A thread about promoting your book on Twitter. I keep seeing books advertised really badly on Twitter. And I used to work in marketing, so here are a few thoughts.

I've seen many book tweets this evening that follow this formula:

"Jake looked at the dragon."
Book 1 of the Glob'rhn'roak Wars Chronicle
<cover pic>

That tweet tells me NOTHING. I don't give a crap who Jake or the Glob'rhn'roak are. All you're doing is throwing words at me (some of which I can't even pronounce). If I'm going to buy your book, I'm going to need more than that.

Give me a reason to care. I have no reason to care about your made-up society, and calling it a chronicle, saga, song, or whatever does not lend it gravitas. It just makes it blend into the billion other books out there with similar titles.

Instead, tell me the theme. Ask me a question. Make it personal.

Who do you save when your world ends?
What do you do when your brother murders your father?
If you had a magic sword, who would you kill first?
How do you know your lover isn't a monster?

These questions are infinitely more engaging than "Read the first book of the Ghal'hkl'hoofenfroofen Chronicles."

Because here's the tough truth: At this stage, as readers, we don't care about your intricate worldbuiding. We don't care if Count Brazen has annexed the marshlands. We don't care about the fate of the Roxxxxxiean Empire. What we want to know is...

What are we going to get out of reading this book? Why should we spend out $$ and our time? Don't throw names at us, give us something that hooks us in - and trust me, some random out-of-context sentence isn't going to cut it.

So stop with all the Chronicles stuff. Give us a title that stands out. Give us a hook we can't resist. Don't tell us about your story, tell us why we should be reading it. What is it going to do for us?

In product marketing terms, don't list the features of the product, entice us with its benefits.

And just to put my money where my mouth is, here's my pitch for my novel, EMBERS OF WAR...

How can you put the past behind you when you've done something unforgivable? Three years ago, the starship Trouble Dog took part in a war crime. Now she's searching for forgiveness. A nail-biting new space opera series from the BSFA Award-winning author, Gareth L. Powell.

Yes, I should have included a link on that last tweet in that thread. So, for those of you who are curious:

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Embers-War-Gareth-L-Powell/dp/1785655183 …

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Embers-War-Gareth-L-Powell/dp/1785655183 …