7 ms·

My novel doesn't. I don't know why. The few people who have read it really like it, so I believe it's not that it sucks. But I've tried ads, promo services who

• andi999 5y ago
  Did any of the few people who read and liked it recommend it to somebody else. If no, why not.
• SquibblesRedux 5y ago
  "There is no shortage of wonderful writers. What we lack is a dependable mass of readers." - Kurt Vonnegut [1] [1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Conversations_with_Kurt_Vonnegut/bLQeOR_m2YMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=There+is+no+shortage+of+wonderful+writers.+What+we+lack+is+a+dependable+mass+of+readers.&pg=PA194&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/Conversations_with_Kurt...
• ASalazarMX 5y ago
  Maybe because it's a nazi-themed thriller? Nazi fiction has always been about USA (good) vs Hitler (evil), but this millennium has shown how evil our own governments can be. Nowadays we commoners understand wars are not for fighting evil, but for gaining geopolitical and economical control. The theme doesn't inspire hope anymore. Disclaimer: I'm just a dumb casual reader.
• koboll 5y ago
  >Is it the cover? It's absolutely the cover, yes. The photography, the fire effect, the composition, the typography choice, and the 'shine' effect on the text all scream low quality.
  • Freak_NL 5y ago
    Reading a couple of pages using Amazon's preview feature… It might not be just the cover (which, in a more positive light, does seem like it allows one to judge the book by it).
    • 5tefan 5y ago
      Agreed. Writing is very hard. This is simple and repetitive in style. It is a writing style I would expect from fast paced. I came to see this as a warning sign. Didn't get through the sample and stopped reading. On the other hand I haven't written a novel. Keep up your work.
    • ggambetta 5y ago
      If I'm reading this correctly, you mean "the text is equally low quality"? I appreciate the honest feedback.
      • 5tefan 5y ago
        Feels like a staccato of names. Werner, Hans, Bauer, Lange and others all over the place. "Hans helped Werner carry Bauer" caught my eye and most sentences start with a name. Of course it was dark and foggy as well. Lots of adjectives I wouldn't miss if they'd be gone (complete silence, absolute blackness). Also felt no sense of direction or what these guys were even up to. That is easy critique from a reader. My writing covers e-mails and stuff.
      • Freak_NL 5y ago
        'Low quality' is subjective, and it's easy to criticise as a reader (because you know when something doesn't work), but it is hard to provide good feedback (because it's hard to convert that feeling into the concrete points of why it doesn't work). 5tefan noted a few issues I agree with. There is a lot happening there, but you're not giving the reader much to hold on to. Bauer getting shot by the SS officer is a means to establish his ruthlessness, but at this point the reader doesn't have much to actually care about poor Bauer — perhaps I could care a little if he shared a piece of chocolate with Werner at a stop earlier and related a short anecdote about his bucolic yet blissful childhood in the Rheinland-Pfalz helping at his uncle's vineyard (note that I am not a writer, this may not be good advice). The execution scene also feels overwrought. Lange seems to care about fulfilling his mission above all, and time seems of the essence, so why would this ruthless man waste time on a nobody like Bauer? He might as well have kicked him aside, sending him tumbling down into a ditch and left for dead and thrust the torch into Werner's hands (or perhaps his right-hand goon would have done so automatically) with a good deal of «Verdammt noch mal!» leaving the fatigued Wehrmacht privates and non-coms to carry on, unable to disobey their leader and leaving poor Bauer to his lot. Also, starting with 'Alps' is like saying 'Texas'; it's a huge area spanning eight countries, and at this stage of the war it matters where they (roughly) are. I would expect something like 'Alps, somewhere near Saalfelden' or less specific 'The Bavarian Alps'. I can't say if the story itself is good or bad (it has something of an Agatha Christie feel in terms of plot, which is not a bad vibe to have), but your prose looks like it needed a stern professional editor. Did you have one or did you rely solely on test reader feedback? Bear in mind that by writing and actually publishing a novel you are already a better writer than I am (a mere humble reader), and anything you'll write after this will likely be better than what you've written before.
• drknownuffin 5y ago
  The cover and intro blurb look like airport fiction. Which ... is a reliably good seller, so if it's well written on top of that, I've got no clue why it's not selling.
  • ggambetta 5y ago
    To be fair, "action fiction" is exactly what I was aiming to write.
    • drknownuffin 5y ago
      I wasn't trying to make a barbed comment, I just couldn't think of another label to put on it.
• rikroots 5y ago
  From the article: > The first thing that writers need to understand is that book sales — like advances — are all over the place. This is true even for individual authors. It’s not unheard of for an author to get roughly similar critical acclaim for their first three novels, yet have them sell 10k, 100k, and 10k respectively. Publishing is full of luck, timing, and unpredictable trends. This is, in my experience, entirely true[1]. If your novel is not selling a hundred thousand copies a year then it doesn't mean it's not a very good book. It just means that the 'word-of-mouth' chatter between readers (which is, in my personal view, by far the biggest driver of book sales) was concentrated around somebody else's novel at the time you were publishing and promoting your novel. [1] I commented about my own lucky book adventure a couple of years back on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20549429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20549429
• handrous 5y ago
  Size-of-market may be a factor. All the money seems to be in romance/porn novels (if self publishing) and YA (with a traditional publisher).
• Zababa 5y ago
  I'll preface this by saying that I don't want to be mean and just give you honest feedback. I haven't read either of your books and just looked at the amazon page you linked, look at the cover and read the blurb for The Golden Seed, and looked at https://gabrielgambetta.com/computer-graphics-from-scratch/ https://gabrielgambetta.com/computer-graphics-from-scratch/, looked at the cover, skimmed the table of contents and read the paragraph under the title. This is of course entirely personal feedback based on how I feel about both of your books. For "The Golden Seed", both the cover and the blurb seem "too much", like the kind of book you encounter by the dozen in a bookstore. It's also a fiction book, which appeals less to me because I can either ask people in my family for recommendations (there are a few big readers) and then have something to talk about, or read well-known books (for example, I've read The Three-Body Problem recently, after hearing about it 4 or 5 times here and really liked it). On the other hand, Computer Graphics from Scratch attracts me more: its cover is in the same style as "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python", of which I've heard great things about; the "from scratch" appeals to me because I like the idea of building things from scratch; the table of contents has an entire part on raytracing, and the book seems oriented at beginners, which I like because I previously tried and failed to build a raytracer following the raytracer in one weekend project, and I think I could achieve it with this book. It's a technical book, which I'll value more because it feels like I'm building a skill. I also have a friend that made a few graphics experiments as a hobby and this could be a great conversation topic. Again, this is very personal feedback but I hope it can help you understand why some people might buy one and not the other.
• emeraldd 5y ago
  My first thought, write another one ... second thought, have you looked at Pod casting? Scott Sigler, J. C. Hutchins, and Nathan Lowell all seem to have made some progress that way.
• ehutch79 5y ago
  The name. Unless you're writing some fantasy breeding erotica? The nazi imagery, even in a negative light isn't the best idea. The blurb is fine. just fine though. It's a different skill than writing fiction, closer to writing marketing copy.
  • ggambetta 5y ago
    You're not the first to comment on the name, and I can't see the implication there. Perhaps because English is not my native language? Sounds completely innocent to me :(
    • Natsu 5y ago
      > You're not the first to comment on the name, and I can't see the implication there. Seed is a slang term for semen. The cover has nothing at all related to plants and instead looks like spy stuff, where you expect a fair bit of sex due to the genre (e.g. Bond girls like Dr. Goodhead or Pussy Galore), which is what tips the interpretation towards sexual innuendo. Also, it doesn't help that it feels like a reference to some Bond film names that were also sexual innuendo, e.g. the Man with the Golden Gun, where gun also means penis. I hope this helps your understanding of English, I know how hard it is to learn other languages and you write well enough that I would not have guessed that English was not your first language.
      • TheCoelacanth 5y ago
        Seed is not only a slang term for semen, but a literal translation of the word.
    • FalconSensei 5y ago
      Congrats on actually writing it on English! From someone that's also ESL, I know how hard it is to write decently. In the end, I think that can be part of the problem. In another comment, someone mentioned that they wouldn't have guessed English is not your native language. But passing as a native speaker is one thing, passing as a good native writer is another. But I hope you keep writing and keep evolving!
• watt 5y ago
  I did read the first page. The rhythm of sentences seems simplistic, words too short, sentences too short. Too much telling, not enough showing.
  • ggambetta 5y ago
    Fair enough, thank you.
• tomasdore 5y ago
  Maybe you're being too hard on yourself? I mean your expectations may be too high? It has good reviews there, and seems pretty creditable. I liked the first chapter, which I've just read. I think I'd be happy with it. Lots of famous authors have written many more books than the books they are known for. And those are the famous ones! The attrition rate is high. In your situation, I would seek to find out what 'normal' is and then I'd measure myself against that.
• klelatti 5y ago
  First of all, well done on getting this far. I've had several goes at writing a book and never got this far. Writing a book is really hard! Some brief feedback though on the first chapter. I thought the writing style was fine for this genre but I didn't really understand what it was that would make me move onto the next chapter. I wonder if you're holding back just a bit too much of what is so special about the content of the trucks. Maybe it just needs a bit more to draw the reader in?
• deleted 5y ago
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• pg_bot 5y ago
  The name stinks, and the cover stinks. I'll introduce you to my version of the "Golden Rule". If a business or product has the word "gold" in it, it's garbage. Unless you are mining/selling gold or the Golden State Warriors (with Stephen Curry) avoid that word like the plague.
• pdevr 5y ago
  Among a list of covers, your cover loses out. It looks like a blanket on fire in a Nazi guy's bedroom. The title or cover doesn't convey what "Golden Seed" is supposed to mean - nor does the description. What kind of marketing did you do to make sure it is seen by people? On a side note: Congrats on the Computer Graphics book.
• Denzel 5y ago
  Allow me to give a counterpoint to the feedback on your book. It’s not the type of book I’d read, but the cover actually looks cool / interesting / professional to me. The first chapter was moderately engaging, much more so than what I’d expect from an amateur writer or college student. I can see why some people might feel it’s simplistic, but it doesn’t feel objectively “bad” to me. I’m surprised and inspired you were able to write two books in two wildly different genres while being a SWE. Also surprised that did this while English isn’t your first language. You’re putting yourself out there and being vulnerable in a lot of different ways, and I applaud you for that. Your work ethic isn’t unnoticed by me. I’d say please keep it up, I think you should continue writing and honing your craft. You’re off to a great start!
• RobertRoberts 5y ago
  One key problem see is your blurb says "twist ending"... You already ruined some of your book with me. Maybe the whole thing at a fundamental level.
• ylem 5y ago
  FWIW, this was actually in my wish List on Amazon, so I will eventually get around to buying it. I have Amazon unlimited, so I don't know how much this will help you--the book's description caught my eye and I think it came up as a recommendation. I'll write a review when I get around to reading it (I have some other books in the queue). Good luck!