An indie author would like to know: how do you choose ebooks to read?

[Judy]

Steven wrote: "Snarktastic Sonja wrote: "Cuz when we *do* categorize, we risk limiting ourselves to a certain number of books which may leave out some we really love. For instance. I *hate* books about werewolves..."

Nook's search engines are terrible, I agree. You might be better off using Amazon's, and then when you find the book you want, go back to BN to purchase it.

[Kenny]

The worst search I've seen yet is the Overdrive ebook lending library search....horrible!

[Clay]

Judy wrote: Nook's search engines are terrible, I agree. You might be better off using Amazon's, and then when you find the book you want, go back to BN to purchase it.

LOL I find the opposite to be true. Or maybe I am thinking of listing. I cannot stand the way Amazon lists/categorizes books...but like the way BN does it :) Personal tastes, I guess :)

[Frank]

I follow the http://www.tor.com/ RSS feed. I occasionally find some new stuff I want to grab.

[Tom]

Thank you, reviewers, for your responses. Very educational. I'd sort of suspected much of what you said to be the case, but it was nice to be validated. And as an indie author, I have to say, it's just one of the greatest feelings to see a complete stranger give your book a 5-star review. So thank you all for what you do.

[Sadie]

I know it isn't exactly what you asked, but I recently wrote a blog post about how I choose a book from Amazon's KDP list. It might give you a little insight into the thought process of 'buying' an ebook. maybe

http://sadieforsythe.com/?p=3155

[Chas]

1) Title/Blurb/Cover ... does make a difference
2) Price ... helps to be free sample if I don't know author
3) Author ... we all have our trusted brands

I've noticed, and I'm sure others have, there is a maelstrom of nonsense available on Amazon, it is harder and harder to find good writing.

Many years ago you would go to the library and select a book based on (1), if you found you didn't enjoy you'd take it back and it's only cost you a little time.

To be noticed then any indie author is going to have to use (2) and hope someone on Goodreads or SF-Signal (or similar) picks up on it. So you need to understand marketing.

Once you're established then (3) comes into play as well.

For new stuff I often take a look at the SF Masterworks list on Amazon.

[Sarah]

1. Genre
2. Cover art / title
3. Blurb on the back
Unfortunately most people really do read a book by its cover.
Price is not a factor for paperbacks or ebooks. I refuse to buy hardback editiins

[Annie]

Sarah wrote: "1. Genre
2. Cover art / title
3. Blurb on the back
Unfortunately most people really do read a book by its cover.
Price is not a factor for paperbacks or ebooks. I refuse to buy hardback editiins"


I'm with Sarah here. I want beautiful cover art - even if all I do buy these days is ebooks. This will catch my eye. I am a very visual person. I want an interesting blurb and it helps if there are good reviews out there and recommendations by authors and critics I respect and enjoy.

[John]

The first thing that I look for is who published it.
If it is Indie/self published, then I look at the 1 star reviews. Those are the most useful.
I then look at the 5 star reviews to see how many friends and family members the person has. So often these reviewers have only ever done one review.
If it has the words "Saga" or "Chronicles" in the name, then I typically pass on it.

[Charles]

Big turn-off: typos, bad grammar, etc. in the author's blurb on Amazon. :-)

[D.E.M.]

Carro wrote: "Seeing the author on a forum talking sensibly."

This is KEY! Also, I'm not above checking out the author's response to reviews about their work. There's a lot of writers out there who will argue low reviews/ratings.

[Sharon]

Chas wrote: "Many years ago you would go to the library and select a book based on (1), if you found you didn't enjoy you'd take it back and it's only cost you a little time.
"

I have my list of established 'favorite' authors that are on my auto-buy list and I buy their new books as they are published.

All of these authors came originally from reading books by those authors first from the library. I am a very fast reader, I read for entertainment and if something doesn't interest me fairly quickly, I don't continue and I really can't afford to buy 10 books and only read 4 of them.

Since getting my Kindle 18 months ago or so, new authors added to my must buy list have all come originally from a first book that was a free download.

I still check books out from the library. If something is highly recommended by someone who I know has similar reading tastes to mine, I may buy it if it is under $3 or $4, what I would pay for a used paperback, roughly, or I may request it through my local library as an interlibrary loan ... but I won't buy a more expebnsive book by an author I'm not familar with.

[Charles]

D.E.M. wrote: "Carro wrote: "Seeing the author on a forum talking sensibly."

This is KEY! Also, I'm not above checking out the author's response to reviews about their work. There's a lot of writers out there wh..."

I tend to be the opposite: I generally don't want to read authors' forum posts, review comments, etc., as there's a risk their attitude, manners (or lack thereof, more specifically) and air of desperation to get anyone to buy/review their books will turn me off of them before I actually read anything of theirs.

Conversely, if I do get to know someone and come to like them, then find out they've just published a new e-book, I have a certain dread about even trying to read it, as I'll feel sad/bad if I don't like it.

[David]

I fully appreciate where you're coming from there Charles. Nothing worse than reading a friend's book, wanting to like it, and finding it disappoints.

[David]

John wrote: "The first thing that I look for is who published it.
If it is Indie/self published, then I look at the 1 star reviews. Those are the most useful.
I then look at the 5 star reviews to see how many f..."

I'd be interested to know if you always take a 5* review as being friends and family. Personally I've asked friends and family not to review my books. I have 5* reviews from people I didn't know,so where does that leave me?

[John]

I check out most reviews on Amazon.

If a 5 star reviewer has only one book review ever, then it is assumed to be a friend or family review.

The other 5 star reviewer problem is professional reviewers. When I look at someone's other reviews and there are 40 pages of lengthy 5 star reviews of other books, then it is assumed to be a professional paid reviewer.

It might sound harsh way of filtering through the hoards of self published works, but I've spent too much money on self published crap. Goodreads provides a good site for helping find the diamonds that are out there but even here, I've found paid book promoters talking up certain works.

[Sharon]

David wrote: "I'd be interested to know if you always take a 5* review as being friends and family. Personally I've asked friends and family not to review my books. I have 5* reviews from people I didn't know,so where does that leave me? "

Well, I have no relatives or friends who are writers and I do give 5-star ratings ... but they are almost exclusively reserved for those books that I plan to keep and re-read. I'm also pretty clear in the reviews that these are the only books that I do give 5-star ratings to.

When I am looking for a book to read, I glance at the 5-star ratings and the 1 and 2 star ratings. Generally, however, I find the information in the 3 and 4 star ratings the most useful for me when deciding on a book.

[David]

Thankfully I have a couple of four stars too, so perhaps I can relax.

[John]

I wouldn't get too worked up about how some of us try to find good new authors. Some of us just have our own techniques to try to filter out reviews.

I will bring up one other point. I also check the dates of book reviews by reviewers. I recently saw a reviewer who reviewed 6 books in a 7 day period. Only a couple of the books were from the same genre. This is not from a typical reader. If they are all from the same genre, SciFi, Fantasy, Horror, etc... that I could write it off as an avid reader. Ones like this reek of either a paid promoter or a reviewing service.

On a bright note, oftentimes it's threads like this that get people looking at the work of new authors.

[David]

Good to know that you don't just disregard a book off-hand. I agree with, and appreciate the filtering of reviews. Keep up the good work :~)