# How to irk a reader... a warning.



## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

I recently got a book from a sig line because it looked interesting, and I liked the tone of the author through their postings..
The story was moving right along, then suddenly, it all wrapped up in 3 pages and was DONE! I looked down at the progress bar thinking huh? It was sitting at 68%. SIXTY EIGHT PERCENT! So basically 1/3 of the "book" was advertising for other books by the same author. 

Instead of leaving me with a pleasant feeling about the book, where I would even want to look at other books by this author, it left me feeling cheated, and no way am I even looking at books by this author again. I also will not tell my friends to read this book, and I will probably steer them clear of the author.

I read a fair number of books every year, I prefer reading indies, and I tell others to look at indies too. If I find a book I like, I will usually go to amazon, look up the author, and IMMEDIATELY buy all other books by that author if they remotely appeal to my interests. I do not need 1/3 of a book in what I consider PAID advertising. I do not pay to be advertised to, I pay to read a story. I pay in more than $$ I pay in my time spent in your worlds. I will not pay my time or money to look at advertising, if your writing holds up, I can find you.


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## 60865 (Jun 11, 2012)

Just out of curiosity, would you feel the same way if it had been a free book?


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

yes, I still spent my time reading it. That is time I cannot get back. I still feel cheated.


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## terryandersbooks (Jul 8, 2013)

BTackitt said:


> I recently got a book from a sig line because it looked interesting, and I liked the tone of the author through their postings..
> The story was moving right along, then suddenly, it all wrapped up in 3 pages and was DONE! I looked down at the progress bar thinking huh? It was sitting at 68%. SIXTY EIGHT PERCENT! So basically 1/3 of the "book" was advertising for other books by the same author.


I'd have to agree with this. I've had books that appeared to be lengthy from the description, word count, pages, etc and end up actually being 1/3 story and the other 2/3 was chapter 1 of three of their other books. It's kind of misleading.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

I struggle with this. There are two ways to look at it. One would be, if I write an 80K story, that's a complete book, no excuses. Then, if I put another 10K or 20K of excerpts so interested readers can sample more of my wares, it in no way diminishes the length of my book. In other words, the book's still the same length. The only thing that changes is the perception from the reader, because he's looking at the progress bar.

The other way of looking at this is that it's a gyp, and that the author misleadingly stuffed more stuff into the book to make it appear longer. 

I can relate to both perspectives. But it's purely psychological. In other words, if the book itself is suitably long and complete, the reader doesn't have to read the excerpts. Nobody forces them to. It's just there if they want to. On the flip side, if the book's too short and it's priced like an 80K book but it's only 50K and then a bunch of excerpts, that would probably annoy me, and the author needs to reconsider his/her marketing/product packaging approach, because I'd agree it's misleading.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

If the description explains that it is an extended sample, it's free, and it has a decent length then I see nothing wrong with it. Don't download it then.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

If the story ended too quickly, that's one problem, but I don't get the paid advertising thing.  

Did you buy the book thinking it was a certain length?  Was there something misleading in the blurb, like a page count that included the back matter?

The book didn't cost more because of the extra length, so you're not actually paying for the extra stuff.

I recognize that the bar at the bottom does cause a problem, misleading readers into thinking there's more to be read when there isn't.  But I think readers would be used to that by now.  I know I have a lot of links at the end of my books, sometimes taking up 1/3 or more of the book on the shorter ones, but I guess my readers are used to it, since I've only gotten one complaint about it. 

I try to make my word and page count clear in the blurb, and I don't include the back matter in those counts.  It's a trade-off between potentially pissing off the reader, and providing a list of my other books right at their fingertips once they finish a story.


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## Sandra K. Williams (Jun 15, 2013)

Were the additional items listed in the table of contents? Did the book description give a word count or page count?

It is disconcerting when a book ends unexpectedly.


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## Bec (Aug 24, 2012)

BTackitt said:


> I recently got a book from a sig line because it looked interesting, and I liked the tone of the author through their postings..
> The story was moving right along, then suddenly, it all wrapped up in 3 pages and was DONE! I looked down at the progress bar thinking huh? It was sitting at 68%. SIXTY EIGHT PERCENT! So basically 1/3 of the "book" was advertising for other books by the same author.
> 
> Instead of leaving me with a pleasant feeling about the book, where I would even want to look at other books by this author, it left me feeling cheated, and no way am I even looking at books by this author again. I also will not tell my friends to read this book, and I will probably steer them clear of the author.
> ...


As a reader, I feel exactly the same way. It's happened to me a couple of times, and no matter how much I was enjoying the story, it always leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

If I KNOW that only the first half or two thirds is the story, then I can mentally adjust. But when I'm reading along, thinking that I've still got a third of the story to go, so this situation will surely be worked out and she's not about to die, then WHAM! Over. Here's my other story.

Yeah... no. I don't like that.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

It's funny, but back in the Dark Ages, when indie publishing was young and shiny and new, I seem to recall the idea of a lot of back matter (as much as 50%!) being put forth as "extra value." The thought was that lots of excerpts were a great bonus for readers and would encourage them to read more of an author's books. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out that way. Many if not most readers tend to perceive a lot of back matter as a deliberate attempt to pump up the apparent length of a book and thus see it as a rip-off. I doubt it's usually intended that way, but as an author, I would tend to avoid more than a few pages of back matter, because you're definitely not the only reader whose hackles rise at a lot of excerpts added to the end of ebooks.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

One benefit to readers from more back matter is longer samples.


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## Joshua Dalzelle (Jun 12, 2013)

I've had a couple of these that honked me off. Not because they wanted to promo their other work, I think that's a smart idea and appreciate being able to browse it. A book that doesn't have a proper ending, even in a series, is a pet peeve of mine that I've seen crop up in indie works. I think there are a lot of super talented writers who need help when it comes to structuring their stories (Joe Nobody touched on this in another post.)


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## C.F. (Jan 6, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> The only thing that changes is the perception from the reader, because he's looking at the progress bar.


But perception is everything. When you sit down to read a book, watch a movie, or a tv show, your brain knows how long it's going to be. People instinctually understand story structure. If you're reading or watching a movie and it gets to the halfway point you're expecting something to happen, a twist or something to keep the action going. When it just ends, it's very jarring, even if it was a complete book or movie, because psychologically you knew based on the amount of pages/time left that something was supposed to happen.

Imagine sitting down for a 90 minute moving and instead being shown a 43 minute tv show followed by commercials. Even if the tv episode was great, it's still going to fill jarring at the end no matter how good or complete it was because you were expecting a 90 minute movie.


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2013)

I think part of the problem is that word count doesn't mean a lot to most people because the average reader doesn't think in those terms. Saying a story is 10,000 words long doesn't mean much unless someone has made a point of it. Saying a story is 33 pages does mean something, because we're visual creatures. We can visualize 33 pages. So I get the OPs point. Looking at that little % complete bar is the digital equivalent of eyeballing the book to see how many pages you still have. It would be like buying a paperback that is 3" thick, and finding out the last 3rd of it was promotions for other books.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

I guess I should pull out my bonus material. I had one reviewer make a comment similar to the OP. I do have the first chapter of the next book at the end of my prequel, but I also have a lot of bonus material. I have some deleted scenes from No Good Deed that I really liked but didn't work with that book as well as some flash fiction and drabbles with the character. Those scenes aren't advertising anything but I guess adding that kind of material at the end is seen as a bad thing. The book is perma-free now, and my original plan had been to add some bonus material because the book was shorter than the others in the series, now that it's free anyway and seems to irritate people, there's no sense in leaving it in there.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

I put up a poll about this in Not Quite Kindle, hoping to get more reader opinions.

Please vote as a READER and then comment on how you voted. Thanks!

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,156660.0.html


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

MaryMcDonald said:


> I guess I should pull out my bonus material. I had one reviewer make a comment similar to the OP. I do have the first chapter of the next book at the end of my prequel, but I also have a lot of bonus material. I have some deleted scenes from No Good Deed that I really liked but didn't work with that book as well as some flash fiction and drabbles with the character. Those scenes aren't advertising anything but I guess adding that kind of material at the end is seen as a bad thing. The book is perma-free now, and my original plan had been to add some bonus material because the book was shorter than the others in the series, now that it's free anyway and seems to irritate people, there's no sense in leaving it in there.


I'm leaving mine in. Similar to you, I've had one complaint. But that's one person. Yeah, I know they probably represent a certain silent percentage, but what about those who enjoyed the story and are happy they get to read more, or are glad there's links to your other books? They're not going to write a review telling you how much they enjoyed the back matter.

It's important we listen to our readers, but I'm not getting a sense that this is a big problem. If I did, I'd remove it.


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## RoseInTheTardis (Feb 2, 2013)

I don't mind some bonus material/promo chapters as long as it's only one per book and not super long, and--this is key--clearly labeled on the table of contents in an e-book. I don't like it when a book has five different promo/preview chapters at the end. That isn't why I bought the book, you know? 

There's one of those greeting card graphics going around that has a fainting Victorian woman on it and reads "When you think there are 10 pages left in your book and it's really a preview for something else." I can't find it but it's passed around on tumblr a LOT so clearly this is a thing that can bother people.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

ok, answering questions raised. No, there was nothing listed on the book's Amazon page stating that it was 1/3 advertising. Nothing saying this is a short story followed by excerpts. There was no table of contents at all.

if you pay for something you pay for IT you don't pay for 68% of IT + 32% of advertising. Would you pay for a 6 foot dining table of beautiful mahogany and be happy to receive a 4 foot table, and a 2 foot card table attached to it covered in advertising? Oh and the table you did pay for had one leg 5inches shorter than the others?

Yes, the book did wrap up unsatisfactorily, too rushed, too inexplicably easy for what had been set up, large build up.... to " the end." so yeah, doubly disappointed.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

A reader is cheated paying $2.99 for a 200,000 word book with an additional 50,000 word preview of another book?

But he gets his money's worth paying $2.99 for a 80,000 word book no preview?

Consumers will adapt.


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## Jay Allan (Aug 20, 2012)

I think one point that can be gleaned by this is to focus on tight, targeted, on-point promotional materials. Barfing up massive quantities of everything you've written just makes you look unprofessional. A couple chapters of a next book is going to be viewed as a bonus by most readers. If half of what you give them is promo, they're going to get the feel of sleaze marketing, whether that is fair or not.  

It makes sense to be measured and balanced in what you do.  You can't unmake those impressions.  Besides, people are only going to read so much extra stuff.  Pick your targets and present yourself professionally to your readers, and you'll probably be better off.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> ok, answering questions raised. No, there was nothing listed on the book's Amazon page stating that it was 1/3 advertising. Nothing saying this is a short story followed by excerpts. There was no table of contents at all.


My question was more about something misleading in the blurb, like giving a page count that included the back matter. If the blurb described a story, and that story was contained in the book you downloaded, then you got what you paid for.



BTackitt said:


> if you pay for something you pay for IT you don't pay for 68% of IT + 32% of advertising. Would you pay for a 6 foot dining table of beautiful mahogany and be happy to receive a 4 foot table, and a 2 foot card table attached to it covered in advertising? Oh and the table you did pay for had one leg 5inches shorter than the others?


Not the same thing at all. You paid for a story and got a story. A better analogy would be you paying for a 6 foot dining table and getting a 6 foot dining table with a stack of ads sitting on the top.

Was there anything before you bought it that led you to believe the story was a certain length, and after you bought it you discovered it was a shorter length?



BTackitt said:


> Yes, the book did wrap up unsatisfactorily, too rushed, too inexplicably easy for what had been set up, large build up.... to " the end." so yeah, doubly disappointed.


Yeah, that's a problem.


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## RoseInTheTardis (Feb 2, 2013)

Terrence OBrien said:


> A reader is cheated paying $2.99 for a 200,000 word book with an additional 50,000 word preview of another book?


WHO is putting 50K previews into their books? That's insanely long. I'd be irked too, regardless of the book that proceeded it, because that's not a preview, that's half a novel.


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## Jay Allan (Aug 20, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> A reader is cheated paying $2.99 for a 200,000 word book with an additional 50,000 word preview of another book?
> 
> But he gets his money's worth paying $2.99 for a 80,000 word book no preview?
> 
> Consumers will adapt.


Expecting customers adapt to what you want has a pretty poor record in most businesses.


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Terrence OBrien said:


> A reader is cheated paying $2.99 for a 200,000 word book with an additional 50,000 word preview of another book?
> 
> But he gets his money's worth paying $2.99 for a 80,000 word book no preview?
> 
> Consumers will adapt.


What I paid isn't the issue, which is why I haven't said what I paid, but it wasn't that low. and you can try to make excuses all you want, but if a customer feels cheated they feel cheated no matter your condescending attitude of "consumers will adapt". Why the heck should consumers adapt to being taken advantage of? Consumers should stick up for themselves and expect what they pay for to BE what they pay for.


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2013)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Consumers will adapt.


Usually by buying something else from another company.


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## Routhwick (Apr 1, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> A reader is cheated paying $2.99 for a 200,000 word book with an additional 50,000 word preview of another book?


And that's virtually what you mean by two novels for the price of one!


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

I can clearly remember reading the first chapter of the next book at the end of a physical book when I used to read mass market. So a first chapter at the end does not bother me at all. Especially if it's the first chapter of the next book. If it's more than 1 chapter I might be annoyed.


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2013)

There is a technical reason for authors to keep back matter to a minimum. 

When someone gets to the end of a book, Amazon prompts them to leave a review. But this is at the end of the FILE, not where your story ends and all of your back matter begins. So if a third of the file is promotional and the reader doesn't scroll through it, they don't get the prompt.

Further, I know we've had some discussion about how Amazon knows whether or not you finished a book and in the future that could be used as part of the algorithms for discoverability/rankings. But if a third of the book is promotional, Amazon registers this that the reader did not finish the book. This could in the future reduce your visibility should Amazon add completion rate to the algorithms.

Remember, FB already changed ITS aglorithms to restrict how posts made to pages are feed into the newsfeeds of likes based on interaction. (The reason why on average only a 3rd of your fans see a post at any given time). Posts with lower engagement get less visibility. Amazon could do the same with your books (books that aren't read to the end get les visibility).


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

RoseInTheTardis said:


> WHO is putting 50K previews into their books? That's insanely long. I'd be irked too, regardless of the book that proceeded it, because that's not a preview, that's half a novel.


I don't know who is doing it. A consumer is not cheated with a 200,000 word book, but is cheated when a 50,000 preview is added?



> "Usually by buying something else from another company."


I doubt it. They manage to get through all kinds of media that contain ads and previews. It's an accepted part of commercial life. I've recently noted all the Apple computers in TV shows. Fine with me. It makes me wonder about all the stuff I'm not noticing that is bending my weak mind.

Perhaps something as simple as Chapter 1 of 15, or Chapter 15 of 15 would help some folks?


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## EvilTwinBrian (Jun 20, 2013)

What if the cover, or inside cover page lets you know that the book contains excerpts from the author's other works? I've read books that have been upfront about that, and I'm sort of expecting it. It would help to at least soften the blow, right?


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Usually by buying something else from another company.


Which is why I said I won't be buying another book by this author, and I wouldn't recommend this author to any of my friends.

at 1/3 of the book, that is still too much. If there had been warning of additional matter, I would have been ok with the book stopping around 90% or something, but even with a warning, 32% of it being advertising, that's just too much.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

I just recently putting a chapter of the next book into my Rune Breaker books specifically because that's what all my Gail Carringer and Jim Butcher paperbacks do.

Should I like, not?


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Lady_O said:


> Just out of curiosity, would you feel the same way if it had been a free book?


This doesn't apply to the opening poster here, but in general I'd say people feel MORE outraged over free books. Just anecdotally.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> There is a technical reason for authors to keep back matter to a minimum.
> 
> When someone gets to the end of a book, Amazon prompts them to leave a review. But this is at the end of the FILE, not where your story ends and all of your back matter begins. So if a third of the file is promotional and the reader doesn't scroll through it, they don't get the prompt.


I finished reading a book last week that had nothing at the end. No bio or links and I never got a prompt to review it by amazon either. It was strange. I kept trying to slide the bar on my Fire farther to the right because it said 99%, but there was nothing more. I was disappointed by that because I loved the book and wanted to know if the author had any other books.


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2013)

Vaalingrade said:


> I just recently putting a chapter of the next book into my Rune Breaker books specifically because that's what all my Gail Carringer and Jim Butcher paperbacks do.
> 
> Should I like, not?


Will the single chapter equal an entire third of the book? 

Some folks are missing the point. From the way the OP described this, it isn't just a sample chapter or even a little promo. One third of the product was promotional material for other products. Again, if I buy a paperback that is 3" thick, I don't expect 1" of the paperback to be promo content. When I go to the movies to watch a two hour movie, I don't expect the movie to have 40 minutes of previews and actually only be 80 minutes long.

It isn't an all-or-nothing per se. It's just a matter of keeping reader expectations in mind.


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## NathanWrann (May 5, 2011)

I solved for this in my too-be-published WIP by putting all of the free samples, advertisements, bios, extra material and back-matter at the FRONT of the book. Problem solved. 


Kidding of course. 

I have one page of links to my other work (a "also by this author" page essentially). If the reader liked what they just read I don't see how putting excerpts and ads at the end of my book is going to entice them any more than the good experience they just had.


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## Teri Hall (Feb 10, 2013)

I put the first chapter of my next or previous book in the back. It's listed in the TOC, and I've never had a complaint. For myself as a reader, I like the first chapter at the end--gives me an idea of whether I will pick up the next one. 

My trad publishers do the same thing with my books published through them, too.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I doesn't matter one bit whether or not a reader _should_ be irked or if they're being unreasonable or what the intended purpose of the additional material is.

If the reader is annoyed by it, it failed to be effective. The question, like some pointed out, is _how many_ readers are annoyed by it and how many went on to buy more books because of it.
I now have links to my book pages and my web site in the back matter with a few words to let readers know that there are more books in the series. If they won't click on that link I doubt they'd bother reading a free chapter, either.


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## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

I guess this is a much bigger issue on Kindle than with a paperback. I agree the % shown as read fools the reader into thinking there is more story to come. I've read books that were full length novels, but because they ended at 90%, I felt the same annoyance as the OP. When I finish a book, I'm happy to see a list of the other author's work, which can usually fit onto 1 page, but not 10%+ of advertising. I also agree with the OP comments about how the reader's opinion is what counts. Once you've lost them, they're gone, and so are all the recommendations they might have made.


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I doubt it. They manage to get through all kinds of media that contain ads and previews. It's an accepted part of commercial life. I've recently noted all the Apple computers in TV shows. Fine with me. It makes me wonder about all the stuff I'm not noticing that is bending my weak mind.


Not everyone. I abandoned cable TV for Netflix and have not looked back since. I've also installed AdBlock on my browser (I'll only disable it for a few certain sites in an effort to support them) my internet experience has been greatly improved. I will go to great lengths to avoid advertisements because they are annoying and invasive and take up time that could have been better spent enjoying my book/tv show.

So, I do not like lengthy back matter. I don't like it full stop. I don't read the excerpts either, no matter how much I'd enjoyed the book. To me, I want to savour the feeling of just completing a book, and immediately jumping into an excerpt with a completely different story line is jarring. I do, however, enjoy seeing quick links to the author's website or, better yet, their Amazon Author page. I'll go there and find out what other books they've got by myself.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

I have to confess that I'm not a fan of 'sample' chapters at the end of books either.  It throws out my concept of how far through the book I am.  It did quite literally spoil a Samhain book for me.  The characters got it together at just under the 80% mark and I didn't allow myself to invest in that emotionally and enjoy it because I kept expecting them to be ripped apart again.  Then it ended & had a sample for something else.

I did read another Samhain with a sample chapter that I didn't mind having - but that was book one of a two book story & the sample was the first couple of chapters of the next book.  It was clearly marked as the first book in a two-part series and I knew that if I liked it then I'd need to get the second book to finish the story (and I did.)

Personally, I wouldn't want to include more than a few pages with a quick author note & blurbs for other books.

I know we've had several threads on this before & some have chipped in saying that they have a much higher sell-through with sample chapters (I think Courtney said that) - for me though, I package the end material the same way I'd want to find it if I were reading.  I have vague plans to maybe one day release an ebook that say, supports a series of mine & gives things like history, inspiration, deleted & alternate scenes, secret information about characters/places that didn't make it into the book, etc.  For one off stories, you could make deleted scenes into bonus material on your website to encourage reader participation there.  

P.S. - Am I the only one who spent a good minute or two staring at B's avatar expecting it to move?


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Quiss said:


> The question, like some pointed out, is _how many_ readers are annoyed by it...


Yep. That's why I posted the poll. Thank you, everyone who voted!


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

I don't put samples in the backmatter of my books, but use links to my website where samples are to be found. I only did it that way because as a reader I really don't like advertising in books I buy even if they are meant to "help" me decide to buy the next book. I format my books the way I would like to read them myself. So no adverts.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

As swolf said, make sure your word and page counts (and you should ALWAYS include both) don't include the back matter. If your back matter is lengthy, I suggest including the fact of its existence in your description.

Julie makes a good point about books not being read to the end of the file, though. Overly lengthy back matter could be a problem. Considering the preview isn't what most readers came to see anyway, I think it's best to leave that kind of thing out unless you have an established series and you want to whet your readers' appetites for more.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Not everyone. I abandoned cable TV for Netflix and have not looked back since. I've also installed AdBlock on my browser (I'll only disable it for a few certain sites in an effort to support them) my internet experience has been greatly improved. I will go to great lengths to avoid advertisements because they are annoying and invasive and take up time that could have been better spent enjoying my book/tv show. "


I agree it's not everyone. But it is a sufficient number of people that it shifts practices in entire major market segments. Producers have to determine how a practice will affect their total sales. Do they cater to those who don't like something, or to those who do like it? Which group has a greater effect on revenue? Is there some way to capture the additional revenue and also not lose any? But I'd say it's a mistake to cater only to those who don't like something without balancing it against gains from those who do. And I do use a pop-up blocker...



> "If the reader is annoyed by it, it failed to be effective."


People can be irked or annoyed by whatever they choose. It's their choice and priviledge. But being cheated by a purchase can be subjected to more rigorous standards.


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## Tim_A (May 25, 2013)

"Cheated"? No. I paid for a 100k novel and got a 100k novel. But the big wodge of junk tacked on the end was neither wanted nor needed.

It's not about ACTUAL value, it's about PERCEIVED value, and the common perception is that it's padding to make a thin book look thicker.

At the end of the story, I already know if I want to read more stuff by this author, based on the book I've just read. If I didn't like it, I'm not going to read the first chapter of the next book, on the off chance that I might suddenly like that one. And if I DID like it, I'm *still* not going to read the first chapter of the next book from the back of this one. I'm going to go and buy the book, and read it there. Under pretty much no circumstance would I ever read a sample from the back of a book.

By all means put links & blurbs in - I definitely want to know what else you have available, but by adding chapters all you do is reduce my perceived value of your book and increase your delivery cost.

So what, you say, you haven't complained. No, it's not often I complain about it (it's actually quite rare for me even to review a book, especially after Amazon started taking down reviews by other authors), but it does make me think twice next time my finger hovers over the Buy It Now button.


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

Tim_A said:


> "Cheated"? No. I paid for a 100k novel and got a 100k novel. But the big wodge of junk tacked on the end was neither wanted nor needed.
> 
> It's not about ACTUAL value, it's about PERCEIVED value, and the common perception is that it's padding to make a thin book look thicker.
> 
> ...


All of this.


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## Soothesayer (Oct 19, 2012)

BTackitt said:


> I recently got a book from a sig line because it looked interesting, and I liked the tone of the author through their postings..
> The story was moving right along, then suddenly, it all wrapped up in 3 pages and was DONE! I looked down at the progress bar thinking huh? It was sitting at 68%. SIXTY EIGHT PERCENT! So basically 1/3 of the "book" was advertising for other books by the same author.
> 
> Instead of leaving me with a pleasant feeling about the book, where I would even want to look at other books by this author, it left me feeling cheated, and no way am I even looking at books by this author again. I also will not tell my friends to read this book, and I will probably steer them clear of the author.
> ...


Sounds like something an affiliate marketer would do. They love to pad their books with ads/link spam and outsource their content to India.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> Would you pay for a 6 foot dining table of beautiful mahogany and be happy to receive a 4 foot table, and a 2 foot card table attached to it covered in advertising?


You probably paid for a 4 foot table and got a 6 foot table. Discard the 2 foot card table attached to it to make it 6 foot and you've got exactly what you paid for.

That being said, I agree that it is all very confusing. And even though I'm used to counting in word lengths for ebooks I don't like long excerpts either.
Just give me a link to where I can read them on your website or offer them as a separate download.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

BTackitt said:


> What I paid isn't the issue, which is why I haven't said what I paid, but it wasn't that low. and you can try to make excuses all you want, but if a customer feels cheated they feel cheated no matter your condescending attitude of "consumers will adapt". Why the heck should consumers adapt to being taken advantage of? Consumers should stick up for themselves and expect what they pay for to BE what they pay for.


I agree they will feel cheated if they choose. I also say their feeling can be wrong. Feeling is sufficient to support being irked, jarred, irritated, and annoyed. It's not sufficient to support being cheated.

And observing all the ways consumers adapt is far from condescending. It's a compliment. Consumers can figure these things out.

I agree consumers should stand up for themselves. With the huge market we have for books, they can limit their selections to those that meet their specifications. The market will decide these things based on aggregate sales.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

I haven't done this, yet. I have links and a paragraph or two commenting on the story with acknowledgements and that's it.  I think may be the author could state in their blurb that the last third of the book is "bonus material", and explain exactly what it is.


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## LinaG (Jun 18, 2012)

I have to agree with the OP here. This has happened to me as well, although not quite such a high content % of other books. I don't seem to mind a preview of the next book in the series and the book is available. (If the book isn't available what is the point?) Print books do that all the time. But I think more than one book preview is too much. I suspect volume here provides diminishing returns for the author. I wouldn't read more than one preview myself. A list of other titles and a single preview perhaps.

I like a link to the author website where a preview of an upcoming book or books are available. Also this



> To me, I want to savour the feeling of just completing a book, and immediately jumping into an excerpt with a completely different story line is jarring. I do, however, enjoy seeing quick links to the author's website or, better yet, their Amazon Author page. I'll go there and find out what other books they've got by myself.


and this:



> I have to confess that I'm not a fan of 'sample' chapters at the end of books either. It throws out my concept of how far through the book I am. It did quite literally spoil a Samhain book for me. The characters got it together at just under the 80% mark and I didn't allow myself to invest in that emotionally and enjoy it because I kept expecting them to be ripped apart again. Then it ended & had a sample for something else.


How a Kindle presents length to a reader is something for all authors to think about. The Lawrence Block used to say the best sales tool for the next book is the ending of the current one. The quote above points out the problem with too much back matter. If the dear Lawrence was right --and he probably was-- too much back matter can hurt, rather than help sales.

I've also read on another ebook BB that some readers feel harassed by authors 'demanding' the reader review the book in the back matter. (In the words of that original poster, they were 'sick' of it and felt no obligation to the author after they had paid for and read the book.) I don't have the request in my book, but wasn't against it. It had not occurred to me that a review request could be perceived this way, but the thread was very negative about what they perceived as a 'pressure tactic.'

I hope the author of whatever book the OP read decides to make their additional material available through a link to their website and cut down the back matter. The problem is owners of older ereaders might not be able to access the website via the link. But everything in moderation, including back matter!!

It is also possible that the author didn't realize those extra sample chapters padded the length of the book. I might have trouble believing this if I was just wearing my reader's hat.

I'm glad the OP took the time to come here and post so that we can all think more carefully what we add after the book ends.

Thanks for starting the survey Quiss. Good idea.

Your Pal,

Li


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## Lynn McNamee (Jan 8, 2009)

I get irritated with too much back matter in books, also.

I just don't see the point. If the book I'm reading is the first in a series, I have no need for an excerpt of the next. A simple cover and description will do. If I liked the book, I'll buy the next.

The same goes for non-series books. If I like the book I just read, I'll seek out more books by the same author. Cover, description, and link is all I need to catch my eye.

I only sample books to check for decent writing/editing. Once I've read a book by an author and seen that he/she is capable of those two things, a description to let me know what a book is about is all I need to buy another book.


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

David Stephens said:


> Amazon could easily fix this by a start story and an end story mark in the file. They would then count the words in between and put it up on the book's Amazon page. More importantly, the percent counter would start at the start mark, excluding the front matter, and end at the end mark. You would be at 100% when you reached the end of the story, and then the counter would start over for whatever comes next.


I LOVE this idea! I am a "hate the sample chapters" kind of gal, just because I pace my reading. Sometimes I'll be whizzing through a book, but I always slow down to savor those final moments. With surprise sample chapters, I end up whizzing through the final moments and am left feeling sad. It's like a rushed goodbye with a loved one because you thought you still had an hour with them, but it turns out your clocks were wrong.


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2013)

BTackitt said:


> I recently got a book from a sig line because it looked interesting, and I liked the tone of the author through their postings..
> The story was moving right along, then suddenly, it all wrapped up in 3 pages and was DONE! I looked down at the progress bar thinking huh? It was sitting at 68%. SIXTY EIGHT PERCENT! So basically 1/3 of the "book" was advertising for other books by the same author.
> 
> Instead of leaving me with a pleasant feeling about the book, where I would even want to look at other books by this author, it left me feeling cheated, and no way am I even looking at books by this author again. I also will not tell my friends to read this book, and I will probably steer them clear of the author.
> ...


Yeah, that's definitely something to look out for. I used to include sample chapters at the end of my books, but I stopped doing that for this reason, and instead put the blurb for the next book with a cover image. It doesn't take up much more than 1% of the total text, and accomplishes the same thing that a sample chapter would.

Out of curiosity, what do you think when there's an author's note at the end that takes up 5% or 10%? I add one to the end of my books, telling the story behind the story and anything significant from my life that influenced me at the time I wrote it. It's hard to tell if readers enjoy them, but I know from some reviews that at least a few of them do (and hey, I enjoy writing them, so I'll probably keep up the tradition regardless).


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I've decided that in my next chapter book, the chapters will be named, 'Chapter 1 of 53', 'Chapter 2 of 53,' etc. 

Maybe in my shorts I'll put little asides, like '(Don't get mad, but you're now 1,000 words from the end.  Ok, back to our orgy...)', and '(You're now 500 words from the end, with blatant advertising to follow.)'.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

David Stephens said:


> Amazon could easily fix this by a start story and an end story mark in the file. They would then count the words in between and put it up on the book's Amazon page. More importantly, the percent counter would start at the start mark, excluding the front matter, and end at the end mark. You would be at 100% when you reached the end of the story, and then the counter would start over for whatever comes next.


It's a good idea. I like the idea. However, I don't want Amazon to raise costs of eBooks just to implement this. It takes some programming work for this to happen, IMO. There are no markers in the MOBI files as to when the story starts/ends because there are no page numbers, and mileages vary with authors (e.g. some front load sales pitches, some put sales pitches as part of the back matter, etc).

But I'm with everyone else -- as an avid reader I feel cheated if I paid for a 400-page 800KB eBook only to find that the cereal box is half empty. So maybe when Amazon lists the "Print Length" it needs to be what's in the printed version of the eBook. What do you think of that? Printed versions are pretty static.

Caveat emptor


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2013)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Out of curiosity, what do you think when there's an author's note at the end that takes up 5% or 10%? I add one to the end of my books, telling the story behind the story and anything significant from my life that influenced me at the time I wrote it. It's hard to tell if readers enjoy them, but I know from some reviews that at least a few of them do (and hey, I enjoy writing them, so I'll probably keep up the tradition regardless).


For me as a reader, so long as I know it is there (i.e. it's in the TOC and/or part of the promotional blurb (includes bonus essay by the author sort of thing) I personally think this is cool. It's all about reader expectations. Sometimes, I want the "Director's Cut" of a movie with all the never-before-seen clips. Other times I just want to see the theatrical release.

The other thing, too, is I suspect that how artfully it is done is also a factor. From the OP's post, it sounds like it was a BUNCH of different stuff just tacked on at the end to pad the file. If the bonus material is actually cool and brings value to what I just read, I'm all over it. Kinda like how you sit through the credits at the end of a movie to see the special stuff. Nobody would sit through the credits of Iron Man 3 just to see a Disney executive say "thanks for watching! Now buy the DVD!" But we sit through the credits to see


Spoiler



Tony Stark treating David Banner like his personal shrink


. Because it was COOL and added value to what I just watched.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

The obvious villain here seems to be the progress bar counting out the amount of book instead of the amount of story. There should be an 'extras' flag that chops off the progress bar once The End comes up.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "I just don't see the point. If the book I'm reading is the first in a series, I have no need for an excerpt of the next. A simple cover and description will do. If I liked the book, I'll buy the next."


The point is for folks who have a different learning and selection style. Some will read the sample chapter and remember the start of a good story. That may be a stronger stimulus to seek out and read the actual book. Consumers have lots of different behaviors, tastes, preferences, and expectations.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

I have this problem a lot when reading nonfiction. Of course in that case it's not the author's fault because they have to cite their sources, which naturally takes up a ton of space. Still, I know the frustration of thinking you've got a couple chapters left, only to suddenly come upon "the end".


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## -alex- (Jul 12, 2011)

You know what? As a reader, that would irk me too. And it has.

The final book in a series that I really loved ended at 83%. Now, some of that was bonus scenes (which I enjoyed), but most was ads/samples for other books that the author had coming out AND a few ‘friends’ books too. Too much advertising. Way too much. It left me feeling disappointed because from looking at the percentage at the bottom of my kindle, I assumed I had ways to go before the story ended.

Personally, (in most cases) I feel chapter 1 of the next book, OR chapter 1 of another written works by the author within the same genre of the purchased book is quite enough. Not both.

Yes, I do love bonus scenes, so throwing one (or a couple of shorts) in at the end, as long as it’s not too long is fine by me too.

But I feel anything you put in after the final chapter should not amount to more than 1 chapter of the book (2 at a push if you have a bonus scene/s as well as a chapter 1 sample). Anything else is just too much. (Acknowledgements, a small author blurb, and links to websites etc is also fine—those don’t take more than a two or three pages.)

You want to tell me about your other works too? Fine. I’d be quite happy with one page per book that you want to advertise (realistically two or three pages/books at the most). Tell me the title, blurb, and where I can check it out, and cool, I’ll do that. I can then go to Amazon or wherever and download a sample. Simple. I don't want or need samples.

Just my two cents.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Another problem is that I may make a note that the book is x no. of pages long and contains "bonus" material (though I rarely read first chapters when included) but, by the time I read the book, which could be months later, I won't have remembered that and am depending on the percentage read or bar...

Betsy


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## Victoria J (Jul 5, 2011)

I put sample chapters in the back of my novellas but only one or two pages of those sample chapters. I always keep my extra material after the story after the 90% mark. Haven't gotten any complaints yet. I would agree that if a reader comes to the 68% mark on the progress bar and the story is finished you may have overdone it with the sample material. That's a little much. However, as a reader I would simply skip it. When I buy a Jim Butcher book in print or an ebook, I always get these kinds of samples. Sometimes I'm in a mood to read them, sometimes not. If not, I just skip it and move on.


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## terryandersbooks (Jul 8, 2013)

-alex- said:


> The final book in a series that I really loved ended at 83%.


Yeah I had a science fiction novel at the 67% marker, and the rest was excerpts and ads. I was pretty shocked when the book suddenly ended as I thought I had a long ways to go.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Now that the talk in the other thread is moving on to removing _all_ extra goodies from the ebook, I'm wishing there was a way to killcode that stupid bar.

It's ruining everything!


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

I don't like a ton of back matter promo and sample chapters either. Michael Connelly does that also, so it's a trad/indie thing.

When that happens in a book I’ve read, I usually bail anyway, and I don’t get to the Amazon good stuff (where they ask you to review the book, etc). It also annoys me when I see that book in my Kindle library showing that I'm at 80%, um, no, I finished the book! That’s petty, but it bugs me. An extra few pages with your other books and website info should be just fine. 32% is a bit loco. I already read your book, so if I liked your writing, I'll buy more, extra chapters won't convince me. 

Similar annoying promos offline... the other day I was just pursuing books at a bookstore, I was looking at some of the paperbacks, and they had big cardboard ads in the middle of the darn book! And it was to books from other authors from the publisher, not even other books from the author of that book.

Sample chapters can be a good thing, you could provide a simple link offering it as a gift for opting into the newsletter. You're building a readers list and the folks who sign up want that bonus/sample chapters versus just forcing it on all your readers. Just an idea.


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## zandermarks (May 20, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Will the single chapter equal an entire third of the book?
> 
> Some folks are missing the point. From the way the OP described this, it isn't just a sample chapter or even a little promo. One third of the product was promotional material for other products. Again, if I buy a paperback that is 3" thick, I don't expect 1" of the paperback to be promo content. When I go to the movies to watch a two hour movie, I don't expect the movie to have 40 minutes of previews and actually only be 80 minutes long.
> 
> It isn't an all-or-nothing per se. It's just a matter of keeping reader expectations in mind.


I'm with you on this one...1/3 of the content devoted to promo is just nuts. I'd also argue it's ineffective...if you have to lay on 1/3 of a book to catch the reader's interest, especially after they've just completed one of your stories, what the heck does that say about the writing?

If you've written a compelling story with an engaging character arc and left the reader with a sense of emotional satisfaction, you should be able to promote the next book in a fairly short number of pages (maybe a sample chapter or even part of a sample chapter). If you don't have them in your clutches by that point, you probably aren't going to get them in your clutches.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

On thing to note is that percentages are relative.

If an eBook has 50 chapters and maybe 100K words, and the author doesn't have any commercials stuffed into the back matter, you could reach the last chapter and see maybe a 99% marker.

However, if the author has added a thick back matter or appendix, then the size of that will be assimilated into the overall percentage. So maybe you reach the end of the novel, and you only see that you're at the 90% or 80% marker even though you have read 100K words.

As a reader, what I've been doing lately is to look at the Table of Contents in the Kindle sampling before I buy the eBook. If I see a fair number of chapters there, then I'll start reading. I understand that chapters can be very short a la Patterson, but I can gauge that from the sample chapters. 

They say that the last chapter of your novel sells the next book. That's true for me as a reader/buyer. If I get to the last chapter and feel cheated because I paid more for the eBook than what was implicitly promised i.e. a shorter book than expected, then it would make me wary about reading the next book by that author.

For career longevity, it's in good faith for authors to respect their readers. An author who doesn't respect his/her reader might find a short career waiting for them.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

David Stephens said:


> Amazon could easily fix this by a start story and an end story mark in the file. They would then count the words in between and put it up on the book's Amazon page. More importantly, the percent counter would start at the start mark, excluding the front matter, and end at the end mark. You would be at 100% when you reached the end of the story, and then the counter would start over for whatever comes next.
> 
> It will never happen.


I'm not so sure it's "easy" to change, but it's a good idea and should have been built into ebook standards from the beginning. Problems standing in the way:

1) Whether these kinds of story markers would be available would depend on the file format.
2) The usage of these markers would be entirely up to the author or publisher, many of whom would forget to do it; converters would also need to be made aware of this.
3) Existing Amazon devices would be unable to use this feature without a firmware upgrade; Amazon apps for other devices would need a software update.

File format is kind of a big deal. Amazon doesn't exist in a vacuum. They control the behavior of their devices and they have some influence on format (for .mobi), but they would have no say at all in how this would affect .epub files or other e-readers. If nothing else, this is something that can be added for ebooks going forward without necessarily looking at backwards compatibility.


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## zandermarks (May 20, 2013)

swolf said:


> Maybe in my shorts I'll put little asides, like '(Don't get mad, but you're now 1,000 words from the end. Ok, back to our orgy...)'


As long as you follow up with a video link to the interrupted scene as a consolation prize for the interruption, I'm sure the reader would forgive you.


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## nico (Jan 17, 2013)

I'm mostly responding because i think this thread is amazing and i want to keep track of it, but i'll also give my thoughts as a reader and as a publisher.

Reader: As long as the story itself doesn't seem truncated and is the best it could be, i'll tolerate some back material, but honestly usually just skip it. I never really thought of this when reading ebooks as most of the ebooks i've read haven't had much back matter (or have they and i haven't noticed? i'll have to go back and check). For print books, i feel it's pretty common to see a sample chapter or preview chapter of an upcoming work, particularly in fat mass market paperbacks.

Publisher: We added a sample of our second book to the end of our first book (titles were unrelated) and we saw a big spike in sales of the second book. No way to tell if they were directly related (both were new releases at the time), but it sure convinced me. Now, reading this thread, i'm not quite sure. Was it just coincidence? 

I'm fascinated by this discussion mostly because i hadn't really questioned whether or not to include a (short) sample of another book by the author, but it seems there are LOTS of reasons not to that i never considered!


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2013)

nico said:


> Publisher: We added a sample of our second book to the end of our first book (titles were unrelated) and we saw a big spike in sales of the second book. No way to tell if they were directly related (both were new releases at the time),


If they were both new releases, then how do you identify a "spike" in sales? Assuming you were promoting the books simultaneously, it is more likely that other forms of promotion triggered any spike you might have seen.


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## nico (Jan 17, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> If they were both new releases, then how do you identify a "spike" in sales? Assuming you were promoting the books simultaneously, it is more likely that other forms of promotion triggered any spike you might have seen.


Exactly. I hadn't really thought of that at the time. I was too excited thinking that my "new strategy" of sample chapter was working! SPURIOUS EFFECTS. (I'm a poor scientist)


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

How _does_ the troublesome little beast count percentages anyway?

Kindles seem to use inexplicable 'ticks' that don't correspond to word or page count and that vary from device to device. Is it by lines? Words? Paragraphs?

I have images in my extras on Rune Breaker. Is the thing reading those as massive chunks of the book or as null spaces?


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

nico said:


> Publisher: We added a sample of our second book to the end of our first book (titles were unrelated) and we saw a big spike in sales of the second book. No way to tell if they were directly related (both were new releases at the time), but it sure convinced me. Now, reading this thread, i'm not quite sure. Was it just coincidence?
> 
> I'm fascinated by this discussion mostly because i hadn't really questioned whether or not to include a (short) sample of another book by the author, but it seems there are LOTS of reasons not to that i never considered!


Antidote: I put the first chapter of a new series at the back of my last release and I did see a spike in sales on the sample chapter book. I think it works for sure.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Don't forget locations. I have been reading with using locations since 2008. I got so used to it that I can totally gauge the length of a book now just by the locations. 
Also, not all kindles have a bar at the bottom. My K3 does, my PW does not. I actually miss it. But I still have the percentage and of course locations. 

But since the PW I also have time left in book. I always have it set to that and I love that feature. I assume a padded at the end book would throw that number totally off too. Here I think I have an hour to go and then 5 minutes later, bam, over.  

And lard no to putting a system in place for publishers/authors to have to put ticks at the beginning of the story and then end. Many still can't get the regular formatting right for the newer Kindles, I shudder to think what would happen if they had to add that to it.   .

For me thankfully, the majority of books I read don't have extreme padding. I am most happy at 98-100%, I can deal with 95%, anything below, I grumble.  . And I will remember that book and that author.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Deanna Chase said:


> Antidote: I put the first chapter of a new series at the back of my last release and I did see a spike in sales on the sample chapter book. I think it works for sure.


How do you know for sure? Did you test it? I'm just curious. You could tag the link in your sample chapter with your Amazon tracking ID and then you could see how many sales generated from that specific link. That could work to actually test this versus not really knowing for sure if it worked. You would then have to have a second book without the sample and see if there are any sales spikes from it. Hmm, maybe it's too complicated to test accurately.


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2013)

Deanna Chase said:


> Antidote: I put the first chapter of a new series at the back of my last release and I did see a spike in sales on the sample chapter book. I think it works for sure.


I think the only way to "test" this would be to put a sample of an OLDER book in the back of a new release. I'm making certain assumptions here, so correct me if I am wrong. I am assuming you added the sample chapter to the last release at around the same time as you published the new release. 
And I am assuming you were promoting the new release when you did this.

My point is, it is still more likely that the sales came from your actually promotional efforts than the sample. People who read the first book either A. Became fans and were looking for new works from you or B. Finished the book, left it on their Kindle, and forgot about it. In either case, if Amazon pushed out the updated file version (again, I am assuming that the sample chapter wasn't part of the original upload--I'll explain why in a moment), how many people bothered to download it just to read the sample? How many people even realized it was there?

The reason I assume the sample wasn't in the original upload is because there is no benefit to having a sample chapter for a book that is not even available for sale. i.e. If book 1 was released in January, putting a sample for a book that won't be released until August is pointless because people are going to forget about it.

The onlt way to really check the effectiveness would be to put an excerpt of a backlist in a new release and see if it drives sales.


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

David Stephens said:


> Amazon could easily fix this by a start story and an end story mark in the file. They would then count the words in between and put it up on the book's Amazon page. More importantly, the percent counter would start at the start mark, excluding the front matter, and end at the end mark. You would be at 100% when you reached the end of the story, and then the counter would start over for whatever comes next.


A great idea, but this:



Atunah said:


> Many still can't get the regular formatting right for the newer Kindles, I shudder to think what would happen if they had to add that to it.  .


I think I'd much prefer if the Location Bar said this instead: *2500 of 16000 words read*. It gives me a better idea of what I've read and how many more I've got to go before it ends. As someone else said up-thread - the percentage thing is relative to the length of each work. Maybe what Amazon can do is tell authors to only upload the story body in one section, then back matter in another section and then cobble them together. That way, when the Loc Bar says I'm at 62% of a book, I know it's counting ONLY the book section and not including the back matter. Ah well. Suggestions all around that will likely fall on deaf ears.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> I think the only way to "test" this would be to put a sample of an OLDER book in the back of a new release. I'm making certain assumptions here, so correct me if I am wrong. I am assuming you added the sample chapter to the last release at around the same time as you published the new release.
> And I am assuming you were promoting the new release when you did this.


No. Influential Magic came out in March. Angels of Bourbon Street came out in late May. I put IM's first chapter in the back of Angels (Angels was an anticipated release of my popular series). Immediately after the release of Angels I saw a noticeable jump in sales on IM. My ranking went from 15K - 20K to 5K - 7K for a month. It's just now starting to drop back down to previous levels as Angels starts to settle out.

edited to add: I have close to 2000 people on my mailing list. Influential Magic did not have a great start. Decent, but not great. It's true, it's hard to get people to jump series. So most of the people who bought Angels should have already known about Influential Magic. I can only assume they finished Angels, read the sample and were hooked from there.


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## thesmallprint (May 25, 2012)

I'm surprised by the dismissive/condescending reaction of some authors. The OP is an ardent consumer in our market and has taken the time to alert us about a pretty common issue. Coincidentally, I had just hit Publish on my latest work before logging in here. As soon as I read the OP's post, I went back and amended the title/author's notes page to include this:

_Please note: story length will be deceptive, as this book has a long extract from Bet Your Life added after the end of The Third Degree. This will throw out any calculations made by watching the percentage progress bar on your eReader, or judging by the remaining pages in the paperback._

It's not a perfect solution, but I think it's better than nothing. This is the first time I've included anything more than a small extract from the next book in the series; I did this because the novel in question is about 10,000 words shorter than the others in the series, so I was trying to add value to ensure a customer did _not _feel cheated. But the OP has made me think again about the wisdom of including anything at the back, and I might well decide to withdraw all of it.

The overall impression this thread has left on me is that some Indies have a long way to go in learning how to respond to valid complaints from the marketplace, especially those from high-spending customers. And in this case, a customer who made a personal decision to support Indies. This sort of feedback should be valued more highly than a dozen five star reviews, imo. To treat it dismissively or with condescension is a big, big mistake; one that can only tarnish the Indies 'brand'.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Steeplechasing said:


> I'm surprised by the dismissive/condescending reaction of some authors. The OP is an ardent consumer in our market and has taken the time to alert us about a pretty common issue. Coincidentally, I had just hit Publish on my latest work before logging in here. As soon as I read the OP's post, I went back and amended the title/author's notes page to include this:
> 
> _Please note: story length will be deceptive, as this book has a long extract from Bet Your Life added after the end of The Third Degree. This will throw out any calculations made by watching the percentage progress bar on your eReader, or judging by the remaining pages in the paperback._


Although that is a very informative thing to do, many readers don't read the book the moment they buy it. So by the time they open it on the reader, they won't remember what it said in the description on amazon. 
For that same reason I would love it if all books had a very short blurb right at the beginning, so I don't have to go back to amazon or goodreads and read what the book was about. I very rarely read a book right after I bought it.


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## nico (Jan 17, 2013)

Had a little meeting about this, here's what we came up with. It's not perfect and doesn't address ALL concerns, but i think it's a fair compromise.

1) Keep samples/excerpts to only a few pages.

2) Place the "Thank's for reading" page between the end of the story and the excerpt.

3) Tell the reader on the thank you page that a short bonus excerpt is included in case they want to keep reading.

This doesn't address the status bar tracking issue, but it does break up the book into sections with a bit of a buffer in case the reader doesn't want to be thrown into another story head-first. It also gives them a chance to follow our action items (review, newsletter signup, etc) if they _really_ enjoyed the book without having to also wade through the sample.

As a reader, i don't ever read samples, but i've seen them so much in trad published books, i just assumed they were an effective marketing strategy. Even though the posts here are _very_ convincing, they are just a subset of the overall readers and likely a biased one at that, so it's hard to generalize whether samples are good or not. What i do take away is that more than 1 sample isn't a good idea and too lengthy samples are also not desirable.


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2013)

Atunah said:


> For that same reason I would love it if all books had a very short blurb right at the beginning, so I don't have to go back to amazon or goodreads and read what the book was about. I very rarely read a book right after I bought it.


Yep. That's why you'll find the blurb at the beginning of all my books, right after the table of contents.


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## Barbara Morgenroth (May 14, 2010)

No matter what you do, someone will be unhappy with your decision.  One person's fun cliffhanger is another person's ruination of their day.  If you add a chapter from the next book in the series, then they can get a running start and want to keep reading or they're ticked because they think it's a spoiler.  I stopped adding samples.  I put a blurb and the cover from another book with a list of my work at the back.  Most people say they don't read to the end anyway.


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## JShepard (Jul 9, 2013)

This is a very informative thread. 

1)It's always good to note that excess is often a bad idea (never thought to liken it to this, but it fits.) 

and 

b)that opening with a blurb for those that download and come back (I do it too, but again, never really through about it. For me, my kindle is a surprise of "When did I order this?" Or "I must have drank way more than I thought.") is a good idea. 

Wait... am I the only one who does that?


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

For the record:
I don't mind a page that lists your other books (please have it in order though. I read a book 2 days ago that was 1 of 15, and nothing anywhere to tell me what book 2, 3, 4 etc were so that I could read them in order)

I don't mind an acknowledgements page that is one page or less (half the book ala Piers Anthony is getting ridiculous though)

If you are going to include "Bonus Material" make sure you have that info on your Book's page, AND have it listed again in a TOC.

Please for the love of whatever you hold dear, don't have it be 1/3 or more of your book.

Truly, this isn't a HUGE problem, I read daily, and only about 3 times since Kindles first came out has it been an issue for me. so out of the 1500+ books I have read in what 5 years? only 3 really bad cases of this. The last one was a real pisser though as the "story" stopped at 11% and the other 89% was fill matter. I ranted and raved for a week to anyone who would listen on that one.


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

BTackitt said:


> Truly, this isn't a HUGE problem, I read daily, and only about 3 times since Kindles first came out has it been an issue for me. so out of the 1500+ books I have read in what 5 years? only 3 really bad cases of this. The last one was a real pisser though as the "story" stopped at 11% and the other 89% was fill matter. I ranted and raved for a week to anyone who would listen on that one.


WAIT.

*looks at BTackitt's siggy* 

You're 153 books down...in only SEVEN months?!

Jeez, way to make me feel like a slacker with my measly 5 - and of that five, there's one I'm not even halfway through yet (Stephen King's 11/22/63).


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Yeah, it's been a rough year. Not a ton of time for reading.

I signed up for 21 units (7 classes 3units each) for spring classes at college, and third day of school my grandmother passed away at 94 years old.  So then I was in class 4 days a week, Thursday nights I would fly from Dallas to San Francisco spend 3 days in SF trying to help my mom organize everything, fly back to Dallas late Sunday night, and start all over. After 2 months of that, I was getting physically ill. My body had no concept of what time zone I was in, and no matter how hard I tried it was seriously affecting my grades. I finally ended up dropping out for this year (plan on going back next Spring).I have been here in SF since the beginning of May with my mom finalizing everything, going through literal MOUNTAINS of stuff in this house, no they weren't hoarders, just generations of things to go through and deal with. I finally get to go home and be with my dear sweet understanding husband and the one child we still have living at home next Tuesday. The house sadly goes up for sale next month, and a huge chapter of our lives will close.

my normal book count is closer to 300-350 books per year.

BTW I liked 11/22/63.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

BTackitt said:


> third day of school my grandmother passed away at 94 years old.


Sorry for your loss. My dad passed 7 months ago, and I still tear up now and then.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Steeplechasing said:


> I'm surprised by the dismissive/condescending reaction of some authors. The OP is an ardent consumer in our market and has taken the time to alert us about a pretty common issue.


I don't think anyone has been condescending or dismissive. Everyone is admitting the progress bar causes a problem.

It's not like I just started doing this. Ever since I began publishing two years ago, I've included a complete list of my books at the end of my stories. In that time, the list has grown very large - enough to make up 1/3 of the text of my shorter stories. That strategy has worked for me, and if you look at my also-boughts, people who buy my books tend to buy more of my books. And in that time, only one reader has complained about the length of my back matter.

So while I appreciate this reader bringing this matter to our attention, there are more factors coming into play than one person's opinion. I have to base my marketing strategy on what I've seen work, and as of right now, I haven't heard enough complaints from MY readers to consider changing things. When they do, I will reconsider the issue.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

I just want to say that I understand that the problem presented here is one of _excess_, but since the sister thread to this one has gone on to be anti-bonus material _in general_ and I, as a reader actually like getting goodies and/or a taste of what's on tap next in the books, I'm getting pretty defensive about this because I don't want to see writers encouraged to stop the practice of sample chapters in series and bonus stuff.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

BTackitt said:


> Yeah, it's been a rough year. Not a ton of time for reading.
> 
> I signed up for 21 units (7 classes 3units each) for spring classes at college, and third day of school my grandmother passed away at 94 years old.  So then I was in class 4 days a week, Thursday nights I would fly from Dallas to San Francisco spend 3 days in SF trying to help my mom organize everything, fly back to Dallas late Sunday night, and start all over. After 2 months of that, I was getting physically ill. My body had no concept of what time zone I was in, and no matter how hard I tried it was seriously affecting my grades. I finally ended up dropping out for this year (plan on going back next Spring).I have been here in SF since the beginning of May with my mom finalizing everything, going through literal MOUNTAINS of stuff in this house, no they weren't hoarders, just generations of things to go through and deal with. I finally get to go home and be with my dear sweet understanding husband and the one child we still have living at home next Tuesday. The house sadly goes up for sale next month, and a huge chapter of our lives will close.
> 
> ...


Sorry for your loss! I remember the mini-KB meetup we had when you were in town last year. I believe you were visiting your grandmother. Hope all goes well with the sale.


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## Teri Hall (Feb 10, 2013)

Vaalingrade said:


> I don't want to see writers encouraged to stop the practice of sample chapters in series and bonus stuff.


Don't worry, some of us actually get emails saying this (sample chapter in the back) is great!  We won't stop.

I do agree it should probably be just a single chapter or links, but I think whatever works for each of us is what works.


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## LinaG (Jun 18, 2012)

Btackitt--  I am sorry to hear of your loss. If your loved one is close to home it is grueling. I can't imagine adding the stress of multiple plane flights and taking classes! I don't know how you remained conscious long enough to read anything at all!

Atunah--  Thanks for posting this reminder!  I'd meant to do this while adding the new cover to my romance, but dreaded fiddling with the HTML. You have strengthened my resolve and it will make the presentation better for the reader.

Steeplechasing--  Wise words as always.  Best of luck with the new release.


A great thread that has taught all of us something!  The perfect reason to come to KBoards! 

Your Pal,

Li


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "The reason I assume the sample wasn't in the original upload is because there is no benefit to having a sample chapter for a book that is not even available for sale. i.e. If book 1 was released in January, putting a sample for a book that won't be released until August is pointless because people are going to forget about it."


A positive effect derives from the set of consumers who read the chapter, take an interest, dont forget, and are then predisposed to buy it when available. Information about unreleased products has a long and successful history.

We can also figure consumers are not limited to reading the sample in January. Some of those weak memories may even wait until July or even August to read it.


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## allanairish (Oct 3, 2012)

swolf said:


> I don't think anyone has been condescending or dismissive. Everyone is admitting the progress bar causes a problem.
> 
> It's not like I just started doing this. Ever since I began publishing two years ago, I've included a complete list of my books at the end of my stories. In that time, the list has grown very large - enough to make up 1/3 of the text of my shorter stories. That strategy has worked for me, and if you look at my also-boughts, people who buy my books tend to buy more of my books. And in that time, only one reader has complained about the length of my back matter.
> 
> So while I appreciate this reader bringing this matter to our attention, there are more factors coming into play than one person's opinion. I have to base my marketing strategy on what I've seen work, and as of right now, I haven't heard enough complaints from MY readers to consider changing things. When they do, I will reconsider the issue.


I think you've touched on something that's kind of skated past during this debate. Is anyone really arguing that it's a bad idea to have a sample chapter at the end of a *short story* that's clearly described as a short story, with word count, on the product page? Because I personally think that would be a silly argument to make, even if it ends up being more than ten percent of the total word count. Of course, I also think it's a little silly to pay so much attention to the percentage bar, but I'm definitely in the minority there, it would seem. (I'm guessing that few readers would pay much attention to the percentage bar on a short story anyway.)

But yes, if Amazon had a way of tagging just the story body, that would fix the problem (for those who know how to use it).


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

I'm glad this discussion came up. I can see why having the % complete getting skewed by non-content related material would be a bother.

I realized one of my own titles, a short story of a mere 1500 words, had this problem after reading this thread. The reader would get to the end of the content and still have 50% left on the progress bar. So, I did some rearranging and some deletion and it's at a more reasonable figure now.

Another issue I had noticed earlier was that when previewing on Amazon, the ratio of content vs. front/back matter was such that the preview itself didn't actually show the beginning of the content! That has been resolved as well.

All in the nick of time, too, because the title went free shortly thereafter (I was never trying to sell a 1500 word short, I wanted it free from the start, but the hoops you have to jump through on Amazon to make that happen...).

Anyway, thanks to the OP for raising this point.


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

I have a very short perma-free story (The Snarls) that's about 1000 words, followed by a 750-word teaser for Dragons and Dreams. It's very clearly marked in the table of contents that there's a teaser. The Snarls was published partly because it's a cute story, but partly too as a vehicle for the teaser.

I've got close to 100 free downloads of The Snarls on Amazon - I'm not sure how to find out whether there have been any downloads from The Snarls at other sites (there were 29 Smashwords downloads, but I don't know whether that includes places like B&N or if that's a different web page that I haven't found yet). 

I've got 2 reviews of The Snarls, both positive, and neither has mentioned the long teaser at the back of it, either positively or negatively.

alas, downloads of The Snarls hasn't seemed to increase interest in Dragons and Dreams, nor has my free promotion of D&D over the July 4th weekend.


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## Pearson Moore (Mar 14, 2011)

I don't think the progress bar is necessarily the problem. The crux of the problem, in my mind, is the disrespectful attitude of the author who crams 'free samples' at the end of a book. It is advertising, regardless of the way we might try to gussy it up or think of it. If I pay for a book, I'm paying for an ad-free environment. Ads already encroach into our lives too much. There's something unjust about an author's action to cram advertising at the back of a book. My advice: add 2-3 pages at the back to advertise 2-3 books. That's one or at most two pages per book. If the reader wants to know more, the full blurb for your book is just two clicks away. Anything more than this is an unwelcome intrusion into the reader's life.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Pearson Moore said:


> I don't think the progress bar is necessarily the problem. The crux of the problem, in my mind, is the disrespectful attitude of the author who crams 'free samples' at the end of a book. It is advertising, regardless of the way we might try to gussy it up or think of it. If I pay for a book, I'm paying for an ad-free environment. Ads already encroach into our lives too much. There's something unjust about an author's action to cram advertising at the back of a book. My advice: add 2-3 pages at the back to advertise 2-3 books. That's one or at most two pages per book. If the reader wants to know more, the full blurb for your book is just two clicks away. Anything more than this is an unwelcome intrusion into the reader's life.


From your post, it seems like you've never used an ereader. Material at the end of a book doesn't 'encroach' upon readers' lives, and it's not an 'unwelcome intrusion.' I've read hundreds of books on my kindle, and it's extremely easy to ignore any ads following the story simply by... wait for it... clicking the home button when the story is over. Viola! No ads. I'm not even aware that there are any.

The only time I ever scroll past the end is when I enjoyed the story so much I want to see what else the author has written. If there's nothing there, then I'm disappointed and have to track them down.

If I'm enjoying the story, it is mildly annoying when the story ends before the progress bar reaches the end, but it's something I've gotten used to, and if the ending is satisfying, then I really have no problem with it.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

I usually don't read all that back-end stuff some put in their books. I recently read one where over 30% was advertising. Heres a chapter of this and a chapter of that and glowing reviews yelling me what a brilliant author this guy is...It is easy to skip, but when you think the end is down the road and instead it's 5 minutes away it can be a PIA.


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## Pearson Moore (Mar 14, 2011)

Swolf,

You may be right, and I may be 100% wrong. In the end, it's not you or me, but the readers who decide. I may believe I'm the most brilliant writer who's ever put pen to paper, but it's the readers who are empowered to decide the question, not me. Maybe a poorly-edited novel irks only 5% of readers. But if poor editing makes 20% of that 5% so angry that they leave one-star reviews, now I have 1% of all readers of my poorly-edited book leaving one-star reviews. If 50 pages of 'free samples' tick off more readers than those who enjoy the free samples, I've just lost more than I gained. It may be true that my 'free samples' tick off a vocal minority. Maybe the end result is that I gain more readers than I lose. Could be. Nevertheless, my bias remains to think of the reader first, and to exclude 'free samples' from all of my books, whether ebook or paperback. I may be losing out. I may be losing big time. Could be. In the end, though, it's up to readers to decide, and not for you or me. I hope whatever strategy you choose works very well for you, and I hope your sales only increase.


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## Ian Marks (Jan 22, 2012)

Whoa -- I'm mesmerized by the original poster's avatar... can't... stop... looking... at it...


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## RoseInTheTardis (Feb 2, 2013)

allanairish said:


> I think you've touched on something that's kind of skated past during this debate. Is anyone really arguing that it's a bad idea to have a sample chapter at the end of a *short story* that's clearly described as a short story, with word count, on the product page? Because I personally think that would be a silly argument to make, even if it ends up being more than ten percent of the total word count.


I don't think anyone is arguing that a single sample chapter, especially one clearly marked on the TOC, makes you a terrible person forever. I think the point is that readers generally don't like an excess of sample chapters and ads at the end of books. One sample chapter? As long as it's not 10,000 words, it's probably fine. One image of a book cover and short description? Also fine.

It's when there are 3 sample chapters and five ads (someone mentioned 50K of back matter? ) that it becomes a problem. No one wants that in a book, trade or indie, paper or digital. They just don't.

ETA: I wrote "do" instead of "don't." It's too early. *chugs coffee*


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> " If I pay for a book, I'm paying for an ad-free environment. Ads already encroach into our lives too much."


A consumer may want an ad-free environment, but that's not what is being sold. We know the books contain promotional material, so it's not reasonable to expect an ad-free environment. This thread indicates people are well aware of the phenomenon. In some areas, ads do encroach on our lives. But I don't see how that happens with the end of a book. When the book ends, the consumer is free to put it down or click on promotional pages. If the consumer clicks through the promotional pages, he is inviting ads into his environment.

There is a difference between what a consumer might want, and what the market offers. It's reasonable to expect we will get what the market is offering, even though we might not like what it offers and how it is offered.

So I'd say the problem people express is the progress bar. If the progress bar had a vertical bar through it indicating the end of the book, everyone would have what they want. Likewise, if there was no progress bar, I doubt we would be hearing about this.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Terrence OBrien said:


> So I'd say the problem people express is the progress bar. If the progress bar had a vertical bar through it indicating the end of the book, everyone would have what they want. Likewise, if there was no progress bar, I doubt we would be hearing about this.


I don't have a progress bar on my Paperwhite and you are still hearing about it from me. . Not all kindles have a bar. Percentage and page numbers and locations are what some kindles have.

And the problems is not the progress bar, or the percentage, the problem are large stuffing of books with extra things. In the case of the OP a full 1/3 of the book purchased. That is the issue.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

What I was trying to do with my prequel was not just advertise the next book, but add value with deleted scenes and short stories. I was picturing in my head when you go to the movies and the credits start to roll, people are leaving, when there are outtakes or, like at the end of Super 8, there was the movie the kids in the movie made. Most people stopped to watch and soon, whenever the movie was mentioned on FB or Twitter, I'd see suggestions to wait to watch the credits. 

Anyway, that was my intention. I think I'm going to move all of that stuff to my blog.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Atunah said:


> I don't have a progress bar on my Paperwhite and you are still hearing about it from me. . Not all kindles have a bar. Percentage and page numbers and locations are what some kindles have.


Ok. I wasn't familiar with all the ways progress is indicated. All I knew about was the progress bar. So I'll amend my statement to reflect the information you provided.

_"So I'd say the problem people express is the progress indication. If the progress indicator had a way of showing where the book ended, and also showed how much promotional material followed, everyone would have what they want. Likewise, if there was no progress indication, I doubt we would be hearing about this."_



> "And the problems is not the progress bar, or the percentage, the problem are large stuffing of books with extra things. In the case of the OP a full 1/3 of the book purchased. That is the issue."


From what people have written here, the issue appears to be surprise at finding the book ends while the progress indicator says a substantial amount of the file remanins ahead. If there is a some other issue, exactly what is it, and how does it manifest as a problem?


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## Flopstick (Jul 19, 2011)

I'm on the OP's side here. I find back-end samples as annoying as trailers at the cinema -- yes, there's a chance I might be interested in whatever's being advertised, but I didn't buy a ticket to 'bunch of advertisements'. At least in a book you can skip them, but it still seems disrespectful to put them in. From a writer's point of view, when the reader finishes the book I would rather they carry it around in their head for a while, rather than having it displaced by samples of other stuff.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Flopstick said:


> I'm on the OP's side here. I find back-end samples as annoying as trailers at the cinema...


I like movie trailers  The best one I saw was that Star Trek Into Darkness extended movie clip that went on and on last December when I went to see The Hobbit. I felt like it was almost worth the $$$ I paid for the IMAX 3D tickets which broke my piggy bank.

I use trailers to filter out movies I don't want to see. Much like the same way I use Amazon sampling to filter out books I don't want to read...


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Pearson Moore said:


> Swolf,
> 
> You may be right, and I may be 100% wrong. In the end, it's not you or me, but the readers who decide. I may believe I'm the most brilliant writer who's ever put pen to paper, but it's the readers who are empowered to decide the question, not me. Maybe a poorly-edited novel irks only 5% of readers. But if poor editing makes 20% of that 5% so angry that they leave one-star reviews, now I have 1% of all readers of my poorly-edited book leaving one-star reviews. If 50 pages of 'free samples' tick off more readers than those who enjoy the free samples, I've just lost more than I gained. It may be true that my 'free samples' tick off a vocal minority. Maybe the end result is that I gain more readers than I lose. Could be. Nevertheless, my bias remains to think of the reader first, and to exclude 'free samples' from all of my books, whether ebook or paperback. I may be losing out. I may be losing big time. Could be. In the end, though, it's up to readers to decide, and not for you or me. I hope whatever strategy you choose works very well for you, and I hope your sales only increase.


Which is why I said I listen to my readers, and so far, only one has complained about it. That's not enough for me to make a change, because as far as i know, there's a certain percentage who like my book links in the back, and don't take the time to post reviews about it.

So when you say you think about the reader first, you may be making an assumption about them that isn't true.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Atunah said:


> And the problems is not the progress bar, or the percentage, the problem are large stuffing of books with extra things. In the case of the OP a full 1/3 of the book purchased. That is the issue.


Technically, that's not true. They got the book they purchased. (Unless there was something misleading in the blurb.)

If a story is 100 pages long, and the book they buy is 130 pages, with 30 of that being extra stuff at the end, they're still getting their 100 page story. And since that last 30 can be easily ignored, I'm not seeing the problem.

Except, of course, for the progress bar (or whatever each model of ereader uses to let the reader know how much book is left.) That does cause a problem, but I'm still not convinced it's a show-stopper.

And, as I've pointed out, there is a positive side to large back matter for the readers, and that's larger samples. Maybe the reader wouldn't have even bought the book if the sample was too small.

So, to recap:

If we have a 100 page story:

Book is 100 pages long: Reader is happy
Book is 130 pages long: Reader has been ripped off somehow.

Sorry, as a reader myself, I just don't agree.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> " At least in a book you can skip them, but it still seems disrespectful to put them in."


Why can't we skip them in eBooks? I do it all the time. When I get to the end of the book, I just stop clicking the Page Turn button.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Flopstick said:


> I'm on the OP's side here. I find back-end samples as annoying as trailers at the cinema -- yes, there's a chance I might be interested in whatever's being advertised, but I didn't buy a ticket to 'bunch of advertisements'. At least in a book you can skip them, but it still seems disrespectful to put them in. From a writer's point of view, when the reader finishes the book I would rather they carry it around in their head for a while, rather than having it displaced by samples of other stuff.


See, now I love the trailers at the cinema.  In fact, I always make sure I get there in time to see them and get irritated at latecomers.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

Each of my series novels has the first chapter of the next novel added to the end.  The novels are 80,000 words, and the sample is around 2000 so I don't see that as a big intrusion on the reader's time.

On the other hand, my short stories vary from 2000 to 9000 words, and I don't add sample chapters to the end of those - just a list of works.


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## JShepard (Jul 9, 2013)

Interesting side note: Simpsons began as "back matter" for The Tracey Ullman Show. 

Just sayin'.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Atunah said:


> I don't have a progress bar on my Paperwhite and you are still hearing about it from me. . Not all kindles have a bar. Percentage and page numbers and locations are what some kindles have.
> 
> And the problems is not the progress bar, or the percentage, the problem are large stuffing of books with extra things. In the case of the OP a full 1/3 of the book purchased. That is the issue.


Thing is, there are three different issues here.

1) _Excessive_ advertising padding the book.
This is the OP's complaint and one I can get on board with. Someone adding a chapter from every book they've done has gone too far.

2) Backmatter causing the progress bar to lie.
This is the problem most people on this thread keep citing and that's not the fault of the authors, but the fault of the ereader itself. Authors and readers who enjoy extras shouldn't have to suffer because the progress bar sucks at its job.

3) Hating free extra stuff... on principal?
This is the one that is completely alien to me and is the one that took over the other thread. I cannot fathom why people think this. It is both alien and anathema to me both as a writer and as a reader AND as a nerd who has grown up with swag as part of his culture.


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2013)

Vaalingrade said:


> 3) Hating free extra stuff... on principal?
> This is the one that is completely alien to me and is the one that took over the other thread. I cannot fathom why people think this. It is both alien and anathema to me both as a writer and as a reader AND as a nerd who has grown up with swag as part of his culture.


I agree with you. I never said there should be nothing at the end. I don't want people taking my swag away, either!

But like many things, people have boiled it down to all-or-nothing when it is really a matter of balance and setting reader expectations. Don't just shove a bunch of junk in the bag with the product. Make sure the swag is something the customer would actually want and adds value to the product. Make sure the product description is clear and that reader expectations are taken into account. If you tell me the book is 200 pages, I expect 200 pages of story, not 170 pages and 30 pages of excerpts. Put the extras in the TOC so I have a visual clue that they are there to avoid the situation of the evil completion bar.

I also think we need to remember that a book excerpt is NOT a freebie. It is a commercial for another book. Just like a movie trailer is not a freebie but a commercial for another movie. If I buy a novel and you put three complete short stories at the end as bonus material, that is "free". If I buy a novel and you put three sample chapters from three different books at the end, those are commercials.


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## Steve Vernon (Feb 18, 2011)

You see, I recently read a freebie that had excerpts from about SIX other works and it irked the devil out of me.

I know that you can just skip over them.

I know that they didn't hurt the story.

I also know that I didn't pay a dime for the story.

But I still felt like I needed a shower after running into all of that self-promotion. 

I always have a little promotional material at the end of my e-books - but I keep it to ONE sample from ONE work.

It's like watching too many movie trailers - after the third or fourth trailer I've forgotten what movie it was that had looked so interesting in that first trailer and I've zoned out into a "maybe I ought to go and get a beer or maybe pop some popcorn or maybe train for a marathon..."

******

BUT - it's all a writer's choice. That's the beauty of the indie-business. You want to cram six samples into the back of your short story - GO TO IT!

We wanted to do things all the same we'd go back to dealing with publishers, now wouldn't we?


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## Flopstick (Jul 19, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Why can't we skip them in eBooks? I do it all the time. When I get to the end of the book, I just stop clicking the Page Turn button.


Sorry, I didn't distinguish between books and e-books, but that's what I was saying. You can, obviously.


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

Flopstick said:


> From a writer's point of view, when the reader finishes the book I would rather they carry it around in their head for a while, rather than having it displaced by samples of other stuff.


As a reader, I think you hit the nail on the head. When I finish a good book, all I want to do is savor the deliciousness of that ending and carry that world around for a little while. Sample chapters harsh my afterglow.


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