Book Descriptions and Broken Promises

crossed-fingers lying book descriptionRecently I was beta-reading a book for a friend. He had told me before I began reading that it was a “new-age thriller.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but it sounded intriguing, so I was all in. As I read, though, and the story unfolded, I kept looking for those thriller sequences but they were nowhere to be found. I found myself getting frustrated, wanting to get into the meat of the genre, but the narrative was taking its sweet time. Finally it became clear to me that this book was not a thriller. It had a very few thriller elements, but they actually only occurred in the last 10% of the book and they were not anywhere near the fast-paced, clock-ticking, heart-pounding sequences I was used to (and expected). While the book was good as far as it went, and well-written, it was decidedly miscategorized, and I told him so. Continue reading “Book Descriptions and Broken Promises”

How to Change Your Book’s Categories

iStock_000008515543XSmallRecently I had a problem with the Amazon categories for one of my novels. However, I didn’t realize it until the day my promotion started. I was listed in nonfiction. Ouch. It’s not the first time I’ve been put in the wrong category. Kids can be so mean sometimes. At least with an automated system, I’m willing to forgive a few errors. Amazon has been very nice about it—even though sometimes they’ve introduced new errors in the act of correcting the original ones—but eventually we’ve gotten things squared away. Continue reading “How to Change Your Book’s Categories”