EBOOKS: Why are previews so boring?

[NOIRTRASH]

I buy lotsa Kindle books.

Almost without exception the previews I get suck.

Why do you start your books with a big suck?

 

[sr71plt]

You just can't stop coming up with negative sweeping generalizations that are so general that they can't be answered and can't be accepted as valid premises, can you? Just want attention, don't you?

 

[lovecraft68]

Amazon allows a very small preview. So small that when we had someone stealing e-books awhile back they were deliberately using extra long title page and 'copyright' info so you couldn't even read the opening.

 

[rjordan]

I buy lotsa Kindle books.

Almost without exception the previews I get suck.

Why do you start your books with a big suck?

They're worse than boring. They're usually worthless. Who scans the front matter in a bookstore before deciding to buy a book? That's what most of the previews are even if they aren't padded as LC said.

Give me several pages of the opening chapter or even better, hook me with the first chapter. Leave all the front matter bullshit out. If a preview fails to get me to buy the book, the preview failed its only purpose.

rj

 

[lovecraft68]

They're worse than boring. They're usually worthless. Who scans the front matter in a bookstore before deciding to buy a book? That's what most of the previews are even if they aren't padded as LC said.

Give me several pages of the opening chapter or even better, hook me with the first chapter. Leave all the front matter bullshit out. If a preview fails to get me to buy the book, the preview failed its only purpose.

rj

Smashwords allows at least 20% of the book to be viewed so if its a very long book, you can read quite a bit.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

They're worse than boring. They're usually worthless. Who scans the front matter in a bookstore before deciding to buy a book? That's what most of the previews are even if they aren't padded as LC said.

Give me several pages of the opening chapter or even better, hook me with the first chapter. Leave all the front matter bullshit out. If a preview fails to get me to buy the book, the preview failed its only purpose.

rj

I decide based on the first page. I better see a little ankle or its over before it begins.

I got fooled.

I recently sampled LAW AND ORDER by Dorothy Uhnak. The first page and first chapter killed my misogyny with a mop handle stake thru my heart. Its writing only God does. I mean, the whole thing is nigger this and jigaboo that, and kike, and all the other ethnic groups, and a police sergeant rapes a woman bleeding to death from an abortion. I was in Heaven. I never imagined a Jewish girl could be the Johanna Sebastian Bach of noir. I bought the book.

And the rest of the book was like sex with Charles and Caroline Ingalls at church. The most exciting scene was an intermission ticket drawing at the local movie house. I thought it was PENNLADY erotica.