We see authors who have spent years working on their books finish their manuscript and then spend virtually no time on the rest of the book. They essentially mail in the title, book cover, book description, etc. This baffles us. By doing this, they are essentially saying that they think readers will not judge their book by anything except the content. That the title, cover, author bio, blurbs and other marketing materials mean nothing to potential readers. We have no idea why they do this. It's like they never ask themselves possibly the most important question about their book: "How do people REALLY judge my book?"

1. How People Really Judge a Book
(And Why It Matters)

2. Almost every potential reader will decide
whether or not to buy your book before
they read one single word of your book.

3. Sadly, the actual content of your book has virtually
no bearing on a reader's decision to buy your book.

4. We'll map out exactly how people decide to buy a
book soon, but you must understand:
this process is almost completely unconscious.

5. People don't know (or believe) they're
evaluating your book this way...but they are.

6. Here is what a potential reader evaluates, in order:
1. The title of the book
2. The recommending source
3. The book cover
4. The book description
5. The blurbs
6. The customer reviews
7. The author bio and picture (depending on where the picture is placed)
8. The book text itself (the "see inside" function online)
9. The price

7. The Title
1

8. Most books are now discovered either by
in-person word of mouth or online.
In both cases, what is the first piece of
information they receive?
The title.

9. Let's be clear about this: A good
title won't make your book do well…

10. But a bad title will
almost certainly
prevent it from
doing well.
Let's be clear about this: A good
title won't make your book do well…

11. The Recommending Source
2

12. The credibility of the recommending source is
a hugely important piece of the puzzle.

13. In fact, in most cases, people will transfer the
credibility of the recommender onto the book.

14. If you have a friend who is very rich, successful and
intelligent, you're far more likely to listen to their book
recommendation than someone who is unemployed and
living with his parents.
Think about it

15. The Book Cover
3

16. If the reader is
still interested,
they will now go
to Amazon or a
bookstore and
look at the cover.

17. The most important thing at
this stage is that your cover
doesn't repel the reader.

18. Most people are looking for reasons NOT to buy your book,
so try not to give them one with a poorly designed cover.

19. The Book Description
4

20. If your cover hasn't turned off a potential
reader, they'll read your book description.

21. It should give a good idea of what the book
is about, while making it interesting and not
giving everything away.

22. The Blurbs, or Endorsements
5

23. Like book recommendations, most readers care more
about who your blurbs are from rather than what they say.

24. They assume that the blurbs will be positive, so they
want to see what level of social status the blurber has
and whether it's someone they know and respect.

25. The Reviews
6

26. If they're looking at your book
online, they move on to the
customer reviews.

27. They will usually first note the
number of total reviews--as a
gauge of popularity--and then
look at the average rating, and
then possibly browse the
content of the reviews.

28. If they do, they
normally read (more
likely scan) one or two
of them.

29. And if they are like most people, they skip the
positive ones and read a negative one first, before
going back to a positive one (if they even do that).

30. The Author Bio and Picture
7

31. At this point, the vast majority of
people have made their decision
(over ~80% in standard situations).

32. Some people will now look at the author bio
and picture to gauge status and importance
if they still haven’t made up their mind.

33. They have yet to read one single page, and they've
already decided whether or not to buy the book.
Note that this is before they interact with
anything inside the book.

34. The Book Text
8

35. There are some people who actually browse
some of the introductory pages of the book.

36. These are the
informed buyers,
but they are a
distinct minority.

37. Probably less than 10% of your buyers do the
thing that everyone says they want to do: judge a
book by the content inside, and not the cover.

38. The Price
9

39. This is the last factor, but for a small
minority it's the most important.

40. For some reason, it appears that people are far more
price conscious for ebooks than they are for physical
books, probably because of value perception.

41. Why Does This Matter?

42. It is very important that you come to
terms with this reality:

43. It is very important that you come to
terms with this reality:
Most authors think all the things mentioned above are "only
marketing" and ignore them, but not only are they very important,
they are absolutely, utterly critical to get right if you want to
have any chance of selling your book to a broad audience.

44. The implication is obvious:

45. If you care about selling copies of your book,
you need to look at marketing with the same
amount of importance as the writing.
The implication is obvious:

46. The authors that do this tend to succeed.

47. The authors that
don't … tend to fail.

48. Your Words...
Your Ideas...
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