How Do You Discover the Books You Choose to Read?
Amazon.com
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Powell's Books
I took an informal poll to find out how people discover new authors. (Hmmmm. Wonder why I’m interested in that!) I posted the following on discussion boards on both Goodreads and Facebook:
It seems as if there are as many ways of discovering books as there are readers, but I'm curious as to how you choose the books you want to read. Do you go by reviews? By recommendations from friends? Because you're familiar with other works by the author? Do you ever read a book because of an ad you saw? Because of a blog article? Because of a mention on a website such as Goodreads? Do you cruise book stores, libraries, or online sites like Amazon? Do you find them some way I haven't mentioned, such as gifts, perhaps?
Admittedly, the questions were loaded, but I still got an interesting and probably quite accurate overview:
Favorite authors or previously read authors: 36
Word of mouth: 26
Blog reviews/Book websites: 26
Goodreads/Shelfari: 24
Local bookstores: 21
Amazon/B&N/other online stores: 15
Library: 13
Publisher sites/newsletters: 5
Social networking sites like Facebook: 5
Book Clubs: 5
Author appearances/writing conferences: 5
NY Times bestseller list: 5
Offline reviews: 5
Yard sales/second hand bookstores: 4
Advertising: 3
Saw the movie: 3
Oprah: 1
Free downloads: 1
Gifts: 1
I’m not sure exactly what this means in terms of promotion, except that ideally you want to become everyone’s favorite author and have them recommend you.
How do you discover the books you want to read? Or rather where. (A lot of people said they found books to read by the front cover or the blurb on the back, but I’m more curious as to where they saw the cover.)
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Susan Brown says:
Good question--it's such a
Good question--it's such a hit or miss thing. I found Christopher Moore through an entry in a book-of-the-day calendar and now my family are all fans. Jasper Fforde I found through an article in the paper. "The Book of Ebenezer LePage" was a favorite book listed by someone in a magazine article. One of my sisters sent me her entire Discworld series. In general, I have to read about the book or the author somewhere OTHER than the bookstore, because I can't trust the blurbs on the backs of the books. What gets me about this system is, how many other wonderful authors, folks I would love as much as those listed above (all of whom I pay retail for!!!), are out there THAT I DON'T KNOW ABOUT???? I need help finding them!
Maybe if we all read each others' lists of favorite authors and saw trends that we could use to make recommendations? Please feel free to go look at mine and see if you can think of other authors you think I might enjoy. I use the library first with a new author, but if I like that author, I will go buy the book and buy their others.
Susan