Guest Blogging Again: How do you find new books?

[jpskewedthrone]

My monthly blog at APEX is up today. This month I'm talking about the fact that I can't go to the bookstore and simply browse for new books and authors like I used to . . . and the fact that it's put a crimp in my book buying style. I like to support new authors, but since I can't find them on the shelf as easily anymore, I know I'm missing out on a bunch of them out there, since the only way I hear about them anymore is word of mouth. So I pose the question: How do you find new books? You can answer here or over at the APEX blog.

Comments

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting until all of the ebook battles settle down before getting an ereader. (I know I'll have one eventually, probably when they stop producing the dead tree versions though.)

[shanrina.livejournal.com]

I still depend pretty heavily on browsing, but now it's at the library since for financial reasons I can't really buy books these days. I like libraries because I feel like I can really try new things and authors, and I've got a list of books I plan to buy when/if I have income again. If I did have a job I'd probably still do a lot of my browsing in bookstores, though, since I don't have (and don't want) an ebook reader. I've got lots of authors on my LJ flist and whose blogs I check, and I try to see who they're reading (in addition to paying attention to when they've got new books out). I'm also on Goodreads.com, so I can see what friends are reading--the "People who visited this book also visited X other books" function is turning out to be a lot more useful than I thought it would be. For nonfiction books, I check and copy down interesting-sounding books from the bibliographies in the back to look for at a later date.

I'm sure I'm missing things, especially since my library likes to shelve fantasy books in with mainstream while SF gets its own section (grrrrr), but I don't really feel like I'm having trouble finding new authors these days.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I know I'm missing things because I'll say, "Oh, what's this?" and find out it's the second or third book in a series and I never saw the first book. I'm not finding the referrals from the online bookstores and such as helpful though. Mostly, I already know of or have the books they suggest.

[shanrina.livejournal.com]

The referrals from online bookstores are helpful for me because I'm so far behind in the sff world--I've been reading a lot more mainstream, nonfiction, and memoirs because they're easier to find in my library system. I'm still probably missing a lot, but since I have a 42-page typed single-spaced list of books I want to read already, I think I'll have enough to occupy myself for awhile. ;)

[realmjit.livejournal.com]

I go by word of mouth, then browse the bookseller at sf conventions, because it's not as spread out as the big bookstore and has a wider variety than the local bookstore. New books are always at least 6 months old before I see them at the local library.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Word of mouth seems to be the big approach, which is why it's good to have a bunch of friends here on LJ and Facebook and such. *grin*

[suelder.livejournal.com]

My TBR pile is truly scary. I usually take recommendations from friends. In fact, that's how I found your books. Of course, my friends are all on Good Reads, so if I can't get hold of them, I look there.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the rec from friends seems to be how I'm finding most of my books lately.

[evaleastaristev.livejournal.com]

I make friends with the fellow SF/Fantasy geek who works at the store. Then we trade off authors. It's fun, enjoyable, and makes for great conversations about books.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

See, I'd do this, except that the local B&N doesn't seem to have an SF geek, and all of the other bookstores have closed or don't really carry SF. *sigh*

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Bookstores, Locus, friends (word-of-mouth and blogs), my favorite mail-order bookstore's (Mark V. Ziesing Books) print catalog (!). When I attended more sf/f/h conventions I'd go to panels and would often get books by authors who said interesting things.

(On the flip side, I stopped reading/getting books/vowed not to buy books by some authors who irritated/appalled me by their comments.)

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I do seem to be finding most of my "new" finds at the cons. But I haven't been going to as many cons this year, so that's not helping much. So it's mostly friend recs now at the moment.

[lindaabdavis.livejournal.com]

I have a nook and cruise through the www.bn.com website. A lot of times, they offer free books by reputable publishing houses. I download those to try a new author. I also download a lot of samples of the e-books they offer. That always gives me a chapter or two to sample to see if I like a book. I feel much more free to check it out. I also keep an eye on the short stories that I read to see if they have novels. I agree that writing a short is good advertising for an author because I take note.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard about the free samples, which would definitely be an advantage of the ereaders over the shelfsurfing. And I've started finding new author through anthologies and short stories as well, lately.

[ellarien]

I seem to find new authors mainly by word-of-blog these days, and occasionally by browsing bookstore shelves -- though even there I'm more likely to pick something up if I've seen it mentioned online. Online bookstore recommendations don't seem to be very useful as a rule, at least for fiction. The tor.com giveaway e-books introduced me to several new authors the year they were doing that; some of those I went on to buy in paper format, some not.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

While the free ebook giveaways are great . . . as an author I'm wondering how much they actually help. Not sure if the author still gets royalties for the books offered free or not. And then, if you don't, does the increase in sales of other books counter that?

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Word of mouth..err, twiiter, Facebook, blogs when I don't see them on the shelf/can't get to the bookstore.

THen I'll look them up online and see if I might be interested.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Ah, so a double-step process before you decide. That's usefull, and shows that webpages by authors is a must today.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. And sometimes, an author's page will show me other books by them that i might find more interesting than the original book I was looking at.}:P

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

I don't; usually they find me. If they really want me to read them they end up in my hands somehow, whether as hand-offs or freebies. Once in a while I'll actually spend money on something whose description or rave or cover design stuck in my head. Not sure how this will work in the Kindle Era.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the problem: how will all of this book-finding happen in the ebook era? Not sure.

[blitheringpooks.livejournal.com]

Recs from people (friends or bloggers or trusted reviewers) whose taste I share and trust.

Occasionally from the Amazon "people who bought this also bought that" if the premise/cover copy looks good. (I rarely pay attention to amazon reviews, unless the overall scores are really low, which I generally assume means it's not a good book.)

I bought way too many impulse books when I still browsed book stores regularly and when I cleaned out my office earlier this year, I got rid of about six book-boxes of TBR books that I finally accepted I was never going to read. My problem is this. Years ago when I first started buying books, "This looks like it might be interesting," was enough for me to buy and read a book. And for years, "This might be interesting," was enough for me to buy it. But in recent years my reading habits have changed, and my life has changed, and "might be" is never enough to tempt me to actually open and read it in my rare spare time. Now I have to feel a much stronger enticement. Coming to terms with that has helped my pocket book and my cluttered house.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Ah, see, I haven't been able to quell the "this might be interesting" buy at this point. So I have a ton of books on my TBR that I would like to read, but probably won't get to any time soon.

Ask me - I'm the librarian!

[(Anonymous)]

I am not only a librarian but I am also a rabid scifi and fantasy reader and I make my library buy as much as I can get them to. I bookmark author pages (like this one - lol), publisher pages, librarian blogs and book review sites and check them often. I read Publishers Weekly and all the other library magazines and scifi/fantasy magazines that have reviews of upcoming stuff. I am a member of Goodreads too. So just ask me already or if you can't get to me, wander around the library and ask if anyone who works there reads scifi. We live to talk books and they even pay us to do that so ask me - please! If your library doesn't have a scifi geek email me at infospider1957@yahoo.com and we'll chat.