Welcome to my new feature called Wednesday Wing where I’ll be passing on
observations, tips and information to readers I’ve made a note of.
Today I’m passing on a tip about the first 10% of your book.
With Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature potential readers can start reading your book for FREE to see it’s worth them buying. With online purchasing of books growing, this is a significant selling opportunity for authors.
Making best use of the first 10%
If a reader picks your paperback book up at a book store or a library, they can easily flick to the first page of the story.
When searching for a book online using the “Look Inside” feature a reader is stuck with the 10% allowed by Amazon. If your first few pages are full of a “dedication”, “Thank yous” to all your, beta readers, proof-readers, editors, book cover artists, family members and pet dog, “Quotes” from thrilled readers, “lists” of your other works, where to find you on social media etc, YOU ARE MISSING a huge MARKETING potential.
Don’t get me wrong, go ahead and have all these features, BUT have them at the back of the book. If a reader REALLY liked your work, they’ll read some of these and MAYBE follow up and go to your social media sites and look for more books you’ve written . BUT ramming this down a NEW reader’s throat before they’ve got to PAGE 1 of your story and YOU may well lose that reader before they BUY your book.
WHY NOT jump straight into the book WHAM! Hook that reader with an intense opening which has them reading down and hitting BUY.
For anyone who wants to argue that “Giving” the reader 10% of their 300 page book is letting someone have 30 pages FREE, meaning they then might not bother with the rest of the book, so filling the first 10 pages with dedications etc is a way of “Giving away less for FREE”. My reply is this, if a reader wants to give up after 30 pages the book either isn’t a subject they are interested in or you need to write a BETTER book, plus that view is so negative you don’t really want to sell your books do you?
Updated note – do check the latest advice from Amazon before uploading your book.
Here are links to previous Wednesday Wing Posts.
May 6th 2015 – Checking your WordPress is linked to your Twitter helps others share your posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7L2
May 13th 2015 – Writer’s Craft books by Rayne Hall full of REALLY useful tips http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Ma
May 20th 2015 – Hyperlinks, Short links and Linkys http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Rl
May 27th 2015 – Making your post titles easy to share on Twitter to maximise views. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7SA
June 17th 2015 – Creating Twitter pics that fit http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Y4
June 24th 2015 – Creating a slideshow on WordPress http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Yo
July 1st 2015 – Getting the most out of Google+ posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7YM
July 8th 2015 – Automated Tweets, LOVE ‘EM or HATE ‘EM? make use of them http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Za
July 15th 2015 – What’s Your Book Genre? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-84S
July 22nd 2015 – Should you write dreams into your work? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-84Q
Rosie Amber 