10 Things I Never Knew About Publishing

[Brian G Turner]

Thought this might interesting:
Floor to Ceiling Books: Ten Things I Never Knew About Publishing

 

[Stephen Palmer]

"My cousin is an avid book reader. She goes into a bookshop and buys books by authors she knows, and books that are compared to authors she knows, and has never read a book review blog in her life. These sorts of people make up the majority of book buyers and readers."

I'm not convinced this is true any more.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Real readers have no time to read blogs.

People do buy more books now online, charity shops and Supermarkets than they used to. I went into Easons to browse the Stationary recently. Well, we did go to the basement (where they keep the books) on my wife's insistence. In the last month we bought about 60 books. Most in Charity shops and one in Dealz (What Poundland is called in Ireland). We do buy real books off Amazon, but also eBooks if less than £3 as we prefer to have physical books.

I've rarely found any blogs on anything I'd return to. I've never found reviews on Radio 4 or in papers etc much use either though.
1) Recommendations of friends and family,
2) Recommendations from someone I've sort of interacted with on IRC or a Forum.

Amazon reviews are not of much interest to me, if I have looked up a title on Amazon I'm only checking price, because I'm already interested. I know how misleading I can find reviews of Software, Tech products (because the users don't understand it or bought the wrong thing), or how marginal the value I find of reviews and ratings on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes of films though can help.

 

[psychotick]

Hi Stephen,

Actually I think this is largely true. Readers haven't really changed. The only thing that has changed is the store. Once I went into a bookstore, over to the sf/f shelves and browsed. I looked for covers and author names I knew. And then I read the blurb. If that went ok I took a squizz at the first few pages. (My sister does the same save that it's the last few pages she checks just in case of a bad ending!)

Now I just do the same thing online. I go to the store, check the covers and authors, Read the blurb, then take a look inside. I hardly ever read a blog about a book and if I do it's usually after I read the book. The only difference is that I do check the book reviews before buying simply because they're there on the same page.

I don't think I'm particularly unusual as readers go.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I worked for Waterstones 1998-2006, and the 'SF in bookshops' thing does seem to have changed, to my eyes anyway. There's just so much more activity online now, and bookshop sales of actual books aren't what they used to be. I don't think the book shop as "shop window" for books exists much in SF/F, whereas the internet is one massive shop window. Or so it seems to me…

 

[Juliana]

I worked for Waterstones 1998-2006, and the 'SF in bookshops' thing does seem to have changed, to my eyes anyway. There's just so much more activity online now, and bookshop sales of actual books aren't what they used to be. I don't think the book shop as "shop window" for books exists much in SF/F, whereas the internet is one massive shop window. Or so it seems to me…

Absolutely. I've tried books by authors simply because I liked their tweets. I have a peek at their website and read the opening pages on Amazon, and if it seems my sort of thing, I'll give it a go.