what does it take to catch readers attention?

[Ellie]

A friend and I finished our first book of a series. Its young adult fantasy and scifi and were hoping to get it published. But were curious. What catches your attention when it comes to new books and stories?

[froy]

To be honest, I read books when other famous authors give it a good review or when it is recommended for another's books fandom. For example, I read Enclave because on the cover it says, "For fans of the Hunger Games", and I must say, it was a great book! I'm not saying to go as low as to call it "The New Twilight" or "The New Hunger Games", because I know it probably wasn't your intention to make it exactly like a certain book, but just recommend it to a similar book's fandom. Hope I helped, and good luck with your book. If you get it published, let us know what it's called!

[Ellie]

Thanks. I most certainly will! Its name for the time being is Windows and its gonna be a trilogy. The first is Windows: Looking Through. Were gonna send it to a few agents in January. Hopefully you'll hear about it someday.

[kait]

See, I go for the opposite! I don't want a book to be compared to anything else I've read. I want it to be original!

If this is only your first draft, you should get opinions from close family and friends. Preferably people who aren't afraid to tell you if there's something in the story that they don't like or understand. No book is perfect, especially in the first draft, so critiques will always be helpful. With that feedback in mind, do some more revisions to make your initial readers happy!

I've never taken part in it myself, but I've heard that the cycle of agents and publishers can be BRUTAL. You just have to keep chugging along and trying your best. Hopefully, some of them will give you really great feedback along the way.

[Flo Odair-Zabini-Jackson]

Honestly? Just give it an incredible cover and an incredibly dramatic blurb. Give free posters to libraries so they can put them up on the walls, and people will walk past and go 'ooooohhh, pretty!' Give talks at schools, tell them it's going to be about how to persue your dreams, but just talk about how they should read your book the whole time. I uh...hope this helps! XD good luck!!

[Reenie]

What catches my attention with books is a combination of the cover and the title//info on in the inside of the cover.

[magnakitty]

If the front cover is good, then I will check it out. Ive stayed away from otherwise interesting books just because the cover creeps me out.

The story has to sound interesting. For instence, I have one book I'm fond of called the girl who could fly. WHat interested me was on the front cover. "The oddest sweetest mix of little House on the Prairie and X-men." A combination that strange had me hooked into checking it out. As a personal preference, I tend to stay away from books that explicitly state romance in the cover or summary. Too many romantic books out there, and they all state the same thing. Boring.

Do something thats new. Something to keep me going from beginning to end that isnt predictable.

[Kaly]

I have an order through which I choose the books read. First is the title, if it is something that catches my attention and makes me want to know more. Next is whatever short description it has, if it seems to tell most of the plot, I'm turned off, if it cuts off before revealing any plot points, it's good. Also - I especially love books where, instead of a short description, it has a short quote or passage from the text, so I can see if the author's direct words from the book will intrigue me to read on. Then I usually open the book and read the first 3-5 pages, if I want to keep reading, then I do.

Also, I have several close friends who are recently published authors and many of them often recommend doing e-publishing (i.e. publishing and releasing the novel as an e-book before printing the paper books) to save money and use the early buzz to estimate what the demand for the paper books would be.

Hope this helps!

[ZAR!squeeee!!!!]

I choose it off the cover

then i read the title and the blurb ,

if it sounds like my sort of book - i'll read the first page or so ad if it still appeals to me i'll take it home

Good luck with your book!!!

impressive that you wrote it , me and my bestie were thinking of doing something like that - but being inspired is hard!

[finnicklover]

I HATE how people say its the next this like argued about above.
There is no such thing as the next something?! Its just another best seller.

Plus these days most of the books are Vampire series or paranormal beings.
It is really starting to get old and boring in my opinion...

So that does not catch my attention!

Yes... I love the Mortal Instruments series and it does have paranormal creatures in it but thats an exception