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“Stick Like Glue until Chapter Two” – this is what you need to sell a book now-a-days. Today’s writing assignment is an advanced one, related to the recent Unputdownable posts (see the writing exercise last month Unputdownable (6/4/2026)). If you want to write to sell, either to a publisher or a reader, you need to get the reader’s attention.
Selling books works several different ways. Word of mouth is a favorite. The person already is aware of you; we all have auto-buy authors.
But essential to all of these is the first sale, and the second, and the third. Word of mouth doesn’t happen until a sale happens. Auto-buy doesn’t happen until that first book sale happens.
Most sales are based on the Free-Look-Inside (Amazon) or Pick up the book in the book store and read the first chapter. Somehow the book needs to be Unputdownable from the very start.
The cover provides awareness of the book. The first sentence of the book needs to grab enough interest to get them to read the first paragraph. The first paragraph needs to engage enough to get a reader to scroll through the first page. The first page needs to raise enough desire to get them to read the first chapter. And the first chapter activates the action to buy the book.
As a writer, your job is to craft that first sentence, first paragraph, first page, and first chapter to sell the book. Either to a publisher or a reader (and really, if to a publisher, it will eventually be to a reader). How do you make them buy the book? How do you keep them burning with questions and interest to make that first chapter draw them through to purchase?
WRITING EXERCISE: Concentrating on your first chapter, what techniques can you use to activate the Interest-Desire-Action cycle to a purchase? What have you learned gets people interested quickly? What questions do you need to ask yourself to hone that first chapter? Share your thoughts below.
My Attempt: The first thought that pops into my head is have I started the book in the right place. Am I where things change? Second, have I defined the character enough to interest people? The trade-off of character development and plot-defining action; does my reader know the story AND the character they are signing up to take this ride with. Is the reader invested enough to invest in me?
I guess then the next thing is look at that first sentence – am I describing the grass or the snake in the grass? Look at the first paragraph, what is actually happening with it. First page, first scene, first chapter. I hate the tradeoff between story and first book sale, be there has to be a little. Later, if I get a book sold, I can back off of this front-load work, but the first book is the funnel of sentence to paragraph to page to chapter to sale. If I want to do sales.
Off to get the “Stick like glue until chapter two” in place.
I have started books that make me go meh, and I might not continue on with them. So, this is excellent advice, even just generally. If a reader goes meh in the beginning, they might not continue on anyway.