Question about Samples

estateconnection

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Hello there. For those of you who publish on Smashwords, do you opt-in to provide samples and at what percentage? Just wondering what your experiences were and the pros and cons
 

movieman

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If you don't put at least a 20% sample up then I doubt anyone is going to buy your book.

There are several ebooks I considered buying on Smashwords only to find that either they didn't have a sample at all or the sample was only 5% of the book so all it contained was the blurb and two pages of actual writing (if that). I'm not going to buy a book from an unknown author if I can't read enough of it to work out whether they're able to competently write a worthwhile story.
 

girlyswot

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Yes. I'd say put up as much as you can. I recently started reading an ebook sample. Didn't enjoy the first few pages but by the time the sample ended in chapter 6 I was totally hooked. You've got nothing to lose by putting up a decent length sample - anyone who enjoys the book will want to read the rest.
 

efkelley

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I set mine at 15% since that put them right at the end of chapter 2, which is a nice cliffhanger, and still got them about 16k words. I figure that's enough for someone to know whether or not they'll like the book.
 

movieman

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I set mine at 15% since that put them right at the end of chapter 2, which is a nice cliffhanger, and still got them about 16k words. I figure that's enough for someone to know whether or not they'll like the book.

True: there's a good argument for tweaking the sample size to leave the reader with a good reason to want to read more :).
 

Deirdre

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One full chapter's generally enough for me. For works not divided into chapters, about 20 pages of prose.
 

efkelley

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True: there's a good argument for tweaking the sample size to leave the reader with a good reason to want to read more :).

True. The book is 114k, so I didn't feel too bad about getting them close to that 20%, but still leaving it at 'What happens next??' If the book were shorter, or if the cliffhanger had ended at chapter 3, then I'd have given them as much as needed.
 

James D. Macdonald

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I feel that the sample should be as large as possible. Even if everything's up but the last page, the writing should be so compelling that people will pay $5.00 (or whatever) to get that last page.
 

estateconnection

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Thank you all for your replies...I'm new to this. Mine are at 20% as well. One of my shorts is 35%. Had some downloads but no buys. But that's another conversation. ;)