Quote:
Originally Posted by mr ploppy
It would say the opposite to me. Anyone can make a short sample good enough to sucker people in and then not bother too much with the rest. So the more they are giving away, the more confident they are.
|
It's not *just* about hooking anybody; the purpose of a *free* sample is to show off the quality of the product. It should be as much as needed to achieve that and no more. Otherwise, you're really doing the "crippleware" version of shareware.
A good short sample will highlight the prose, the dialogue style, a transition or two. Just to show that, while the writer may not be a known quantity, they *can* write. One or two chapters can achieve that. So why offer up more? (And why link it to price?) The risk to the buyer is never in what you see, but what you don't see. A story can tank in the 12th chapter as easily as in the 4th (more often, in fact) so the longer sample is still no guarantee of a quality product.
I see no reason to go long unless you really don't think short is good enough to sell the product and that right there triggers all sorts of alarms for *me*.
YMMV, of course.