Cover for In the Shadow of Angels

The First Ten Focus Group Feedback for In the Shadow of Angels

Because In the Shadow of Angels was Book of the Day, some of our most trusted members have carefully looked over the cover, the description, and other aspects of this book as a part of purchase-intent focus group. We then asked each participant in the focus group if they planned to buy and read the book, and why they planned to buy and read the book or not. Their answer to that question and reasons are displayed below. We call this awesome feature The First Ten Focus Group.

Keep in mind, the responses from the members are not reviews. This is purchase-intent focus group which means the participants are people who have NOT yet bought or read your book. A purchase-intent focus group is an important and extremely useful marketing tool for any product, not just books. For other products, you might walk on the street and show people an item in a package and poll them about whether they would buy if or $X or not. These kind of focus groups are one of the ways big marketing companies find the ideal price points for products and test the effectiveness of different packaging. The focus group can help you identify your market so you how to target ads of your book, and it can (but may not) provide you new useful info about your "packaging" (e.g. your book cover, your book synopsis on Amazon, etc.). The point of the focus group comments is to give you information from people who have not bought or read your book about why they plan to buy your book which will help you in marketing the book. These are not reviews or critiques of your book because they are not from people have read the book. This is a marketing tool, not reviews. The trick of book marketing and book advertising is that you have to convince people who have not read your book yet that your book is worth buying and reading. For marketing, it doesn't matter much if people love your book after reading it if you cannot convince potential buyers before they read it that they will love it.

IMPORTANT: Any score over 10% is considered very good. And any score above 0% is acceptable. This is because we only poll about 20 or so readers, and all readers have to say "no" to almost all books. Over a million books are published each year. Even a very active reader cannot come close to even reading 1% of books out there.

This is also why publishing books is such a tough industry.

MarisaRose

106960
'In the Shadow of Angels' caught my interest when I first heard about the book. I love thrillers and this one has many positive reviews that further made the book enticing. After sampling the beginning of the book I was intrigued most by the writing. The author has a wonderful way with words. I was drawn into the story from the very beginning. There is certainly an eerie feel to the narrative right from the start. I found myself reading far beyond the beginning ten pages required for this program! There was not anything I disliked in the beginning sample; I did not notice any editorial errors either. I look forward to finishing the book!

First Ten review added on April 18, 2017, at 8:05 am by MarisaRose.
Do you plan to read the whole book? Yes!

Cjgarland89

72859
At first glance I figured I would want to read this book. I love dark thrillers and this seemed to be a perfect fit. The OBC review wasn't too great but it did peak my interest even more. After sampling the book my opinion remains that I want to read this one. It's very dark and dreary from the beginning and gives the reader a good prologue to get the feel.

First Ten review added on April 18, 2017, at 6:26 am by Cjgarland89.
Do you plan to read the whole book? Yes!

jungkookblog

92866
I don't think I will be reading this book because it doesn't seem to fit in my preference of books and the plot seems very confusing. It doesn't seem like the plot will be connecting together. I will not be reading this book because the first ten pages did not seem to catch my attention. It wasn't really filled with action, instead it was more of a soft flow. It seems professionally edited. I did not see any review, and I don't think that would affect my decision.

First Ten review added on April 18, 2017, at 1:25 am by jungkookblog.
Do you plan to read the whole book? No

Annelore Trujillo

97769
I might have sampled this book based on the genre and the OBC review. I wasn't a big fan of the cover, but I try not to judge a book on how it looks. After reading the first ten pages, I won't be finishing this book. I thought there was a lot of description of the setting, but not as much on what was going on. This made the pacing seem a bit slow. Other people might like the description, but it didn't really pull me in. It did seem to be professionally edited.

First Ten review added on April 18, 2017, at 12:52 am by Annelore Trujillo.
Do you plan to read the whole book? No

James Craft

108171
This one seems like something I would like and definitely something I am interested in checking out. The cover managed to catch my attention, though the orange was a little bit off-putting. That being said, the book itself looks great and I have to say I am impressed with the quality of it. The opening read very smoothly and was enticing, but right now I just have too many other books to read to give this one a try. Maybe sometime in the future.

First Ten review added on April 17, 2017, at 12:24 pm by James Craft.
Do you plan to read the whole book? No

jamesabr

117324
The historical lesson that I read from the sampling, along with Jezebel's introduction, was fascinating. If I were not a part of the First Ten program, I would have sampled this book because of the positive review it received on Online Book Club and the Facebook blurb. I read the sample easily because the word choice and imagery connected together smoothly. My favorite part was the part of the Prologue that detailed Beatrice's crafting of thirteen angels for her dead husband, the namesake of Ashwood Grove (later just Ashwood). I enjoyed the sampling enough to purchase and continue reading it. There were no typos or grammatical errors.

First Ten review added on April 17, 2017, at 11:50 am by jamesabr.
Do you plan to read the whole book? Yes!

Amagine

138242
The prologue immediately caught my attention. It was interesting. The author provided background information on the town in a way that isn't boring to readers. When I read sample of chapter 1, I found it intriguing that there was a character named Jezebel coming out of church. It made me a little curious about her character.

First Ten review added on April 17, 2017, at 12:18 am by Amagine.
Do you plan to read the whole book? No

Pilar Guerrero

125187
The book cover goes well with the story, it looks professional, and the choice of colors helps to remember the book. The description in the prologue is well done, it creates the right atmosphere for the rest of the story. The dialogues among the male friends are funny and authentic. One thing I noticed that I did not like was the grammatical errors, besides the typos. I think this book deserves a proffesional editing. I downloaded the copy from Amazon and I plan to read it in the future.

First Ten review added on April 16, 2017, at 10:08 pm by Pilar Guerrero.
Do you plan to read the whole book? Yes!

AA1495

104697
Had I not sampled the book, I wouldn't have read it. I usually read romance books. Having read the sample, my opinion remains. From the OBC and Amazon reviews, the book seems interesting. However, I found the writing a little formal. I found no obvious grammatical errors. The book has a favorable onlinebookclub review. Since I do not read the genre usually, I will not be reading the book further.

First Ten review added on April 16, 2017, at 9:11 pm by AA1495.
Do you plan to read the whole book? No

Scerakor

45879
The blurb, cover, and official OBC review were all very attractive and by these alone, especially with the review, I may have picked up the book. After reading the first ten pages, I did not change my mind and do think I will finish reading the book eventually. There seems to be a complex plot with a variety of characters and an that all come together in an interesting way. I really liked the prologue and the background story definitely sets the stage for the book. Although the book does seem professionally edited and written, I did find at least one error in the first part of the book (missing period): "...design was common to churches of the era It was constructed of red brick with a sharp-peaked..." The official OBC review was complimentary but did not affect my decision to read the book later at all.

First Ten review added on April 16, 2017, at 7:31 pm by Scerakor.
Do you plan to read the whole book? Yes!

CrescentMoon

56447
This sounds like a really interesting book. I love mystery and suspense and I really like the eye catching cover of this book. I don't think I have the time to read this book but that's the only reason why I can't finish it. Otherwise I would think most suspense lovers would enjoy the book.

First Ten review added on April 16, 2017, at 6:28 pm by CrescentMoon.
Do you plan to read the whole book? No

Catherine Hsu

104096
If I had not read the sample, I would not have read the book. I do not think it is in my genre. After reading the sample, I have changed my mind. I thought the writing was very interesting, especially the anecdotal style of the prologue. The official review made me want to read it, although I am hesitant about the amount of grammatical errors. I also saw the book trailer on Facebook. It looked interesting.

First Ten review added on April 16, 2017, at 5:11 pm by Catherine Hsu.
Do you plan to read the whole book? Yes!

Christina O Phillips

127531
The title nor the summary made the book sound interesting to me. I read the first ten pages and saw that the prologue talks about the past of the town, then to the un-creatively named Jezebel to the main character Devin and his wife Beth. It was not poorly written, but was just not interesting enough for me to want to keep reading.

First Ten review added on April 16, 2017, at 3:59 pm by Christina O Phillips.
Do you plan to read the whole book? No

Sarah_Khan

89585
I like the title of this novel and I also appreciated the short book trailer. I thought the blurb was adequately written and the online book club review made me excited to start reading.
I was pleasantly surprised while reading the first ten pages. The author's style of writing immediately drew me in, and I liked the details of the town. The premise itself is intriguing and considering the author provided this book for free today, I have downloaded it and look forward to reading the rest.

First Ten review added on April 16, 2017, at 2:57 pm by Sarah_Khan.
Do you plan to read the whole book? Yes!

ananya92

65409
The story begins with Devin, a successful lawyer, who heads out to celebrate another success with his mistress. The problem is that his wife, Bethany, also happens to be there at the same place, at the same time, and she is not the only one. The book is quite fast paced and exciting. Like many other thrillers, this one too starts with a murder, but here the storyline shifts gear to portray how ordinary people can commit despicable acts, when confronted with a difficult situation. Though I was impressed with the adrenaline charged plot line, the amount of grammatical errors was quite disappointing. Also, initially the plot seems slightly nebulous, but the confusion clears pretty soon. The review and description were quite interesting, and the review was spot-on about the poor editing. Despite the last bit, this book has sufficiently intrigued me, so I'll give it a try.

First Ten review added on April 16, 2017, at 11:54 am by ananya92.
Do you plan to read the whole book? Yes!

This book appears to have been Book of the Day more than once. Only responses from the most recent Book of the Day focus group are shown. Older responses have been hidden by default to avoid confusion. If you would like to also view the older first ten responses, you can unhide them by clicking the button below.

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Total ~ 53%

In the Shadow of Angels earned a score of 53%.

In other words, out of the top-level reviewers who read at least the first 10 pages of this book, 53% plan to read the whole book.

IMPORTANT: Any score over 10% is considered very good. And any score above 0% is acceptable.

Over a million books are published each year. Any given person could not even read .0001% of the books out there. This means readers have to be very selective. Even taking the time to look over reviews and blurbs, let alone read samples, is more time than most readers can afford for most books. The First Ten is a powerful focus group that addresses those issues. It creates a helpful tool for authors, publishers, and other readers.

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