I subscribe to the Bookbub newsletter, which delivers a daily list of bargain-priced ebooks covering any genres you highlight as your favorites. It’s a handy way to find the occasional bestseller for cheap, but better still for finding new authors with minimal financial risk. I’ve started reading several new authors, so can recommend at least checking it out.
This post is not about the Bookbub newsletter.
Rather, it’s about the coveted ad space that appears at the bottom of the newsletter. This is where authors can highlight their efforts and reach a potentially wide market.
Most of the ads are new, but I’ve seen a few repeats. This is about one of them. It is a bad ad.
Here it is:
Why is it a bad ad?
The image of a young woman with blood splattered on her face and finger is obviously meant to be provocative, but something about it just screams stock photo. Visually, I find it dull. I guess the story is about a murderer?
There’s no description of the story, not even a pithy little blurb or one of those mash-up quotes. “It’s Jaws meets the Stepford Wives!”
There’s no title. What is this story called? Beats me. You have to click the link (where does it go?) to find out. But why would I? If the author can’t be bothered to even include the title of their own novel, how much should I care about it?
The quotes feel a little too selective. “Evocative of Stephen King” sounds positive, but for all I know the rest of the quote could be, “but fails to match the horror master’s craftsmanship.”
Also, the author expects people to know what KU is. I do, because I’ve been a longtime Bookbub subscriber, have read up on self-publishing and am familiar with Kindle Unlimited. But what about someone who is new to Bookbub? I’ll concede this part may be aimed at a more specific segment of the Bookbub readership.
This ad has come up a few times and I have yet to click on it. I was tempted to for this post, but still couldn’t be bothered enough. It’s a mystery, but not one I care to solve.
It is a bad ad.
UPDATE: But it is also a ubiquitous ad, as it ran for the next week in the Book Bub newsletter. This prompted me to finally click the link and discover that I had actually checked out the book before, then forgotten about it. I don’t blame the book for this, just my addled mind.
It’s called The Demon King and the basic plot reads a lot like Stephen King’s IT, which is where they “evocative of King” quote likely comes from. It’s also the first book of three in something called “The Bloodletters Collection”, is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars on amazon.ca, and costs $4.25 in Canada thanks to our lowly Canadian dollar. Each book appears to be longer than the previous, also evocative of King. The price is fine, but I ain’t committing to a trilogy from an author I’ve never read that spans over 2,000 print pages. But I’ll probably remember it now.
