I buy A LOT of books and thus read a lot of ads. If the fragment in the ad has any appeal, I’m likely to check on Amazon, to see the full blurb (and context, if it’s part of a series). I always begin a series with the 1st entry (I’m a completist that way), but it could be any entry that attracts my initial attention.
When I’ve started to be hooked, and then the attracting fly does something very wrong, my disappointment sparks a certain amount of outrage, so I’ll share that with you from time to time in a spirit of “go thou and don’t do this.”
I’m not eager to shame any individual author (usually) but mentioning names and titles is unavoidable for a critique of this nature.
https://www.amazon.com/One-Way-Sam-Archer-Book-ebook/dp/B00CQOV7ZK/
Ad served to me by Book Gorilla
Book 5 of 14
NYPD Detective Sam Archer is on his way home on a Sunday afternoon in New York City. He’s been out of the field for over three months due to a broken ankle and a serious bout of pneumonia from a previous case, but has just been given the all clear for a return to duty, starting tomorrow. Archer takes a seat on a bench in the Upper West Side, enjoying a cold drink and soaking up the last remaining sun of the day. Then he sees something totally unexpected. Two men are crossing the street in front of him, heading quickly towards a group climbing into a car. Both men are armed with pistols. And all hell breaks loose.
Shouting a warning and racing to their aid, a ferocious gunfight erupts, shattering the peaceful afternoon. Archer and the group are forced to flee uptown in the strangers’ vehicle, their ambushers giving chase. With their tyres blown out and the car crashing, the group have no choice but to take refuge in a Harlem tenement block, situated in one of the most dangerous areas in the city. Their ambushers are right on their heels and seal off the building, preventing the NYPD from getting close as they start to arrive. Archer and the others are trapped in the building with their attackers.
Hiding out with the group from the car in an apartment upstairs, Archer starts to piece together the situation. The people he’s with are US Marshals, protecting a witness, a nine year old girl. Clearly, someone out there is desperate to kill her. But as they barricade themselves in and wait for back-up, none of them realise the full extent of the danger they are in. Others are on their way to the building, ruthless trained killers who won’t leave until the girl is dead. As the scores of NYPD and Marshals on the street desperately try to figure out how they can get to their people inside, Archer and the Marshals must fight to stay alive against increasingly hopeless odds, running out of ammunition, chances and time.
Unarmed and totally unprepared, Archer is thrown back into the fray; either kill or be killed. As they encounter the enemy, suffer casualties and Archer learns who this child witness really is, two things become abundantly clear. There’s only one way in or out of the building.
And it appears there’s only one way this can end. [and I’ll never read it to find out, even for free…]
So… what am I complaining about?
Well, in the first place, I think it far better to concentrate on advertising 1st-in-series books rather than later ones. If the first is any good, the later ones will sell themselves (more or less) and only need to be announced. But, hey, it’s his money.
But the real problem is… what’s left to read about after all of this outlining in the ad?
Now, mind you, the book is well reviewed. Maybe it’s the greatest thing since Jack Ryan — it’s certainly praised. But it’s not a method that works on me as a potential buyer. It makes me question the author’s understanding of how to attract a reader.
This happens to be Book 5 of 14. I don’t care how many rave reviews it gets. The blurbs are all like this. I’m not likely to buy them.
What’s your take on this approach to advertising?
Mad Genius Club 
11 responses to “Leave some surprises for the reader”
I’m with you. Something like the first paragraph would work, or maybe . . . .
NYPD Detective Sam Archer’d been out of the field for over three months due to a broken ankle and a serious bout of pneumonia from a previous case, but has just been given the all clear for a return to duty, starting tomorrow. Sitting on a bench in the Upper West Side, enjoying a cold drink and soaking up the last remaining sun of the day, ready to return to the routine work of a big city cop . . .
Two hours later he’s trapped in the worst part of town in a desperate fight to save a nine-year-old witness from a pack of killers . . .
It has to tease, not tell the whole story!
I have the same reaction as you did. Whoever wrote the ad is giving away all the surprises save one, how the main character and intended victim survive. Sounds to me like the “outline” that some tradpublishers used to ask for your novel. My and my wife’s reaction were, “Why would want to read my manuscript after I reveal all the plot points?”
You want to intrigue the reader, not issue a poor substitute for the experience. I’m far from great at writing blurbs, but even I know better than that.
Actually, it sounds like an AI summary of the book. Just chop off the ending, and who needs to pay someone to write advertising?
I’ll be honest, I have gotten better blurbs than that out of ai.
Erk. Why bother with the book? There’s no tease, nothing left for my curiosity. This kitty will pass, thanks.
Write it like a movie teaser trailer. That makes a better starting place for an ad.
I will read a book if I know how it ends because it’s not the ending I look forward to, but the journey. That “blurb” mapped out the whole journey, and frankly since book 5 of 14 isn’t going to end with the main character bleeding out in a gutter, I already know how it ends, too. Even if that book were entirely my cup of tea and my favorite genre to read, I wouldn’t pick that series up.
I write history, so readers already know how it ends. (Except maybe for the types that go to the movie Lincoln and say afterwards, “Wow. I never saw that ending coming.”) They are reading it because they want to know why it ended that way. Or because they enjoy the trip.
I also review books. For non-fiction reviews I don’t worry about “spoilers.” (I was amused when one reviewer of my book Roughshod Across Dixie, about Grierson’s Raid did worry about revealing spoilers.) For fiction, yeah. revealing spoilers in the review isn’t fair. Especially in mysteries. For fiction reviews I will provide the setting and discuss the book’s tone.
Honestly, even if you didn’t have to worry about giving away the entire plot, this particular blurb is so far into TL;DR territory that it’s not even funny! I found my eyes glazing over somewhere around the middle of the second paragraph, not even halfway through the blurb.
I don’t need to hear all the details about Mr. Archer’s recovery or exactly what he was doing when the action broke out. Give me the basics (criminals have trapped our hero, he must stay alive and protect a witness until help arrives) and then shut up. I’m not reading an entire novella to find out if I want to pay you to read more.
[…] Read more…. […]
The blurb for book 7 starts out nearly identical for the one for book 5, just flipped from the protagonist to the person in peril. But the blurb doesn’t give you the entire story. How much of a hook is too much, and how much is too little? (I the guy who read the entire Doc Savage and Mack Bolan series, so once I’m in, I’m stuck. Even if the series runs on the same formula for each book and it might seem like not much need to buy any of them.
Under 200 words. And shorter if you can.
Remember, what you want is punch. It needs to be brief.