The Deal Breakers

Something independent authors often use to  get the word out about their books is to offer a free copy. Doing this has several benefits. The main thing is that we hope it will place our work before a wider audience, and we may gain new readers who will subsequently look for and buy more of our books, tell their friends, and so on. A secondary benefit is that we may gain some reader reviews.

It's a popular technique. It's easy to do, and it's free. However, people don't always get the massive avalanche of downloads for which they were hoping. In today's blog, I'll be talking about why that is. Of course this is from my own perspective: the things that stop me from taking advantage of a free offer. 

Here, in a rough chronological order, are the things that will cause me to scroll on past a free book.

First of all, I'll say this. I am, and have always been, totally keen on free stuff. I just love anything that's free; this is partly because I'm a poverty-stricken writer, and partly because I was brought up thrifty. I hate to pay full price for anything. So you have that going for you right up front - just the fact it's free makes it worth a look.

Deal Breaker One - The Post Itself.

The actual post in which the free book is offered has major potential to put me off. I'll list the ways in which this can happen in descending order of seriousness.

1. The post contains a quote from the book that reveals it's porn, fan-fiction, or any other kind of rubbish. 

If any material from the book is quoted in the post, this is like a preliminary 'Look Inside', and it has enormous turn-off power, because one assumes the quote has been chosen because it's one of the best bits, so if it is truly horrible, or if it reveals the presence of porn, I know there's absolutely no point looking further. 

2. The post contains spelling or grammatical errors.

This is self-explanatory. 

3. The post contains any degree of begging. 

For example, pleas that you need to sell lots of copies because you're 'a autism author' - yes, I've really seen this - or to feed your 17 children, or to get treatment for your grandmother's broken legs - any kind of begging is so inappropriate in this context that it's enough to stop me in my tracks. If the book can't stand on its own merits, I'm not interested.

4. The person posting is not the author.

I'm not really sure why this is such a turn-off for me. I suspect this might be just me.

5. I've seen the post too many times.

If this book has been offered, over and over again, in a lot of groups, I feel as if I'm being badgered, and I will decline it just on general principle.

6. No buy link is provided.

If you want me to download your free book, you have to make it easy for me. I am not going to lift a finger to chase it.

If you survive all of this, I may click through on the link provided. 

Deal Breaker Two - The Cover.

Back in the days when all books were either paperback or hardcover, I'd have scoffed at the idea that the cover art might influence a buyer's choice. Now, however, when it's all ebooks, I've learned that the cover actually does tell you quite a bit. There are several ways in which the cover will dissuade me from looking any further.

1. It Looks Like Porn

If the cover of the book has a picture of a shirtless man, that's enough to raise an eyebrow, but if his head isn't even in the picture, that's it for me. I know the book is going to be porn, and I don't want to read it. 

2. They Just Haven't Tried

If the cover has obviously been generated using one of the standard templates offered by KDP - yes, Virginia, you can tell, especially if there is a big pink stripe across it - this makes me think it's Amateur City, and unless the blurb is VERY intriguing, I'm going to pass on this one.

3. Amateurish Artwork

I hesitated over whether to include this, because the bar you have to reach for me to think it's okay is very, very low, and in fact all by itself this isn't a real deal breaker for me, but it does put me in a far less positive frame of mind when I look further.

Deal Breaker Three - The Process of Obtaining It

1. The Landing Place

Hopefully, this will be a book page on Amazon or Smashwords. If it is not, it will either be to some bookseller where I probably don't have an account, or to the author's own page. 

If it's a bookseller, you have lost me. I'm not setting up an account with a merchant just to get a free book.

If it's the author's own page, you have probably lost me, especially if I have to scroll through a huge rigmarole of promotional yelling to get at it. I'm not particularly keen to get on extra mailing lists, which always happens if you download from an author's own site. 

2. The Format Offered

If the book is to be downloaded from the author's own page, and it's only available as a pdf, I am not interested. If you can't be bothered to produce a proper e-book, then I can't be bothered reading your book. 

If the book on offer has passed all of these tests, I will now have a look at the blurb.

Deal Breaker Four - The Blurb

1. Poor English

If the blurb contains any failure of correct English, that's a total deal breaker. I've put this first because it is the first thing I will notice. 

2. Porn

If the blurb contains any indication of porn, that is a total deal breaker. Such words as 'hot', 'steamy', 'alpha' have over the years become top porn-indicators for me.

3. Not Original

If I find on reading the blurb that the book is fan-fiction, which I take to be, inter alia, anything that is about characters from another writer's work, this is a deal breaker.

4. Boring

If the blurb fails to catch my interest, that's a deal breaker. Once upon a time it wasn't, but that was in my early days of kindle use, when I had failed to grasp just how many free books are out there. These days, I require to be at least moderately intrigued to proceed to the next step.

Deal Breaker Five - The Look Inside

Finally, if a book has made it this far, I will be opening up the Look Inside feature on Amazon, or the Preview on Smashwords. If I have reached this point, I will probably download the book. However, there are still rocks on which it may founder.

Once upon a time, we browsed in bookstores and opened the book to read a few paragraphs at random. This would still be my preference, but alas! these preview features force one to start at the beginning.

1. Layout

If the first thing I see after the title page is pages and pages of Table of Contents, with nothing more than 'Chapter One, Chapter Two, etc', I will be put off. This in itself is not a deal breaker, but if I have been displeased by anything at all before reaching this point, it has the capacity to become one. This is because it's a really stupid place to put the Table of Contents in an ebook; they should go at the back, and also because if the person knows what he is doing, it's easy enough to set the 'Start' of the Look Inside to the beginning of the actual book, which is all one wishes to see at this point.

2. Language

Once I'm at the start of the book, you have one screen only to impress me. I am not going to turn the page at all, unless I read that first page and see perfect spelling and perfect grammar. There are no exceptions to this.

3. Content

I still won't turn the page unless I'm caught up enough in the story by the end of the first page to care what happens. It's the writer's job to do this. If there is clumsy use of dialogue, if there is a female character looking in the mirror and describing herself, if there's any hint that the book is poorly written, that of course is an absolute deal breaker. Remember, although I've written a long article about this process, in real life it has probably only taken thirty seconds from the point at which I first saw the post.

If I turn the page, and if I still feel the same way after reading another page, that's the point at which you have won, and I'll download the book. I still might not read it, but that's another story for another day.