Preditors and Editors ™
A guide to publishers and publishing services for serious writers
Electronic Booksellers, You Have to Sell the Sizzle!
An opinion by Dave Kuzminski
Honestly, it doesn't take much to make a sale. Just a small effort will suffice, but it has to be the right small effort. For instance, I recently saw a book advertised on an electronic bookseller's site as being "A science fiction novel by..."
Really?
Yes, really. Now if the author happened to be quite well known, that might have been sufficient. However, for an unknown or midlist author, it's just not enough. That's when the story absolutely has to sell itself in order to find an audience. That's when the electronic bookseller and author should get their heads together and come up with a one-sentence description of not more than twenty-five words and an appropriate cover for the book.
It's basically the same thing that television and radio do. They can't convey the aroma or taste of bacon or chicken, but they can convey sound and pictures. They can show how meaty the product is. They can show the gorgeous texture of perfectly fried bacon or chicken, but that's not what makes the real sale. What works is when they broadcast the sizzling sounds of bacon or chicken frying. That's when they really get you because that sound is familiar to almost everyone. You don't have to smell the aroma of bacon or chicken to remember how it should smell when you hear that sound and see the product. You just know it's going to be good.
Well, that's what publishers have to do, especially if they sell books on their own web sites. They have to sell the sizzle. That means describing the book in as few words as possible and giving a picture. Tell the prospective reader/buyer that Such-and-such book is: Daring merchant spacefarers evade space pirates, but can they avoid an entire enemy space navy? Or, how about: His death could mean an end to the space program unless the rest of the space academy could be cleared, but were they all innocent?
Now we've got sizzle, especially if these images are coupled with good artwork for the cover. Don't fool yourself that electronic books don't need cover art. The reading public is used to seeing decent to excellent cover art. Remember also that a picture can convey a thousand words. In this case, it gets the point across quickly in ways that your words might not. Just imagine the first example coupled with cover art showing a fleet or armada of space ships or the second with a space helmet punctured by a hole.
Those create stunning selling messages and that's how selling is performed. It's not a matter of saying here we are, buy from us. A seller can't just say we have quality products. The seller has to tell about the product by selling the sizzle. If not, then why should the buyer even show interest?
}|{the end}|{
