Richard McGowan's Blog: Smashed-Rat-On-Press - Posts Tagged "sentient"
Who Needs "Discovery" Any More?
There's a lot of talk about "discovery". How do all of these myriad new writers in the world get their books noticed and purchased and into the hands of readers? How do the books get "discovered" by people who are going to read them? Kind of a good question. And the other question of course is: how do readers discover new books they want to read when there are so many books and so many new "writers"? Blah blah. I won't rehearse all the controversy and talking headsmanship here, but... It occurred to me the other day that I've stopped asking those questions.
Aside from all the usual channels, like walking into bookstores, and uh, walking into bookstores... Uh, gee, you know what? That's the only channel I use for new book discovery, aside from Goodreads here. Haha. I don't read trade rags or magazines or even watch the news. (I am what your Poli-Sci professor might call a spectacularly uninformed denizen of the industrialized world, believe it or not.) These days with so much second-hand media input just from unavoidably knowing people in real life I hardly feel the need for seeking news. (And when I do, I notice it's mostly bad anyway.) So I barely sniff at my usual trusted sources like Al Jazeera, BBC, and The Scotsman...
I'm starting to realize that even in the world of fiction I don't need any more channels of discovery. After nearly two years here on Goodreads "playing author" but barely interacting with anyone (and barely selling any books of course), I've now met and/or had personal exchanges with so many good, interesting novelists that I'm fairly sure my dance card is over-filled for the next few years. I have no real need to search for the next thing to read. I have tons of unread books waiting in the wings. New material is already coming to me automagically faster than I can read it because I've inadvertently connected myself to the tiniest little trickle from the Information Firehose of the Great and Powerful Internet. I've met more writers than readers here on GR. That's kind of awesome if one is looking for books and chummy company. (Not quite as lovely if one is trying to find readers, but I care less about random not-my-readers.) I don't think in the old days before electronic gadgets that anyone, aside from a famous novelist, would ever have been within glancing distance of so many good writers that they would never feel the need to seek out new sources of reading material because their queue was empty and their reading muscles were in danger of atrophying.
So, who are all these writers whose work I have on my ever-growing TBR list? Off the top of my head, here is a bit of a list, not complete mind you. If a number appears after the name, that's the approximate known number of books by that author which I have not yet read, but which have been published and are more-or-less on my radar TBR. (Note: I'm not saying I "know" most of these people, or that any of them are "friends" in any real sense, but I've exchanged words, at least, with all of them.) What the hell... Here everyone, have a few years worth of TBR.
This list does not include upcoming ARCs or drafts from people I do know well enough to read in pre-publication form. Nor does it include other living "trad" writers like Laura Joh Rowland, Lindsey Davis, Laurie R. King, Sujata Massey, Naomi Hirahara, Caroline Lawrence, etc, whose work I also track out in the non-GR world... Or dead writers whose published work I haven't completely exhausted, but have on my "rainy day" list...
Amber Foxx 1
Amy Parker
Annette Drake
Arabella Thorne
Barbara G.Tarn 10
Catherine V. Tucker
D.C. Williams
Dylan White 2
I.J. Parker*
Jacqueline Patricks 1
Ke-Yana Drake
Linda Banana
Lisa Shea 6
Nancy Springer* 5+
P.J. O'Brien 3
R.F.G. Cameron 2
Rowena Wiseman
Safie Maken Finlay
Sophia Martin
Susan Parry* 3+
Hmmm. Oh, how interesting... Does anyone spot a pattern here?
Aside from all the usual channels, like walking into bookstores, and uh, walking into bookstores... Uh, gee, you know what? That's the only channel I use for new book discovery, aside from Goodreads here. Haha. I don't read trade rags or magazines or even watch the news. (I am what your Poli-Sci professor might call a spectacularly uninformed denizen of the industrialized world, believe it or not.) These days with so much second-hand media input just from unavoidably knowing people in real life I hardly feel the need for seeking news. (And when I do, I notice it's mostly bad anyway.) So I barely sniff at my usual trusted sources like Al Jazeera, BBC, and The Scotsman...
I'm starting to realize that even in the world of fiction I don't need any more channels of discovery. After nearly two years here on Goodreads "playing author" but barely interacting with anyone (and barely selling any books of course), I've now met and/or had personal exchanges with so many good, interesting novelists that I'm fairly sure my dance card is over-filled for the next few years. I have no real need to search for the next thing to read. I have tons of unread books waiting in the wings. New material is already coming to me automagically faster than I can read it because I've inadvertently connected myself to the tiniest little trickle from the Information Firehose of the Great and Powerful Internet. I've met more writers than readers here on GR. That's kind of awesome if one is looking for books and chummy company. (Not quite as lovely if one is trying to find readers, but I care less about random not-my-readers.) I don't think in the old days before electronic gadgets that anyone, aside from a famous novelist, would ever have been within glancing distance of so many good writers that they would never feel the need to seek out new sources of reading material because their queue was empty and their reading muscles were in danger of atrophying.
So, who are all these writers whose work I have on my ever-growing TBR list? Off the top of my head, here is a bit of a list, not complete mind you. If a number appears after the name, that's the approximate known number of books by that author which I have not yet read, but which have been published and are more-or-less on my radar TBR. (Note: I'm not saying I "know" most of these people, or that any of them are "friends" in any real sense, but I've exchanged words, at least, with all of them.) What the hell... Here everyone, have a few years worth of TBR.
This list does not include upcoming ARCs or drafts from people I do know well enough to read in pre-publication form. Nor does it include other living "trad" writers like Laura Joh Rowland, Lindsey Davis, Laurie R. King, Sujata Massey, Naomi Hirahara, Caroline Lawrence, etc, whose work I also track out in the non-GR world... Or dead writers whose published work I haven't completely exhausted, but have on my "rainy day" list...
Amber Foxx 1
Amy Parker
Annette Drake
Arabella Thorne
Barbara G.Tarn 10
Catherine V. Tucker
D.C. Williams
Dylan White 2
I.J. Parker*
Jacqueline Patricks 1
Ke-Yana Drake
Linda Banana
Lisa Shea 6
Nancy Springer* 5+
P.J. O'Brien 3
R.F.G. Cameron 2
Rowena Wiseman
Safie Maken Finlay
Sophia Martin
Susan Parry* 3+
Hmmm. Oh, how interesting... Does anyone spot a pattern here?
Smashed-Rat-On-Press
The main purpose of this blog is to announce occasional additions and changes to the SROP catalog or the site. And it doubles as a soap-box from which to gesticulate and babble...
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