From Anne R. Allen’s Blog:
I never have as much time to read as I think I will, and my trusty old Kindle is pretty loaded up. So I’m a picky book-buyer. Unfortunately, there are a lot of readers like me out here, and you don’t want to lose us.
I’m often intrigued by a book’s cover and blurb, and sometimes a glowing review on Facebook or a book blog will send me to a buy page.
But I never buy without checking out the “LOOK INSIDE!” On most retail sites, that’s 10% of the book—which anybody can read free.
That “LOOK INSIDE” freebie is your most important book sales tool.
Make sure it’s going to snag readers, not kill book sales just as you’re about to close the deal.
With many books—not only self-published, but trad-pubbed as well—the first few pages will stop the sale for me.
. . . .
I’m a grammar freak, so a misplaced apostrophe or verb/object disagreement will stop me. I know not everybody is such a stickler. But I think all readers want to see that a book looks professional and polished. They don’t want to invest time in a book—even if it’s free—unless they feel they’re in competent hands.
. . . .
1) Consider Chapter Titles
The first thing the reader sees when he hits LOOK INSIDE is your “Table of Contents” (unless you have a formatter who will put it at the end. Unfortunately the Big Five don’t ever seem to do this.)
Why waste your first four pages with Chapters titled:
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Etc?
You might consider going back to the old-fashioned device of text in chapter titles. Yes. I know they’ve been out of fashion for a century or so. But ebooks are bringing them back.
You don’t have to go all 18th Century and write:
“Chapter the Tenth, In Which Our Intrepid Hero Encounters Several Not Terribly Nice Ladies, Some Very Strong Spirits and a Face Full of Gravel, as he Searches for his Long-Lost Brother Murgatroyd, and their Father, who May or May Not be Lord Mayor of London.”
But modern chapter titles can give an idea of the action to come.
Chapter titles can also be a major sales tool. Here are the first four chapters of my rom-com mystery The Best Revenge
- The Color of Fresh Money
- Debutante of the Year
- Something in the Woods
- King of the Chickenburgers
You know there’s something weird going on with rich people, and it’s probably funny. Isn’t that more informative than a list of numbers?
Link to the rest at Anne R. Allen’s Blog
PG doesn’t use Look Inside very often, but he may be aberrant.
PG would be interested in knowing how many visitors to TPV are regular users of Look Inside and what they are particularly looking for when they do.
If I’m rushed for time, I’ll send a sample to my ereader. If I’m not in a hurry, I’ll use the Look Inside feature.
I never look at the LI. Either the description captivates me or it doesn’t.
Agree, Alec. Well, for fiction. For nonfiction, I nearly always look inside. For fiction, I only glance at covers as a general indication of genre/subgenre. Bad grammar in the blurb is an automatic no-buy, and I read 1-2-3 star reviews to see why other people didn’t like the book. Sometimes those reviews convince me I won’t care for it, either – sometimes they convince me to give it a try.
If it is an author I’ve never read before, I always click the look inside and read the full 10%.
I rarely read reviews to decide if I want to buy or not. Frankly, I don’t trust the reviews either on Amazon or Goodreads (unless I know the person giving the review).
I always look inside. I want to read the first few pages so I can tell if the writer can write. I also only read first person if it’s done really well and so often it isn’t. I look at the cover, blurb, the reviews and then INSIDE!
I’m with Anne, also “Antares,” always read the one and three-star reviews first and then the LI, where grammatical errors and/or trite anything will kill the sale. Statistically rare three-star reviews are often by somebody with expertise in the book’s field and point out interesting insider flaws that, oddly, up the likelihood that I’ll buy.
I agree on the 3-star reviews. I look at them for a hoped-for balanced assessment.
If it’s an unknown author, I use the look inside. Unless I don’t have time to really follow up at the moment. Then I’ll download the sample, hoping I have remember to look at it when I have more time. The look inside, though, is the same stuff you get when you download the sample–10%, so it still applies.
For fiction, never read reviews, never look inside, never download samples.
Terrence, what factors then DO influence you to buy fiction?
I use the Look Inside 99% of the time too. Not put off by TOC but too much front matter bothers me if it keeps me from getting to the writing. The reason I use the LI is to make sure the writing quality is worth the buy.
I like having a sample of the actual story. I want to see if the story piques my interest enough to continue. Likewise, with non-fiction, I need to know if the book suits my needs. NF is where I’d rather have a TOC with some indication of what’s where, especially when the chapters are hyperlinked.
I agree with Rhonda. I’ll add that I download 6-8 Look Insides for each book I buy. And I pretty much buy from among the books I sample, those I subsequently read to the « 10% mark »… provided they leave me tempted… to turn the page….
🙂
I disagree with labeling Anne R. Allen a click-bait artist.
Dan
Many thanks, D. C. 🙂 Although if I managed to write something click-baity, I should probably crow about it. As a Boomer, I’m not exactly a whiz at all that SEO stuff
Anon is clearly confused about the meaning of clickbait.
“Clickbait | Definition of Clickbait by Merriam-Webster
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clickbait
Definition of clickbait. : something (such as a headline) designed to make readers want to click on a hyperlink especially when the link leads to content of dubious value or interest.”
Anon, by contrast, seems to think a clickbait title is a title that gives the reader a clear idea what the post is about.
That, surely, is exactly what a title is meant to do.
I use Look Inside regularly. I tolerate TOCs with nothing but numbers, but not extended review quotations or other nonessential preliminaries.
I agree with Anne Allen.
For books I consider, I
1. check the cover,
2. read the 1-star reviews, and
3. read the Look Inside.
In the Look Inside sample, I want
1. action (I would have rejected Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone),
2. grammar, and
3. a style I like (that is, not Faulkner, not early Poe, not Victor Hugo, not Bruce Sterling, but definitely Hemingway (short stories), Heinlein, Wodehouse, and Verne (even with his mistakes)).
Prefaces, acknowledgements, and ‘thank you, thank you, thank yous’ that take up space and keep me from sampling your prose count against you. Heavily. If they keep me from sampling your prose, I reject your book.
In my experience, indies get the Look Inside right. They treat it as prime real estate. Big houses screw it up two out of three times.
I’ll just add a “me too” here as well. Unless I’m familiar with the author’s work, I’ll nearly always Look Inside.
Anne and I are as one on this. I always read Look Inside before buying, and all my books have chapter headings. The first four chapters of the wip:
1 Stood up
2 An alternative Liam Roth
3 Bad attitude
4 A fin breaks the surface
I’ll just have to manage without Anon reading it :o)
Thanks Lexi! Love the chapter headers!
Color me strange, but coming up with chapter headings is one of my favorite things about putting the novel together. I love pulling a phrase from each chapter that lends a little intrigue to it (I hope) without giving anything away. It’s almost like writing a two- to seven-word poem. (And I agree with Anne; I like your headings, too.)
I see chapter titles as hooks to get readers to go “just a few more pages”.
Same. They’re supposed to intrigue you without spoilers, and I’m glad to see they’re coming back. In e-books they aren’t even optional, the reader needs them just to be able to navigate the book.
I agree. They add resonance, can pique curiosity, give an aha as the chapter goes along. They’re awesome little tools to enhance the experience.
And why not enhance the experience in the Look Inside?
Putting the table of contents at the end of an ebook is against Amazon’s ToS.
I use the Look Inside only to find out who the cover designer is. Most authors don’t credit their designers, unfortunately. I do download samples occasionally.
Unless there’s good reason not to (trusted author, long awaited book, etc) I read the LI. If I buy a book, I feel obligated to read it, and if I start it, I feel obligated to finish it. I’d rather not start that whole cycle when it’s clear within the first 10% that I’m not going to enjoy the ride.
My life became much better once I realized that it is OK to start a book and not finish it.
Ah, the click bait is strong with this one.
On a personal note, I can’t stand books that have chapter titles especially where the author is trying to be cutezy or clever.
Especially when reading the chapter titles essentially tells you everything that’s going to happen in the book.
It isn’t make or break but I do like to see chapter titles if the book has a table of contents.
A TOC of nothing but chapter numbers strikes me as redundant. Conversely I see chapter titles, especially cute and whimsical ones, as a sign the author is willing to go an extra inch or two. Good for a couple of brownie points.
The same applies to chapter epigrams.
I see them as mood settings and hooks.
Geez. After five books in a series, I gotta say, writing interesting chapter titles gets harder and harder. I was thinking of never doing it again. Although when I thought of a really good one, it was fun.
It’s not make or break.
Most of my favorite authors don’t do it.
And for some stories it might not even be appropriate.
I guess my position is: don’t do a TOC page if you don’t have chapter titles. It offers little value and takes up space up front.
I feel differently about chapter titles. I’ve never liked them. They influence how I feel about the chapter before it even starts and while some people probably do enjoy that, I do not. I also find they interrupt my flow when I’m reading. I hate being dragged out of the story to read a chapter title and always end up trying to figure out what it means in the context of the story. Then I have to re-immerse myself in the story. 🙂
I send samples. I don’t bother with the look inside except for print books. For them, I like to skip around (“surprise me”) and see if there’s anything interesting there. Most are nonfiction. I’ve actually had this influence my decision to buy. I skipped a book I really wanted just a week ago because the look inside showed me the information I most wanted to read in the book, and it didn’t live up to my hopes. It was a book about writing.
I have yet to use the “look inside” feature. I know what I’m looking for – a specific title or topic – and go from there.
Since 90% of what I read right now is non-fiction, gripping chapter titles and dramatic opening scenes are not important. (Let’s face it: there’s a limit to how much drama you can write into statistical analyses of Russia’s medieval fur trade, no matter how good of a historian you are. 🙂 )
I need this book. What’s the title?
I’ll bet those fur trade statistics could tell us a lot about the Byzantine Empire, or the rise of Western Europe. I have to admit, my curiosity is piqued.
Most of the time I do, and I agree with seeing pages of table of contents, acknowledgements, preface or other trivial stuff, rather than actual content. But that’s applicable to eBooks. Even Kindle skips that stuff and send you right to the first chapter.
I seldom use “Look Inside” but 99% of the time I have a free sample sent to my Kindle. What I look for is writing that pulls me in immediately. Sometimes people tell me about a book that starts slowly, but builds by the second or third chapter. I don’t bother with the sample. It’s a no-go for me.
I believe that is the exact same text as the Look Inside feature.
Yes, I think it is. But I would forget the book if I just checked the LI and decided I’d like to buy the book sometime down the road. With the sample on my Kindle, I read the sample when I’m looking for something new to read, then it takes me to the store. It might be weeks after the book caught my eye. Also, I go to lots of book product pages that are linked in Amazon emails, so I often have a bunch of samples lined up to check out. I do likewise when I see a book reviewed that I suspect will be interesting.
Same. I send the sample to my Kindle and if it grabs me I hit the buy button at some point. It’s right there on the Kindle in front of me so I remember it.
That is my general rule as well. The look inside function on my phone irritates me, so the sample gets sent and then I read in peace. My last three book purchases came from the fact that I didn’t want to stop reading the book after the sample ran out.
I agree with the article though, a badly presented ‘inside look’ will kill interest faster then a fart at the dinner table.