Running a Successful Thriller eBook Promotion
In this installment of our series on “Submitting Successful e-book Promotions”, we're covering the Thriller genre.
Thriller is our third most popular category of e-books, behind Fantasy and Contemporary Romance. If you haven't already seen our tips for creating successful promotions in those genres, they're well worth reading, even if you don't submit books of that sort:
As with the articles above, here we focus on promotions at 99 cents or above.
Great Thriller Covers
We'll briefly cover the differences in covers.
Here are the top 10 covers from 2021 onward:
Some trends in Thriller covers are clear:
- Big, clear fonts. Laughably large, at times
- High contrast text
- High quality imagery
- Foreboding themes, matching the genre
- Dark color palette, also matching the genre
- Originality. All the covers above are quite unique
Lower Performing Covers
The following covers have had identifying text redacted in order to preserve the anonymity of the books and authors.
These covers scored in the lowest percentiles, though not all the covers below are obviously lacking in any particular way.
What lessons can we glean from these covers?
One potentially degrading aspect of some of the covers above is their misalignment with the genre. Do all of them say Thriller? We're not convinced. Without the text to guide us at least, there are some hints at Fantasy, Sci-fi, and possibly Historical Fiction.
A few of the covers suffered from the font being too small. Others had insufficient contrast against the backgrounds. Both of these points can be observed, even with the text blurred. In some cases, the text was squished.
More subjectively, the quality and believability of the cover art is subpar in some cases.
Ensuring High Quality Cover Art
We know it's rare that our authors are also the cover designers. So how can you ensure that the cover art you receive meets a certain standard?
First of all, send your designer examples of high quality covers in your genre. This guidance will help them deliver more accurately on the first try.
You may also want to deliver notes to your designer, similar to our notes on the high quality covers above. Very large and high contrast text, dark foreboding themes, alignment with the genre, etc.
If the first round with the cover doesn't exactly fit the bill for you, it's likely worth the extra time and money to ask for a revision. Covers really do matter to the readers.
Comparing Titles and Descriptions
Let's look at a couple descriptions from the top and bottom percentiles in order to get a feel for their structure and content.
Top Book Titles and Descriptions
Here are three of the top ten to analyze:
When Autumn Carpenter stumbles upon the social media account of the family who adopted her infant daughter years ago, she finds herself instantly drawn into their picture-perfect existence. From behind a computer screen, Autumn watches Grace's every memory in the making—but when Autumn digs deeper, she discovers things aren't as perfect as they seem ...
The Ellie O'Conner Mystery Thriller Series by Amazon bestselling author Jack Hardin. Richly rendered characters and plot twists that will leave you scrambling for the next page. If you love crime mysteries filled with suspense, action, and a touch of humor and romance, then the Ellie O'Conner Series is for you. Hands down, the best series you'll read all year.
Defense lawyer Amber Dennis has it all, but her perfect life is shattered when she starts receiving threats. Someone out there wants to destroy her. But who? As her world implodes, Amber decides she's not going down without a fight. But her stalker is a lot closer than she thinks and they'll stop at nothing to make her pay the ultimate price.
There are some clear markers in the titles and descriptions of our top promotions:
- Intriguing, suspenseful writing.
- Definition of conflict and threat.
- Simple and understandable.
Bottom Book Titles and Descriptions
We've heavily edited these low performing titles and descriptions to make them unidentifiable, while still preserving the gist.
Being the offspring of the Champion of Santorini, Captain James Harrison of the Royal Navy, has made Emily Harrison a marked woman. She's no helpless maiden and she has large expectations to meet. Her parents have been missing for three years. Can she step up and become the leader she needs to be? It's going to be a noble struggle.
The secret service agency is under severe threat from a three-pronged danger. Agent John Baxter and his special operations teams are thrust into perilous action from the Green Hills of Barbados to a crucial missile facility in Montana. In Paris, informants alert the agency of a scheme to destabilize the government. Swift and decisive action is needed to prevent the onset of a global conflict.
The only constant in existence is the human inclination towards hope. Regardless of the circumstances or the individual, people strive towards hope amidst despair. They may surrender or be overwhelmed, but everyone attempts initially. This anthology explores individuals in diverse realities on their quest towards hope. Some reach it, others don't. This book chronicles their journey.
What can we learn from these underperforming promotion descriptions? Disclaimer: these are our subjective opinions, and may not represent the consensus view.
The conflict is sometimes not specific or concrete enough to engage the reader. Why is the daughter of a Navy captain automatically a marked woman? Marked by who? What is this “three-pronged danger”? The last description attempts to summarize all of its anthologies, and as a result, is too vague.
The promotion for the anthology begs for some concrete details. A teaser for a single storyline may have helped. As it stands, it's highly abstract and philosophical, which may not appeal to readers of more conventional Thriller novels.
Do you think we missed anything that contributes to the success of a Thriller promotion?
Want to see this kind of analysis on another category?
Agree or disagree with anything we mentioned above?
We’re happy to hear from you via our contact page.
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