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

[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?