Welcome to the Friday Five Challenge
Rosie Amber’s Friday Five challenge only takes five minutes, so grab a cuppa and join in!
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,
5) If there are reviews, check out a couple,
6) Make an instant decision, would you BUY or PASS?
Determined to leave my comfort zone this week I went for Mythology and Folk Tales, and then clicked on fairy tales.
Another very mixed and eclectic bag – but this caught my eye:
And it’s only £1.89 for the kindle edition ($2.87 in the US).
Book description:
Once upon a nightmare…
Long ago, in a land where imagination meets the darkest nightmares, they built the asylum. Surrounded by a forest of thorns, it holds the most twisted minds in the fairy tale kingdom: a terrible collection of evil creatures and forgotten souls. Imprisoned within its walls, they are doomed to spend forever after telling their tales… and serving as a warning to others.
Now, you are invited to accompany Blood Red Riding Hood into the depths of this strange place – where you will meet its even stranger inhabitants. But be warned: walls this thick were built to withstand the darkest magic… so once you’re inside, you might just find yourself living horribly ever after… and wishing you were indeed in a land far, far away.
Reviews
Nineteen in the UK, mostly favourable. The one and two stars flag up poor writing and editing, which, considering it’s published by Carina (Harlequin’s digital imprint) is a bit worrying. Twenty-four on Amazon.com, again, mostly favourable. One reviewer points out numerous typos and mistakes.
Would I buy or pass? PASS
Analysis
I’ve always thought that fairy tales are weird. And of course, they’re supposed to be. Hans Christian Anderson’s story of the little girl who couldn’t take off her red dancing shoes and who danced and danced until she begged the executioner to cut off her feet absolutely terrified me as a child. When I think of the story now, I’m struck by just how gruesome and cruel it is. So this book does appeal – promising as it does a glimpse into the minds of those much-loved fairy-tale characters. The reviews concern me though – I don’t want to spend money on a book full of typos. So, getting very close to the end of my five minutes, I downloaded a sample. Even in this small sample there are typos and the writing is really awkward and overdone in places. It’s a shame, because this should be a good book, but it seems the editing process has let it down. Which just goes to show that having a publisher doesn’t necessarily guarantee quality. If I was Mr Gregory, I’d be rather cross.
If you want to join in the Friday Five Challenge pop over to Rosie’s blog to find out more.
Alison Williams Writing 
Oh Bother – I really liked the premise of this book, the book bio is very appealing, I read a very good dark fairy tale book by Sarah J Pepper called Death Of The Mad Hatter, she’s written several more since which sadly I haven’t got to read yet. Now that was a good book.
But I would give this one a miss too, editing issues for typos and storyline content really should be fixed and if you are linked with a publishing house, then authors need to look at what package they are offered for their book.
Real shame the book cover had promise, but may have been a bit too cute rather than reflecting the dark storyline behind.
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Rosie, you’re completely right about the cover. I didn’t really notice but it is too cute. Real shame about the editing, but I know it would have just irritated me if I’d read it.
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I have noticed this about Carina books – they range from excellent (such as April Taylor’s Tudor Enigma series), to those which appear to be produced to fulfil the market for cheap reads for people who don’t know what decent writing IS! They’ve clearly identified its market. I’ve started to read a couple of chick lit books published by them and thought they were absolutely dreadful. Does make you wonder about the capabilities of the ‘editors’, too.
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It’s really frustrating. Thing is, they must surely have seen the reviews – perhaps they don’t care.
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Awesome title just caught me eye!
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It is a great title and I would definitely have given it a go if it hadn’t been for the typos.
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Yes, I agree about poor editing, it’s a definite turn off. I might have given this a try otherwise.
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It’s a real shame isn’t it, because it could be a really clever book. I might keep an eye on it and see if they tidy it up.
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