Authors - your Amazon book page is your main shop-front.

The significance of seemingly insignificant facts.

While it may be only the cover image and title that has attracted some customers to your novel, once your book is published on Amazon, potential readers can garner lots of information from that single page about you, your book, your style of writing, its review star rating, and the publication standard - be it traditional or home-grown. These are aside from the pertinent facts like page count and price.

   When browsing a book’s page, price for me, is the first thing I check out. Personally, I don’t buy e-books that retail around $10 or more.

    I then consider the number of star reviews the book has received and the value of the stars. I regard 4 and 5 stars at about the same value and don’t usually read more than one or two of the printed reviews. Keep in mind that a newly released book with only 5 star reviews might be the result of friends and relatives being the first customers who feel obliged to boost the writer’s ego. An occasional low star review amongst many does not concern me. But if the low star reviews outweigh the higher star counts then I want to know why.

   I always read the author’s Bio(graphy). It provides an insight into the personality of the person behind the pen – their sex, age, background, nationality and interests. Can I align with that writer?

    I then scroll down to the facts Amazon provides about each book such as the date of publication. Is it a new release or has it been around for years? What is the page count? Some books have less than 100 pages, others have over 500.

    Next I check out the publisher. Has the book been traditionally or self-published, though it is not always easy to determine.

   For me, the main factor which will determine if I will buy is the “Look inside” facility. Most e-books on Amazon have this option available – just click on the cover thumbnail.

    Scrolling through a few pages provides a facsimile of how the book will present when opened on your Kindle or reading device. Correct or poor formatting is immediately obvious. Poor spelling, punctuation and syntax indicate the book has not been well edited. Finally, by reading the opening chapter the potential purchaser will know if he/she likes the writer’s style and if the opening pages have grabbed their attention and made them want to read more.

    For any author, writing the book is the main. Having the work edited and formatted comes second. Then throwing together a Bio and Blurb for Amazon is often the last chore the author is confronted with.

    But the Amazon web page on which your book appears is your shop-front and it is the information that appears there that has most bearing on whether a customer decides to purchase your novel or not.

    Just my thought for the day.