Hooking the Reader Quotes

The job of the first eight pages is not to have the reader want to throw the book at the wall, during the first eight pages.

Editors are more concerned with the first chapters of a book; that's what everyone reads first in the bookstore or in the online sample.

How many times have you opened a book, read the first few sentences and made a snap decision about whether to buy it? When it's your book that's coming under this casual-but-critical scrutiny, you want the reader to be instantly hooked. The way to accomplish this is to create compelling opening sentences.

But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.

The opening lines of a book are so important. You really need to somehow charm your reader. If you can't get her attention in the first pages, you may have lost her. There has to be an ambience.

Whatever's good about your book should be good on page 1, or very few editors are going to get to page 2.

The lead either forges an instant connection with the reader, or the package fails.

If you can't figure out how to make the beginning of your book compelling, you're probably not writing a compelling book.