Welcome to my Friday Five Challenge
(Original idea from Rosie Amber at https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/)
Get yourself a cuppa and give yourself 5 minutes.
In today’s online shopping age, readers often base their buying decisions from small postage stamp size book covers (Thumb-nails), a quick glance at the book description and the review. How much time do they really spend making that buying decision?
AUTHORS – You often only have seconds to get a reader to buy your book, is your book cover and book bio up to it?
My Friday Five Challenge is this….. IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES….
1) Go to any online book supplier,
2) Randomly choose a category,
3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which has instantly appealed to your eye,
4) Read the book Bio/ Description for this book, and any other details.
5) If there are reviews, check out a couple,
6) Make an instant decision, would you BUY or PASS?
So here goes…
This week I chose Epic Fantasy
I went to Amazon Epic Fantasy books in kindle, it’s not a genre I regularly read so I wanted to see what appealed on a quick glance.
This book, Taming Fire (The Dragonprince’s Legacy Book 1) by Aaron Pogue caught my eye – it seems to have the requisite font and colouring that many other titles in this genre have, and I did like the dragon!
The price – I didn’t realise until I clicked through to the details but it is £0, I’m guessing probably permanently so as this is the first in a series. It irritates me that authors feel they have to give their hard work away for nothing…
Book Description
Daven Carrickson grew up as a beggar in the filthy alleys beneath the shadows of the palace. He’s the son of a known thief, disgraced and despised. His only real talent is his ability with a sword, and his only real chance at finding honor or a home is a desperate dream of joining the King’s Guard.
Then Daven receives a new future when Master Claighan invites him to study magic at the Academy. The wizard offers to make him into a new kind of soldier: a swordsman equally skilled with forged blades and mystic forces. It only helps that Daven has no home, no family, and nothing left to lose.
But when conspiring forces destroy the wizard’s plans, Daven finds himself wanted for treason and murder. Hunted by a great black beast of a dragon, caught between the King’s Guard and a rebel force led by a rogue wizard, Daven’s only hope of surviving is to become more than he’s ever dreamed possible.
Taming Fire is the first book in the Dragonprince’s Legacy.
361 pages – that’s a lot of pages for nothing!
There are many reviews covering the whole spectrum and it seems pretty popular with those that are fond of dragons and the like. One likened it to Oliver Twist and I can kind of see that from the book description.
Would I BUY or PASS? Well I’ve cheated a bit here because it costs nothing and I’ve downloaded it because of that… So I guess it’s a BUY. I am intrigued as it’s a genre I wouldn’t usually choose but whether I ever actually get it to read it something else.
Analysis
This cover suits the genre and I thought the book description was compelling so if this is where your interests lie then I can see this being a good one for you. I have enjoyed trying out several books from different genre over the last year or so and come across some real gems so I may well give this one a try.
Would you agree, or not?
I’ll be back next week with another Friday Five Challenge, do feel free to join in.
Brilliant Georgia, and what a lovely surprise to find it was free at the end! Making the first book of a series free is a poplar marketing ploy especially if the book is likely to be read by the YA market – the readers of today and tomorrow, reel them in and get them to stay. I agree I think the book cover fits the category and the book title really well. Dragons and wizards are very popular subjects so this book needs to stand out in a saturated market with both it’s book bio and storyline, it will be great to hear your thoughts on the book later.
Thanks Rosie and I shall definitely review…when I get to it! It’s good to have a look round sales sites to see what else is out there – thanks for the challenge 🙂
Actually, that sounds right up my alley! And the price is certainly right.
It does sound interesting doesn’t it? Let me know how you get on with it 🙂