SPBE Blog #4- Grab The Audience!

Over 70% of our readers told us they either downloaded a free sample of an eBook or perused the print book in a bookstore before making their decision to buy it. As this next slide shows an indie author had better grab a prospective buyer quickly.

Slide 17 indicates that only 23% of potential buyers will read several chapters when they consider a book, whereas 35% will only read a few pages. And 27% make their decision based strictly on a paragraph or two, or the synopsis on the back cover. Clearly an opening hook is vital. It doesn’t matter if an indie author has written a great book, he or she won’t sell many copies they don’t get a reader interested from the very first paragraph or the first few pages at most! Buying a book is a commitment of money and time and to be successful an indie author had better make sure that they have made their book worth that commitment.

Beyond having a powerful opening hook, an indie author also needs to have an eye-catching cover. Slide 15 shows that while genre and author are the most important factors in a person’s decision to buy a book, nearly a third of our readers said the cover was either extremely or very important and another 45% said it was at least somewhat important. We submit that this is equally as important for an eBook as for a print book, perhaps even more so.

To conclude this blog, after working so very hard on his or her book, a self-published author must be careful not to let their efforts go to waste by having a dull or unappealing cover, an uninspired synopsis, or worst of all a weak opening. If an author doesn’t give these areas the same degree of attention that he or she has put into the book itself, all is lost!