Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
In the case of the "bad" example Harry gave above, isn't that fact that it's Norwegian police procedural crime fiction written by an ex police chief sufficient to make a go/no go decision?
How much about the plot do you need to see in a paragraph? What are the chances the particular detail that would really turn you on or off about the book would end up there any way?
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Harry's example is not the worst I've seen. I've seen several with literally no information about the book other than some random people on the internet liked it. Typically of course I can't find then now.
I guess this is slightly specific to the use case. There are several authors where simply "a book by X" is enough for me to buy. Or possibly "a book by X at 99p". But when you've looking through a list of bargains and have a genre, a title and a cover and nothing else and you click on a few hoping to find more details and you find you have to click again to actually find out more, it's annoying.
In a lot of cases the customer reviews are actually more helpful because there are people trying to write a proper review with an intro to the plot.
But even with the one Harry gave, it's hardly unique is it? The "Nordic Noir" sub-genre is not exactly a sparse field. You'd think the author/publisher would want to give me enough information to see why theirs is particularly unique. Despite my analogy, I don't buy books like cans of beans. They're not quite that interchangeable.