Welcome to my Friday Five Challenge
Get yourself a cuppa and give yourself 5 minutes.
In today’s online shopping age, readers often base their buying decisions from small postage stamp size book covers (Thumb-nails), a quick glance at the book description and the review. How much time do they really spend making that buying decision?
AUTHORS – You often only have seconds to get a reader to buy your book, is your book cover and book bio up to it?
My Friday Five Challenge is this….. IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES….
1) Go to any online book supplier,
2) Randomly choose a category,
3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which has instantly appealed to your eye,
4) Read the book Bio/ Description for this book,
5) If there are reviews, check out a couple,
6) Make an instant decision, would you BUY or PASS?
(then write a little analysis about your decision)
This week I’ve been traumatising spiders in a large cleaning project, so they became my inspiration search word.
I found a book series and author new to me because it’s in a genre I don’t usually choose, however I do read the odd thriller in my reading mix.
Hard Landing by Stephen Leather is the first book in the “Spider” Shepherd Series
Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
The first book in the bestselling Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd series.
Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. Working for an elite undercover squad he has lied, cheated and conned in order to bring Britain’s most wanted criminals to justice.
But when a powerful drugs baron starts to kill off witnesses to his crimes, Shepherd is given his most dangerous assignment yet. He has to go undercover in a top security prison, a world where one wrong move will mean certain death.
As Shepherd gambles everything to move in on his quarry, he soon realises that the man he is hunting is even more dangerous than the police realise. And that he is capable of striking outside the prison walls and hitting Shepherd where it hurts most.
Price; £0.49 /$0.76
Number of reviews; 777 UK/ 69 US
Would I BUY or PASS? ……..BUY
Analysis
This book takes me from my normal reading comfort zone, but the cover was clean, sharp and the black clothes on a white background gave my eye different shapes to look at from the usual rectangle book cover – it drew me in. The picture says “Prisoner” to me and that is what you get from the storyline description. I like the idea that it is book one of a series, which if I like it I can carry on reading other stories. The author is well thought of in the UK from all the reviews. Add to this a bargain kindle price of 49 pence, everything adds up to a BUY.
Here are links to other people taking the #FridayFiveChallenge this week.
Shelley is checking out Diet books – http://shelleywilsonauthor.com/2015/08/14/buy-or-pass-looking-at-diet-books-for-the-fridayfivechallenge/
Cathy went in search of Salem witches – https://betweenthelinesbookblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/friday-five-challenge-6/
Terry looked up a book from Norfolk – http://terrytyler59.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/my-weekly-contribution-to-rosie-ambers.html
Liz checked out Non-fiction and Time Management – https://lizannelloyd.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/fridayfivechallenge/comment-page-1/#comment-189
And Barb is late but brings us a wonderful tale from her holiday in Spain, so we forgive her – http://barbtaub.com/2015/08/15/starving-to-death-in-spain-or-traditions-travel-queueing-fridayfivechallenge-from-rosieamber1/comment-page-1/#comment-137783
Great choice, Rosie. At 49p it is the perfect price to try out a new genre, it would be a buy from me too.
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Pingback: BUY or PASS? Looking at Diet Books for the #FridayFiveChallenge | Shelley Wilson
This sounds great, Rosie, and at 49p I’m just off to get it – thanks!
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Pingback: Friday Five Challenge ~ The Salem Witch Society by KN Shields #FridayFiveChallenge #BuyorPass #Historical | BetweenTheLines
ps, I love that you chose ‘spiders’!!!!
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Yup I like the look of this too and at 49p it’s a definite BUY… I’m follow hot on Terry’s heels to get it – thanks!
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BUY for me too. I’ve read Stephen Leather before and enjoyed his writing.
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Pingback: #FridayFiveChallenge | Lizannelloyd
At that price, why not? Though I suspect it is very much out of my comfort zone.
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Reblogged this on Barrow Blogs: .
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Bought it just now!!
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I have to agree. The price is scary cheap.
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Yes it is John, but it works for this author because firstly it gets new readers easily and then if he’s hooked them he’s got lots more books up his sleeve for them to buy at higher prices.
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True.
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I wish we could all put our books on Amazon that cheap! On Amazon KDP, though, you can’t go lower than 99p – you need a publisher (a real one, I mean, not an indie press).
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Good point to raise, thanks.
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