Adam Stemple

There’s a lot of pressure on the opening sentence of a book to hook the reader in, the belief being that if you don’t get your reader quick, you likely won’t get them at all. I tend to spread the responsibility around, and instead of talking about the first sentence, I talk about the whole opening of a book. And there’s more to a good opening than just being a “hook.” Especially if you’re writing genre fiction. First of all, I like the first sentence to be genre specific, or at least hinting at the genre the book is written …

A cover might bring the reader in, but it’s the description that seals the deal. So, how do you write a description that turns browsers to buyers? Discoverability vs. Conversion A good description both makes your book easier to find through good use of keywords and search terms as well as “conversion” — getting someone to buy the book. When writing descriptions, I lean far more toward conversion over discoverability, because if you get eyes on the your book that don’t buy, you’ve wasted ad money and are telling the algorithm that your book doesn’t sell. Booksellers give higher priority …