I read (and buy) a lot of books.
My tastes run to romance and SF/fantasy. I am a very loyal reader and auto-buy many authors.
Every month my husband and I have a list of books culled from Locus magazine
and Goodreads New Books By Authors You Like emails that we go in search of. But how do I discover new authors?
1/ Browsing. In college, I used
to spend hours browsing the library paperback racks and used bookstore shelves.
Nowadays, I frequent bookstores. Every Saturday we visit our mall bookstore and
every 1-2 months we go to a bigger bookstore like Chapters or Indigo—but those
are usually hunting trips for specific titles for me. My husband, on the other
hand, does a lot more impulse buying based on a good cover/back blurb. And
those books often end up being read first by me because his TBR pile is
enormous. This is how I discovered Robert Jordan, Ilona Andrews, Diana Pharaoh
Francis, Naomi Novik and Jim Butcher.
2/ Recommendation. My husband
reads lots of SF/fantasy books, and my mom reads lots of romance. This is how I
discovered Terry Pratchett, Charles de Lint and Jayne Ann Krentz.
3/ Buzz. When I hear on Twitter
or Goodreads that people are excited about the next book in a popular series, I
may try to hunt down book one. This is how I discovered Darynda Jones, Patricia
Briggs, Faith Hunter and Patrick Rothfuss. Since I write YA, I keep my ear open for
popular YA titles on the market. I will often try these first from the library
and then, if I enjoy them, purchase my own copies. This is how I discovered
Sarah Rees Brennan.
4/ Awards. This works in two ways. I like to vote for the
Aurora Awards, which often
means trying new Canadian SF/fantasy authors. I have also taken note of which
books have won or been nominated for RITAs. This is how I discovered both Tessa
Dare and Jennifer Crusie.
5/ Cons. If I personally meet an
author at a convention or am impressed by hearing them speak on a panel, I’m
more likely to pick up their book. This is how I discovered Diana Rowland
(seated at the same banquet table), Carol Berg (attended a panel) and Chadwick
Ginther (friend of a friend).
6/ Online: Blogs, book clubs and
free ebooks. An entertaining blog post
or excerpt will often lead me to check out a sample chapter or free read by that author. I also belong to an online Romance book club
which emails me the first 25 pages of a new book every week. This is how I discovered
Jill Sorenson (book club), Eleri Stone (blog post & sample chapter) and PG
Forte (excerpt & free ebook).
Oddly, I almost never read
reviews. When I do, it’s usually to see what someone else thought of a book
that I just finished reading.
How do you discover new authors? Do you read reviews?
How do you discover new authors? Do you read reviews?
Good column! I pretty much find my books in all of the above ways but for science fiction romance I especially rely on the major blogs like The Galaxy Express and Smart Girls Love SciFi.
ReplyDeleteFor SF/F, a LOT of the books I pick up come from posts on tor.com. But I also draw from John Scalzi's Big Idea column, and occasionally from posts on other high-profile authors' sites as well.
ReplyDeleteUnsurprisingly, for mystery/suspense, I pull from tor.com's sister site Criminal Element as well.
For romance, Smart Bitches is my go-to site for what I may want to read next.
If I hear about a book from any of these sources that I'll want to check out, if it's not an author I already know, I'll go look the book up on Goodreads. And the first thing I do is see what the one-star reviews are saying, if there are any. If there aren't, I'm going to want to see some excerpts. So the next thing I might do, assuming an excerpt wasn't included in whatever post I heard about in the first place, is yoink a sample down off of B&N or Kobo, if the book's already on sale.
A lot of the time I'll be relying way more on actual excerpts than I will on reviews, outside of the sources mentioned above. I rarely look at Goodreads reviews in depth, although I do note aggregrate ratings and how many of each rating a book's got.
Thanks, Veronica and Angela! I will have to check out those blogs.
ReplyDelete