What do prospective readers really want to know

As a reader, I seldom know anything about the authors whose books I read. Many of them are well known and appear in old-media news releases and advertising, and sometimes I read about them in the New York Times or an online news page. But more often than not, I usually know only what they've written and little or nothing about them as people.

So why is it, then, that less-known authors are pushed to get involved in social networking and tell the world about their personal lives?

Perhaps I'm too...