A little adopting and a touch of lovers of reviews.
I buy from used bookstores all the time and library sales. ::looks at the 30 books I picked up today:: I don’t feel bad about it and I don’t think readers should.
Each reader here that has a job outside of the home could be laid off. And we don’t expect to be supported with people buying from us so we can in turn support authors by buying new.
I am the first to say it is really hard work to write a book. It takes a hell of a lot of skill to come up with an idea, see it through to ‘The End’, sell it and then pimp it. It has to be daunting and more work than we know. Hell I couldn’t do it…
But I don’t see it as author x worked hard, this is her baby. So you readers need to support it, love it, buy it and rec it. No body wins with a pity rec.
The author swallows the false praise and could get worse or stay the same when she could have taken a step back and found something to improve on.
The reader wastes time and money. That reader is also less likely to give the author another chance. There is a difference in going into a bad book that is highly rec’ed and cracking open an interesting book by a new(ish) author you might like.
The pity reviewer or reader rec’er will lose the trust of her peers. There is nothing wrong with saying there are flaws in a book you enjoyed. In fact I think that makes for a better review. It can also be said, you don’t see the flaws because you were carried away, you are a fan or whatever. Acknowledging the bad doesn’t discount the good. And if an author can over come flaws or pet peeves for a reader that displays how talented the author really is.
As far as adopting authors, I do it. To a point but as I said earlier, I do it with readers in mind.
Even when I was broker than broke, I tried to buy the western Harlequin Historical’s new. Now that I am in somewhat of a better place moneywise, I am back to flipping new and used with my favorite authors. And my focus goes first to historicals.
I buy author z’s book used because I bought her last one new and buy author q’s book new because her last I bought used.
Throw trade in there and things go all to hell. I can’t tell you how much it annoys me to see so many tradesize novels. My choices are to buy less or wait for the mass market. If the book gets a mass market.
Brava is a line I find I generally really like but they are so odd about reissuing. I do see they are doing more books recently. It is beyond cool to see I Love You To Death by Amy Garvey next to the Nora Roberts, Debbie Macomber and Catherine Anderson armies at Wal-Mart. (oh and Dangerous Games WAS there too – WoOT!)
But where is Alison Kent, Lucy Monroe or Pam Rosenthal? Why does my Lori Foster series not match? You still can’t buy The Secret Life of Bryan or Just a Hint – Clint in mass market. Do you have any idea how much that annoys me?
I dislike reading tradesize novels. They don’t fit on all my shelves. They don’t fit in my purse. I can buy 2 mass market books, 3 to 4 categories or ebooks or one tradesize book. Add in the fact I will have to rebuy the book in mass market when it comes out if I want to keep it. So that makes tradesize the book I often buy used. And that sucks.
More often than not that means just not reading the author who never comes out in mass market. She will have to win me as a reader because of used bookstores. And now the whole erotic romance equals tradesize book thing makes my head spin.
Why are they all in trade? Cock is a shorter word than manroot. Pussy takes up less space than her womanhood. The books aren’t longer, more often than not they are shorter with a bigger font to try and stretch the page count.
Do we as readers see a bigger book and just assume that must be a ‘better’ book than a mass market? Is it suppose to look like a ‘real’ book and not that stupid romance crap? If that is what publishers are going for the nekkid people on the cover don’t help. And the warning on the Aphrodisia books makes me think of McDonald’s coffee.
So where I understand the idea behind support the author, adopt the author, buy new, buy now and buy often. It is a double edged sword because if we do, we are showing the publisher yes we will pay out the ass for a book that should have been a 5.99 mass market book. And commerce is commerce, can you blame a company for taking the highest price they can get.
My question is, if authors are not making their advance, why isn’t the higher price for the book looked at? Do the readers need to get together and figure out a way to fix this too? Why are the people the product is for so often left holding the bag instead of the people putting out the product?
Regardless it will be interesting to see what happens with Avon Red starts putting out their mass market copies. If they fly off the shelves will other publishers follow?
;o) You ponder so very well, Sybil.
I honestly don’t understand what the deal is with why some books are released in trade and others in paperback.
Noody should feel they should have to buy anybody’s book. It’s your money, you do what you see as best.
But if you’re avid reader of a certain genre, particularly one like historicals where it seems every sale counts, if you can afford to buy new, I’d recommend buying new over trading or borrowing. Those new sales are just a little insurance, hopefully, that will get you more of what you like later on.
When it comes to my book buying, I buy the authors I’ve enjoyed and try those I think I might, and now that I can afford, I do buy new. I’m not an overly critical reader. I am a PICKY reader, as in I want a damn good story and it’s not always easy to find one that suits me. But critical? Nope. If there’s this little thing that didn’t work for me, or that little thing that bugged me, or I didn’t care for the hero’s name, I can overlook those, if the story is a damn good story. I kind of like the idea that Sylvia suggested to her mom. Liking an author but thinking she needs to prove herself more, so you’ll do the library instead… well, if it’s a new author, unless she gets those sales, the only books the library may have in the future are the ones you’ve already read because they can’t buy what isn’t contracted. So yeah, I kind of like the adopt an author idea.
I do like the trade paperback sized books, but if I start buying a series in MM paperback then I will continue to buy in MM paperback so that they all match. Having said that, I am not buying very many books at the moment – mainly only books that I can’t get at any of my libraries because I do have to watch my dollars and sense. I read too much to buy every book that I read.
At this point I buy all my westerns new and my very favorite authors new. That’s about it. Hey, I’m a librarian. Pretty much the whole “borrowing” idea is written in our DNA. And I didn’t know Avon Red was going to issue some titles in mm. That is very, very cool and am curious as to how the experiment works out.
I know readers like to bitch about trade paperbacks, but feel this is misplaced. Why aren’t we bitching more about the cost of mass market? Hello?!? $7.99! That seems incredible to me. That’s why I really love Zebra’s $3.99/$4.99 program. A great way to try out “new” authors and it’s half the price of a Nora Roberts paperback (no offense to Nora of course. She’s earned her $7.99 sticker price me thinks).
If I want something from a backlist, I try to find it in a UBS first. Same if it’s, say, a couple of books I’m missing from a series (or entire collection by an author). I figure I’ve bought enough new books not to feel guilty about buying the rest second-hand (also, I’ve usually read them elsewhere). I very rarely buy trade – only when they’re in the discount bin! I don’t see many trade-sized books in romance, though. Might just be here in Oz, I don’t know. I imagine they’re more accessible to older readers who need the bigger fonts (actually, the two trades I have are reprints of older novels by established authors).
Yes, I also like matched sets when it comes to series! They look so pretty…
I’ll take a chance and buy a book new if I’ve heard a lot of good things about it on blogs, or if it’s an EC in print because the UBS doesn’t have ECs. I’m also prone to impulse buying at the urging of enthusiastic, romance-reading booksellers. I figure those new and promising authors? They need my money most.
For JRW and EJ? I would even pay for the cost of postage if I had to. 🙂