right to blast you when they didn't even spend a dime on the product. At least if they bought it they would have a gripe and the author would at least make a couple of bucks to take the sting off the review.

Honestly this is why I have not even posted my novel on the authors and their books thread or in my sig.

After one particularly nasty thread, I was hit with a slew of one bomb reviews on a previous amazon account. I was having some other issues as well so shut down that name over there.

Since I've been back on I won't advertise here, to much trouble.

 

[damppanties]

If I judge by my own recent kindle-buying habits, it's the Product Description section which will sell me or not, rather than looking inside.

This, exactly. This is how I buy on kindle. I wasn't even aware I could preview. Some authors put an excerpt in the product description space, which... to think about it... doesn't quite work for me. 2-4 paragraphs isn't enough of a sample and if they put in more, it just looks crowded.

Thinking about it, when I buy books in book shops, I read the back flap, then open the book at the type and writing style -- I like books that do not have a huge type, like they're written for children, and books with a lot of dialogue, so I look for that. Other than those things, it's the same as buying an ebook (and with change of font size on an electronic device, scanning for type size is not an issue).

Now after I've bought the book, the first few lines / pages are important in terms of the hook, which is why amazon shows the first parts and not excerpts from the middle?

 

[Stella_Omega]

So-- spend a LOT of time and care on the product description, check.

Fuck. That's a lot like titles which I seem to suck at-- unless it's someone else's book.

LC, you should go back through yours, then. Play up the way the characters become more human over the course of the book, and check for SPAG

 

[lovecraft68]

So-- spend a LOT of time and care on the product description, check.

Fuck. That's a lot like titles which I seem to suck at-- unless it's someone else's book.

LC, you should go back through yours, then. Play up the way the characters become more human over the course of the book, and check for SPAG

What the hell is spag?

 

[evanslily]

I finally got around to uploading a couple of stories to Amazon.

And I may have misunderstood - but I think you can sign up to something so that potential readers can look through parts of your book.

See: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=14061791

 

[evanslily]

Oh no, scrub that. I just took a closer look and it's only the material within the previewed part that you can search.

Rats.

 

[Stella_Omega]

What the hell is spag?

Spelling Punctuation and Grammar.

 

[emap]

How much you can read varies on the books found on Amazon with the feature. Some of them you can read a little of the front, the middle and the back. Others you get like two pages and the back cover of the book. At least the two pages are the first two pages of the actual book and you can at least see what POV it is in. I suppose the whole idea of it.

Now I actually go and buy books from Literary Guild. Hardcover mostly and there is a discount so it's cheaper even with the delivery charge. You don't get to read segments of most books, instead you get a rather indepth book review. It talks about when the book is set and what happens. At the end it gives an overall feel of the book and it's actually a really good way to do it.

Hey don't look at me like that, I like having the book in my hands. Besides, if you use a tablet of whatever variety to read your books, what happens when the tablet dies? Same thing with a phone, suppose you drop the damn thing and your entire life is in it, dayplanner and all that jazz. Don't laugh at me for buying an actual book and writing down notes, I don't lose it all at once.

 

[lovecraft68]

How much you can read varies on the books found on Amazon with the feature. Some of them you can read a little of the front, the middle and the back. Others you get like two pages and the back cover of the book. At least the two pages are the first two pages of the actual book and you can at least see what POV it is in. I suppose the whole idea of it.

Now I actually go and buy books from Literary Guild. Hardcover mostly and there is a discount so it's cheaper even with the delivery charge. You don't get to read segments of most books, instead you get a rather indepth book review. It talks about when the book is set and what happens. At the end it gives an overall feel of the book and it's actually a really good way to do it.

Hey don't look at me like that, I like having the book in my hands. Besides, if you use a tablet of whatever variety to read your books, what happens when the tablet dies? Same thing with a phone, suppose you drop the damn thing and your entire life is in it, dayplanner and all that jazz. Don't laugh at me for buying an actual book and writing down notes, I don't lose it all at once.

Someone after my own heart.

I still don't own a kindle

I have a kindle for pc app and have bought a whopping 5 e-books, and all from friends I met here that published as I like to support them.

All of the recent books I have wanted to read I still go to the.... ready? The Bookstore!

I know, it's scary! There's other people there! and sometimes, ready? They speak to me and want to interact!

Then I look at the books! I make up my own mind! I pay for them!

I know, you're thinking there's a sci fi section on lit for stories like this!

 

[PennLady]

Someone after my own heart.

I still don't own a kindle

I have a kindle for pc app and have bought a whopping 5 e-books, and all from friends I met here that published as I like to support them.

All of the recent books I have wanted to read I still go to the.... ready? The Bookstore!

Oh, knock it off.

Back to the OP (I hope), I don't bother with previews much. I read the product description, which I admit is hit and miss. Sometimes it's a synopsis, sometimes an excerpt, sometimes both. But the caveat is that mostly I look for free stuff, so if I get it and don't like it, I'm not out anything. Covers don't do much for me. I'm usually drawn in by a title, or maybe an author, but unless the cover art is really stunning, I barely glance at it.

I suppose if I get to the point of knowing I want to buy a book, I just get it. By then I've probably read about it or talked to people or whatever, so I don't flip through or anything.

I'm apparently a rather surgical strike type of shopper.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I have so many books that they are stacked double on my two six-foot bookshelves and packed into boxes on the floor in front of the shelves. They range in age from 150 years old to yesterday.

But-- the books I want to read ATM are being written by new writers who publish electronically by default.

I sincerely doubt I will ever publish a book with a real cover-- and if that should happen, I still need to cater to the market as it is right now.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think I like to shop for real books because there's no reviews on them. Well, of course there's the rave 5 star review they'll stick on some of them, but shit they're not going to put a bad one.

I do browse the kindle store sometimes, and I don't like to look at reviews because I don't want to be influenced by anything other than description as reading is very subjective.

Also many rave reviews are plants from friends(I read an online article about how to be successful on amazon and they tell you to do this) and many bad ones are trolls. So Ilike to make up my own.

As for knocking it off? Please, this is the most anti social generation since the caveman. No one wants to leave their house and heaven forbid when they have to they've got to have their precious phone with them as well as Ipads, tablets and anything else they can pay attention to rather than have to socialize.

 

[Stella_Omega]

In other words, you are willing to let the publishing houses be your gatekeeper-- and indeed they do a good job for the most part.

My chosen genres are invisible to the publishing houses.

 

[emap]

I don't have that many books, and none that old. What I do is browse by torrent and purchase the ones I want to keep. That might change though since the place I go for book torrents is down and likely to stay there for a long time.

Now if you must read something the publishers won't touch, I'm afraid to ask what that is, then really you might want to try my method. If you go and buy the book the author won't care if you read it already or not. Some of the websites actually let you download chapters, like here's a free sample of chapters 1-3. Not always a publisher either, authors will do this at least the newer ones I look at.

 

[PennLady]

I think I like to shop for real books because there's no reviews on them. Well, of course there's the rave 5 star review they'll stick on some of them, but shit they're not going to put a bad one.

I do browse the kindle store sometimes, and I don't like to look at reviews because I don't want to be influenced by anything other than description as reading is very subjective.

So you do what I do. You look at titles and maybe plots, whether it's print or e-book. I don't read reviews either.

As for knocking it off? Please, this is the most anti social generation since the caveman. No one wants to leave their house and heaven forbid when they have to they've got to have their precious phone with them as well as Ipads, tablets and anything else they can pay attention to rather than have to socialize.

Yeah, no one wants to leave their house. That explains the crowds at movies every weekend, the people I saw at the swimming pool today, and the people at the mall. It explains crowded restaurants and the 50+ people I see at story time at the library twice a week.

No, what I'm tired of is this sense of superiority people have because they prefer print books. Fine, I like print books too. But I'm not stupid or inferior b/c I love reading on my Kindle.