The First Ten Focus Group Feedback for Final Chance
Because Final Chance 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.
Stellah Chege
The book brings out the possible devastation that the world might face in coming years. It is strategically focusing on climate change and possible future inventions to help the human race deal with the calamities that may ensue. What I loved about the book in the first ten pages was the detailed description of events. The author obviously has good background knowledge of accounts of events and the effects of climate change. Bringing up this conversation is very important with our changing world. What I do not like about the book was the exaggeration of possible calamities. I want to hope that the human race will adjust before it is too late. I would have read the book based on the OBC review that I had read. The book's cover however indicated a political kind of book which put me off. After sampling the first ten pages, they confirmed to me that this is not my genre of books. I did not find any errors, and I believe that the book may be professionally edited. I do not suggest any improvements. I will not buy or read the book
First Ten review added on May 11, 2022, at 1:40 am by Stellah Chege.
Soraya Bayah
I am already convinced to read the trilogy. I once read a review about the first book that grabbed my attention, and now with reading the first pages, I am entirely sure that this will be a series I will read in the near future in my free time. I extremely enjoyed the overlapping of fiction and non fiction. Just the mention of covid and a possible chain of it was gut wrenching. I did surmise that the Beli-Tel company would use a watch as an external device, and I was happy to see that this was the case. I read that you made this book hoping that we would never reach the result that the book is talking about. I find that a very creative way to get more people aware of the current situation of our Earth while creating a thrilling book. I enjoy such fast-paced books that are quick to the point and, no matter how much information they have, they are never tedious to read and never hard to understand. I would pick up this book from the genre, title, cover, and reviews like OBC, as I found all of them inviting, especially the reviews. I did not find errors. I commend you for the flawless writing style and the way you grab a reader’s attention. Well written!
First Ten review added on May 10, 2022, at 5:27 pm by Soraya Bayah.
Rebecca_Rivera
An exciting first ten pages confirmed my decision to read this entire book. I would not have chosen to read this book originally because of the cover. It looks to be a political thriller, a genre I’m not drawn to. However, the blurb describes a futuristic world where massive domes have been built to preserve what’s left of society after climate change and pandemics have devastated the planet. Now those are topics I can get into! I plan to finish reading this book because the writing is easy to read, and the book seems professionally edited. The story itself piques my interest, and I anticipate lots of excitement. My favorite aspect is the futuristic element and how the characters will survive on a devastated planet. In my opinion, the cover could be improved to reflect more of the futuristic element in addition to the political. Based on the cover alone, I would not have picked up this book. The dome on the cover did not make sense to me and did not convey a futuristic element. There is an Official OnlineBookClub review, which further convinced me to read this book, based on the detailed descriptions of this futuristic world.
First Ten review added on May 10, 2022, at 4:14 pm by Rebecca_Rivera.
Owuamanam Eberechukwu
The first ten pages are really interesting. The author described a future event. The author's time was 2066. The president of the United States at the time was President Bo Sanders. The world, after suffering from countless pandemics, was ravaged and impending conflicts were threatening to end humanity. The President and his family went on a retreat. One of the successes of the President was constructing a dome around the world that protected humanity. On the fateful day of the retreat, a drone crashed into the dome and killed POTUS. I like the way the author made the story look like a real-life event. It's a great writing style. The cover page and title are not as tense as the first pages I read. Therefore, it’s unsophisticated to make me choose to buy and read the book. The pages I read were exceptionally well edited. I will buy and read the book to better understand the author's story. It could be a premonition that might happen. Knowing the story might be helpful in the future. I have no recommendation for the author. These are my thoughts and were not influenced by anything.
First Ten review added on May 10, 2022, at 3:31 pm by Owuamanam Eberechukwu.
Gabriella H
I think the book cover is interesting, and the title is attention-grabbing. The OBC official review made me curious about the domes which were created to tackle the rising climate and health issues. However, after reading the first ten pages, I have decided not to complete this book because I wasn't thrilled by the writing style. I understand that a lot of bad things are happening in the world, but it felt like I was being bombarded with a lot of negative analysis and statistics, and I couldn't see myself reading the rest of this book with ease based on this. If I weren't a part of this program, I would've sampled this book because the cover and the title are interesting. I saw no error in the first ten pages, so I believe those pages were professionally edited. I also have no suggestions for improvements. The blurb, editorial review, and customer reviews didn't influence my decision.
First Ten review added on May 10, 2022, at 1:40 pm by Gabriella H.
Rosemary Owolabi
Had I not actually sampled the first ten pages as part of this program, I would have chosen to read this book based on the cover, title, genre, blurb, customer reviews, and editorial reviews that I saw. Because the most effective way for me as a reader is to rely on others, sometimes for their insight, before deciding whether to read or buy a book.
The book is free on Amazon and you don't need to use the Kindle Unlimited app to download it. Reading the first ten pages changed my mind from the original guess. I would read the book because it was full of possible scenarios of what could happen in 2066. Surprisingly, the world was still dealing with coronavirus cases, terrible environmental climate issues, and war. The book was just developing. It had some interesting and strong storylines. People naturally learn to adapt to their environment. This was what the President and his family were doing. The action and suspense were building towards the end of the first ten pages (chapter one). I would like to read it because the clever way it was written made it irresistible to me.
Based on what I read, the book seemed to be professionally edited. I didn't notice any typos or errors. I noticed some formatting issues.
What I liked about the sample that I read was the way Van Fleisher intelligently linked the past with the future in the book. He was focusing on serious and relevant matters as the book progressed. It was clear to see that he was passionate about some of the issues raised, like the coronavirus (loss of lives), environmental pollution (dead trees and plants), war, and family. It felt refreshing to be reading a futuristic book where everything that was mentioned could happen in real life. That made it scary and forced me to think of the possibility of it happening and how prepared we truly are. The cover seemed to be telling its own story. The cover picture was captured nicely. I liked how the table of contents was written (Chapters 1 to 39), the epilogue, acknowledgement, about the author, final chance, questions for the book clubs, pre-publication reviews, they were all neatly arranged. The way Van sets up the novel's storyline allows me to just keep reading. I will definitely read the whole book and learn more of Van's perspective on the devastation of the world we live in.
What could be improved would be the formatting issue, and the name of the author on the cover could be changed to another colour to make it stand out more. The background picture seemed to be affecting the way the author's name looked. The author should get straight to the point. I felt too much time was spent on developing the story. It wasn't a bad idea, but it shouldn't be the main focus.
The book had an OnlineBookClub forum review that I saw, but this didn't affect my decision.
First Ten review added on May 10, 2022, at 5:59 am by Rosemary Owolabi.
Rita Nuncia
Final Chance by Van Fleisher is a crime thriller. The book begins with President Bo Sanders and his family going on retreat to unwind at a place called Camp David in Frederick County, Maryland on January 15th, 2066. As they arrive, the president decides to take some laps in an enclosed pool in the camp while the rest of the family goes to play in the snow. While the president was in the pool, a deadly gas was released in the enclosure that the pool is located in. After reading some reviews of the book, I became very interested in the trilogy, of which this is Book 3. I would have read it without the First Ten program being the reason. After reading the first ten pages of this book, I am happy to know that I was not mistaken. The few pages that I have read are so intriguing, captivating, and suspenseful. Therefore, I would love to buy and read the whole book. This book seems professionally edited as I did not notice any grammatical or typographical errors while reading the first ten pages of the book. What I like most is the manner in which the author started this book. It made it captivating from the beginning, and as the book progressed, it increased the suspense. I do not see anything that needs to be improved as the plot seems well developed and I found nothing wrong with the book. I read an OnlineBookClub official review and it convinced me of how interesting the book is.
First Ten review added on May 10, 2022, at 4:53 am by Rita Nuncia.
Verna Coy
The title of this book suits the fact that it is the third in a series. The cove goes with the subject matter well and gives readers a sense of what is in the novel.
I felt that the book wasn’t professionally edited and could use some grammatical improvements, such as at location 136 of 4120, “These natural disasters occurred within the space of decades rather than centuries, so with not enough money[should be 'without adequate funding’], countries just continued to add debt, putting off the inevitable day of reckoning, and nose-diving their already fragile economies into the ground.” As far as improvements, although the political atmosphere is important to a novel like this, less mention of politicians would be an improvement.
What I liked best about what I sampled is how people seem to keep working to survive in spite of the incredible hardships they have endured. I know that readers will appreciate that aspect as well.
As I avoid political novels, I don’t plan to read the whole book. The mention of a politician in the first few pages was off-putting for me. I enjoyed the 3-star review written by the Online Book Club. I appreciate the elements of detail listed in each review.
First Ten review added on May 10, 2022, at 3:21 am by Verna Coy.
Chinazo Anozie
I was interested in this book from the title, cover, genre, description, customer reviews, and the official OnlineBookClub review. However, I changed my mind as soon as I read the first few pages. I will not buy and read this book. I didn’t like that there were very few dialogues. I also didn’t like the political undertone depicting Democrats as the good guys and Republicans as the bad guys. This book will also benefit from another round of editing because I noticed some typographical errors. An example from chapter five is as follows: The governor said, [“]I’ve heard so much about you, Karima…“ I am unable to provide the exact page number of the error because the format I read on Amazon did not have page numbers.
First Ten review added on May 9, 2022, at 4:44 pm by Chinazo Anozie.
Amy Luman
This seems like a very good book, and I am excited to finish it. I think from what I read that this was professionally edited and I can’t suggest any improvements. The reviews, including the OBC one, and the blurb, summarized the book well. The cover hints at the US involvement as well as the dome system that was utilized. I found the title frightening, but I’m sure that was the point. I liked that Mr. Fleisher used the Oxford comma. The scene at the beginning, with the president, proves that nowhere is perfectly safe. Sci-fi is my favorite genre.
First Ten review added on May 9, 2022, at 3:16 pm by Amy Luman.
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.
Total ~ 60%
Final Chance earned a score of 60%.
In other words, out of the top-level reviewers who read at least the first 10 pages of this book, 60% 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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