Stalked by Flames: Book 1 (Dragon's Breath Series) by Susan
Illene is the first book that we're going to tackle on Why This Book Sells.
It's
ranked #185 Paid in the Kindle store, and here are it's category rankings:
• #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction
& Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
• #1 in Books > Science Fiction
& Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
• #2 in Books > Literature &
Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Dark Fantasy
Whenever I personally try and understand what's selling in any
given genre/niche/market, almost the first thing I do is check the book's
rankings in the overall store and in its categories.
This book, I found after just a minute or two of glancing around
and thought it would make a nice first case study, and not for any particular
reason.
Also, it appears to be indie. We don't always have to
discuss indie pubbed books, but I think generally it's a good method to use.
But that's up for discussion, of course.
I'm going to focus my comments mostly on the blurb, because I
think it's a good blurb, without being perfect And that's illustrative in
its own right. As for the cover and title, I'll leave it to other
commenters to give some opinions.
The book is 3.99 and page count on Amazon lists it at 393 pages.
It's also enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program.
Blurb:
Bailey Monzac has just graduated
college and is heading to her parents’ ranch for the summer when dragons
invade. Like something out of her worst nightmare, the fire-breathing beasts
rain down chaos and devastation on unsuspecting human populations. One minute
Bailey’s planning her future; the next she’s merely trying to survive.
But it isn’t long before she discovers
she’s different from the people around her—the dragons’ destructive flames
don’t affect her. That gives her an edge, but it also means she’ll become a
target for powerful individuals seeking to use her to their advantage. Bailey
will have to distinguish between allies and enemies quickly as she gets drawn
into a war unlike anything the Earth has seen before.
Word count: 101,000
(approximate)
The blurb for Stalked by Flames is pretty fantastic.
I
think one of its main strengths has to be 1) the opening line and 2) how short
the blurb is.
This is a fairly long book (at over 100k words) and yet the
author was able to distill the entire plot down into two main paragraphs!
That's quite a feat in and of itself.
But merely having a short blurb isn't enough. It has to be
interesting.
So let's have a look at what works so well, and why it might be
leading to
such high sales numbers, allowing this author to reach the top of
the Amazon paid list.
The first sentence really nails things, imo.
Bailey Monzac has just graduated
college and is heading to her parents’ ranch for the summer when dragons
invade.
What's amazing here, is that we've
just achieved like half a dozen major goals with this one sentence.
We established who the protagonist is, that she's female, and that she's
young.
Remember, this isn't only about telling the story, it's also about
indicating to your intended audience that this book is for them.
By scrolling down to the categories that this book has been
allotted to (at the bottom of the page on Amazon's site), we can see this:
Look for Similar Items by Category
If you notice, one of the main categories of this book is new
adult and college (as well as fantasy, etc). So in telling us the
protagonist's age right away, those who are looking for books featuring younger
characters will instantly be interested in this one.
The next thing the opening line does is establish the action.
Dragons invade.
This is big.
It didn't spend three sentences telling us about
how Bailey was going home after college and didn't want to get home, or couldn't wait to get home, or anything
like that.
Instead, the blurb hits us instantly with the idea that dragons start
invading.
This immediately fills our minds with images of fire and
destruction.
In the second paragraph, the blurb smartly outlines what makes
Bailey's journey unique. She could have just been any person trying to
survive the dragons and their reign of terror. However, it once again
intrigues with the simply stated concept that the flames for some reason don't
affect her the way they do everyone and everything else.
And finally, although we know that a book of this length likely
has many complex twists and turns and more characters, it ends with this line:
Bailey will have to distinguish
between allies and enemies quickly as she gets drawn into a war unlike anything
the Earth has seen before.
My opinion on a big piece of why this book is selling?
It's got a clean, fast-paced blurb with great hooks, and it doesn't confuse
you with the twists and turns and multiple characters that the book surely contains.
It gives us just enough to gather our interest, but not enough to make us hesitate with our purchasing decision.
I'm sure there's a lot more to discuss, since it seems this
author has other books and has established a fan base.
But even with that
being said, a book doesn't sell unless it does things right.
This book does a lot right. I'd love to hear what you all
think in the comments. Feel free to discuss not just the book's blurb, but anything that you're interested in talking about with regards to the cover, title, first pages, branding, genre...questions or comments are all welcome.
Check out the newest post up for consideration now!
