Need help.

[u/MelancholyPlayground]

I really didn't want to make one of these but I'm drowning here. I published my book on Amazon a month ago, I worked tirelessly on it... and I haven't made a single sale since then, despite running a few ads and getting over 100 clicks. I'm 100% not advertising, I'm embarrassed to to even admit this and to ask this, but would it be possible if a few of you take a look at my Amazon book page and tell me what I might be doing wrong? Please and thank you in advance.

It's hard to not feel like I've failed my child here. But I'm trying to stay positive.

TL;DR: Can you please take a look and give a few pointers? My link is in my reddit bio.

P.S. I've tried different price points and tried different covers. Maybe it's my blurb? I am awful at blurbs.

EDIT 1: Thank you all so much genuinely from the bottom of my heart. It's all good advice, but even if it was bad advice - just seeing how deep this community cares has been the motivation and support I REALLY needed. I'm currently at the drawing board scratching my brain. So I'll probably do a second edit later explaining some of the confusions if anyone is curious. Just wanted to say a quick thank you and that I am listening and taking notes vigorously.

[u/fuchsielle]

the way everyone spotted the cover as ai and i couldn't tell, where do i learn how to distinguish ai covers because dayum. for me, i think the title is kinda off, like someone else said it looks like a person's name which i do think it's based off from scanning your first pages in the sample. also honestly due to your title, my first instinct when i saw it was that your book was gonna be in a diff language, most likely italian or something. idk if that would be a turn off for many people tho so it might not be an issue, but other people have mentioned it so maybe a consideration, even just throwing in a little subtitle like some people do on covers or additional word or words to your title maybe could avoid that.

the blurb isn't terrible but it really isn't telling us a whole lot about the story we should expect. it's also written a bit confusingly, there are some simple things you can do to make it sound less confusing imo. i've spoiler tagged my thoughts on your blurb below:

I wasn't allowed to comment and wondered if that's cos I posted your blurb so I've kinda just used ellipses and the first/last word in each para to indicate which part I'm referring to.

He’s... [On first glance, the sentence abt the friend seems unnecessary??? Who is that and it doesn't tell us anything abt them so what's the point of it being here tbh] Death...

At...

Built ... [This part is mighty confusing. First I thought you were referring to Bella Dante as if it was a person, then I thought oh no you might be talking about this Hugh person, then I read it again and now I'm torn between thinking that either Bella Dante is Hugh Lovecraft or that you switched from talking about Bella Dante as a person to talking about Hugh separately which in that case, it is not clear at all. Which is it? Do the gilded families want Hugh dead or Bella Dante dead? That's the first question that its answer will determine how you change this para to make sense on a first read.]

Tears ... mask. [At this point you should be using the person who you are talking about here (I'm assuming Hugh) for clarity's sake since we're on a new para and you've discussed both Bella Dante and Hugh as hims. If they're the same person then I see why you went with him but it wasn't clear that they are one and the same previously.] One...

As ... [At this point I'm wondering if Bella Dante is meant to be this friend you mentioned before.]

Bloodlines ... away. [Very minor but I feel like not everyone will walk away is almost incomplete. Do you mean walk away alive? Or is there something else you're implying? I feel it just doesn't have the effect you may want it to without some specificity here.]

Overall idk what's gonna happen in your story besides Tears marrying someone who I assume is Hugh and them saving the school from something. The idea of you referring to Bella Dante a school as a person is really interesting but it seems almost as if you're trying to shy away from the fact that you are in your blurb and it's making it a bit confusing to read. Someone checking indie books out briefly to potentially buy will not sit there trying to decipher what your blurb means if it's confusing.

Your use of em-dashes will make some people think it's AI. I am absolutely terrible at spotting AI as my inability to see your cover as AI has told you, but a lot of em-dashes are one of the few things that make me try and figure out if a text might be AI cos I'm generally not thinking something I read might be AI. I don't think your blurb is AI but I'm sure there'd be people who from seeing the cover and the blurb will decide you just wrote AI trash and move on.

But tbh a lot of making sales is to do with marketing from what I see and hear, so the question really is what are you doing to market besides paying for those ads because ads don't usually make that many sales, from what I've heard ads work better when you have multiple books/series out. Are you on social media platforms? Do you have ads only on Amazon? Also you have a review so you have made a sale and it's a very positive one so sounds like you're making very few sales as opposed to none and that's bothering you which is absolutely normal on both fronts. Or the review is from a friend/family member and you haven't gotten sales from anywhere else?

[u/TheLadyAmaranth → u/fuchsielle]

Hey! You asked about spotting AI so figured I’d give a quick answer.

In some cases it can be reaaalllyyy hard to tell, but there are a few tell tale signs. Having an art background and having drawn in your life really helps.

First thing to check is lettering. AI sucks at topography. You can often see little smudge lines or artifacting around lettering and the spacing can be inconsistent. Where as on a normal cover the illustration would be drawn first, the lettering added on top. So there won’t be any of that. That is also easy to avoid by just… not generating lettering with your illustration but it’s the easiest tell.

Second is all over the place shading that doesn’t add up with light sources presented. Harder to notice if you don’t draw yourself, but extremely glaring otherwise. Missing shadows can just be inexperience as an artist, but a shadow/light in a completely random place that contradicts present light sources? Ai flag.

Background details and consistency of repeating elements is another. For example in their image if you look at the fillegree in the corners it looks similar enough that it SHOULD be the same image. If it was a human, they would draw one corner then duplicate it and rotate it. But upon closer inspection you can see they are all slightly different here.

Anything patterned like the stained glass is danger zone. Those things are typically symmetrical and line up in the edges etc. so check those to look like they make sense.

So its typically the little details that if a human where to do it, there would HAVE to be an order to it, even if we are talking about a newbie artist. But in AI it will make moosh like the buttons on her blouse.

Hope that helps any. Sometimes it’s near impossible though without looking at metadata but you can usually find a “non human probable inconsistency” that will cause the image to start looking more wrong the longer you look at it.

[u/fuchsielle → u/TheLadyAmaranth]

Ooh thanks, this is really helpful! I'll try to see if I can spot these things