I’ve recently started diving into publishing as a hobby/side gig. It got me to see the other side of things when it comes to books, and it’s quite the craziness.
The first thing I came to realize is how much I rely on word of mouth to select my books. Things like ads, author interviews and usual marketing stuff means nothing to me. But if I see a book listed in a post when searching for a specific genre or topic, or a friend recommends it to me, it almost always immediatly goes to my reading list.
So as I focus on getting my story published and read, I wonder if I should invest in anything other than word of mouth.
So, I wanted to hear from you guys. How do you usually put a book on your radar? How would you like to discover new books?
When I see a book mentioned enough times in contexts generally aligning with my tastes (also depends on how much I trust the context: an ad will have near-zero impact, a direct recommendation from a close friend will have high impact, for a review it depends), I decide to give it a try.
As for your situation, you’d benefit from having a reviewer with good taste and solid reputation. It might be quite a challenge, but it’s probably worth it once you’ve made sure your book doesn’t suffer from trivial flaws. Or, if it’s just a hobby, you might choose not to bother, or to have more practice first.
I pretty much exclusively do the WRONG thing and judge a book by its cover.
Mostly word of mouth and reading online reviews. r/suggestmeabook and r/weirdlit were great resources for me as well.
Since I primarily read via the library, I’m not really worried about “wasting money” on books I wind up not liking, so I can be more adventurous with reading new authors I’m not sure about.
Word of mouth, NPR interviews/segments, or if I flip through it and I vibe with what little I can skim. Also if it’s non fiction and especially historical non fiction about something I’m interested in I’ll def read it.
A good portion of my library is hand me downs from my in-laws. Luckily they are really cool people and have good taste.
Usually word of mouth - but that can be either from people I know (friends, fellow online people), or sometimes it might be buzz from the media. Usually that’s in the form of CBC’s Canada Reads. I don’t often pick things up based on retailer suggestions.
Canada Reads is such a good book recommendation pipeline. It’s the nerdy superbowl of our country.
