As I get closer to the editing phase of my story and this whole book thing becomes more real, I’m starting to think about some of the stuff beyond writing that goes along with putting a book into the market that will hopefully maybe possibly start selling a few copies … beyond the 50 or so my mom will buy just out of sheer excitement.
Of course, the writing matters. The story matters. But I’m not sure it matters as much as many think. I doubt you’ll hear this a lot on writing blogs, but the quality of your story isn’t going to be that big of a factor when it comes to selling books. That’s partially because “quality of your story” is really objective; what I think is a great story, you might think is trite and boring. For example, my fiancee thinks “Pulp Fiction” is boring and “The Big Lebowski” is stupid. Let’s just say we don’t see quite eye to eye on those two. Are those “quality stories”? I think most people would say they very much are, but not to her. What does that mean? Not much, other than it’s all subjective.
It’s mostly, though, because, as long as there’s some redeeming quality in your work, there’s probably a potential market out there for it. Thousands of romance and cozy-mystery stories I’d find to be laughably bad sell massive numbers of books every week. There are millions of readers out there; not everybody wants to read Cormac McCarthy or Jonathan Franzen. Not everybody wants you to challenge them. Some just want a 125-page quick read they can knock out at the beach, or before bed.
So, if not quality writing, what are the three most important factors that will go into selling your book?
- Book Cover
I think this is huge. It’s the biggest immediate tipoff to how seriously the author takes his or her work, and it’s the first thing most people see on Amazon. If the cover looks amateur-ish, as if it was slapped together in MS Paint or just done by someone who had no sense of what goes into a high-quality book cover, then it’s a decent bet the author isn’t very experienced, and you don’t know what you’re going to get. If you want to get your foot in the door with readers and start selling your book, have a pro do your cover. - Story summary/blurb
What’s the first thing readers see after the cover on Amazon? The story summary or blurb. If the cover looks interesting, they’ll scan over and read what the book’s about. There are too many books out there to look through them all, so you have to get through readers’ filters, and these are the first two. A blurb of 150 or fewer words that draws the reader in without giving too much away is perfect. - Title
You’d like an eye-catching title, something unique that makes the reader want to see more. Titles are odd, though. Lots of really successful books over time have had really mundane and straightforward titles (since I mentioned McCarthy earlier, how about “The Road”?), so I’m not sure this is as essential as the first two. But it’s still an opportunity to grab ahold of the reader and get him or her over to your blurb, which is where you need them. If they get there, hopefully you’ve done well enough with it to hook them into hitting the “Buy” button.
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