Category: Bookish Question

How do you find new-to-you authors?

Bookish Question #382 | How do you find new-to-you authors?

Back in the days before Kindle, by I found new authors by browsing in a physical bookstore – and the bookstore owner often recommended titles. Of course, that was back in the days where it was easier to find a Christian bookstore, and where the owner/operator knew the stock and the customers. I lived in a smallish city that had three Christian bookstores – now there is one.

This was why it was so difficult to be a successful author if you weren’t published by a traditional publisher who could get books into shops and libraries.

I now live in a bigger city that doesn’t have a single Christian bookstore, so even if I wasn’t a Kindle reader, I would have to become a mail-order shopper.

Now, in the era of Kindle and self-publishing, I mostly find new authors through promotions or recommendations from other authors.

My two most reliable sources are:

What about you? How do you find new-to-you authors?

Have you found any on my website? If so, let me know in the comments.
As a reader, do tropes matter to you?

Bookish Question #381 | Do tropes matter to you?

As a reader, do tropes matter to you?

I guess we need to start by defining tropes.

First, tropes are different from genre. Genre is the broad subject of a book e.g. a romance vs. a mystery vs. a thriller.

(Click here to read more about genre.)

Tropes are features within a genre.

They may describe one or more of the characters (e.g. grumpy, sunshine, billionaire, cowboy). They may describe the overall plot or conflict (friends to lovers, enemies to lovers). They may indicate the key conflict (secret baby, amnesia). They may describe the setting (small town, forced proximity).

Why do author use tropes?

Because just like readers read by genre (e.g. romance vs. mystery), many also read by trope, particularly tropes like billionaire romance or sports romance or cowboy romance.

Most readers have tropes they like and tropes they don’t like, so advertising tropes serves a dual purpose: it attracts the readers who enjoy that trope, and indicates to the readers who don’t that they might be better looking elsewhere.

Some authors signal their tropes in the book titles or subtitle.

I’m sure you’ve seen titles like The Billionaire’s Secret Baby (which turns out to be a really popular book title). I don’t mind that, although it does feel a little obvious.

Other authors stuff their subtitles with tropes: The CEO’s Companion: A Slow Burn Christian Contemporary workplace romance (BWWM). (With BWWM meaning Black woman and white man, just in case the cover image didn’t make that clear.) Predictably, the white man is the CEO boss.

I’d love to read a billionaire romance where the billionaire was the heroine. Even better if she was something other than white.

I’m not a fan of trope stuffing in the subtitle. That’s what the book description is for. I also don’t like trope-stuffing in advertisements, where the advertisement for a book that seems to have a dozen or more tropes.

I think tropes are like jewellery: less is more.

They absolutely matter, but stick to one or two and make them good.

What about you? Do tropes matter to you?

If you reply to an author's newsletter, do you expect a response?

Bookish Question #380 | If you reply to an author’s newsletter, do you expect a response?

If you reply to an author’s newsletter, do you expect a response?

Interesting question!

If I had ever written to an author back in the days before email, I wouldn’t have expected an answer. Not that I ever wrote to an author, mind you. That would have meant …

  • Finding the address
  • Writing the letter
  • Going to the post office so the letter could be weighed so I could make sure it had the correct postage for an international letter
  • Assuming the letter got correctly delivered
  • Assuming that the author read the letter
  • Assuming that the author then chose to reply
  • Assuming that the international postal service managed to get that reply back to me in New Zealand
That’s a lot of assumptions, and is probably why I wouldn’t have expected a reply.

Email and social media have made it easier and cheaper to connect. In theory, makes it easier to send and receive mail, but we are still beholden to the email service providers to deliver our email. Some email gets stuck in spam folders, and some never gets delivered at all.

Besides, email can be overwhelming.

I get work emails, life admin emails (like bank statements and bills), retail emails, author newsletter emails, and various other emails. I look at my email inbox and the emails I need to reply to, and fully understand why someone might choose not to respond.

Also, emails can turn into a never-ending train.

Author: Cool email
Reader: I enjoyed your cool email.
Author: Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Reader: Thank you for saying thank you.
Author: Thank you for …

It could go on forever.

Someone has to stop the train, and I’m not going to object if that someone is the author.

So while it’s always nice to get a response, I don’t need one and I’m not going to hold it against an author if I don’t receive a response.

What about you? Do you expect a response if you reply to an author’s email newsletter?

Do recommendations in author newsletters encourage you to try a new book?

Bookish Question #379 | Do recommendations in author newsletters encourage you to try a new book?

Do recommendations in author newsletters encourage you to read a book by another author?

Yes … if it really is a recommendation.

(And not just an advertisement.)

If an author whose books I enjoy recommend a book I haven’t read, then I’m going to pay attention to that recommendation. It makes sense. If I like toast and I like avocado, then it makes sense that I’m going to like avocado on toast.

(I’m lucky enough to live in an area where there are a lot of avocado trees, and it’s not uncommon to be able to buy a bag for a few dollars from a roadside honesty box).

But there has been a trend for authors to do a “newsletter swap”, where Author A shares a book by Author B in their newsletter, and Author B shares a book by Author A.

These swaps are often shared as recommendations, and some have been … disappointing.

I later learned these authors aren’t reading the books they promote in their newsletters. It’s simply a promotion technique to get their books in front of a new set of readers. As a result, I’ve stopped clicking through on these kinds of shares unless it’s clear the author is recommending the book. In some cases, I’ve unsubscribed from the author newsletter because it was no longer about the author.

But I will still buy or read books based on the recommendations of other authors when it’s clear they’ve read and enjoyed the book.

After all, authors are (or should be) readers too, and reading books by authors I love is a great way of finding new books and authors I will enjoy.

What about you? Do recommendations in author newsletters encourage you to read a book by another author?

Do you expect an author newsletter to be about the author?

Bookish Question #378 | Do you expect the newsletter to be about the author you follow?

Do you expect the newsletter to be about the author you follow?

Well, yes. What else should it be about?

I want to read about the author and their books.
(Or their area of expertise, for a nonfiction author.)

If an author wants to share what’s going on in their life, great. If they want to share a short devotion, great. If they want to share about a book they’ve recently read and love, great. If they want to share about a promotion they’re in, that’s okay as well.

But, as I said last week, I’d prefer they keep it short – so perhaps a life update or a devotion, but not both. And share about one promotion or one book. If they want to share more, I’d rather they share a link to their review or to a blog post.

But that’s just me and what I like (and don’t like).

What about you? Do you expect an author newsletter to be about that author?

If not, what do you expect? What do you want to see in an author newsletter?
What do you feel about newsletter welcome sequences?

Bookish Question #377 | What do you feel about newsletter welcome sequences?

How do you feel about the welcome sequence for author newsletters?

It depends …

Last week, we talked about reader magnets – the free book many authors offer to encourage people to sign up for their email newsletter.

That freebie is typically delivered as part of a series of emails intended to introduce the author and their books. This is called the welcome sequence.

Some are short, only one or two emails. Some feel as though they are never-ending. Some come once a week. Some come once a day (I’m not so much a fan of those).

Some showcase all the books or series by that author. Some offer even more free books (sometimes including the one I’ve already downloaded and read, which can be a little confusing).

Some ask questions. Some jump straight into trying to sell you their next book (which I don’t mind, given that’s the purpose of an author newsletter) or their training course or (worse) tries to get you to upgrade to a paid newsletter. I have no objection to paid newsletters from nonfiction authors who are providing valuable advice in their area of expertise, but I don’t understand what a fiction author would be offering. Writing advice, perhaps?

On that basis, my preferred newsletter welcome sequence is a relatively short series of relatively short emails: say, 3 to 6 emails that take no longer than a couple of minutes to read.

After all, I don’t want to be reading their email newsletter when I could be reading their novel …

What about you? What do you expect (or want) from an author newsletter welcome sequence?

Do You Sign up to Newsletters to get the Free Reader Magnet?

Bookish Question #376 | Do You Sign up to Newsletters to get the Free Reader Magnet?

Yes.

First, I’ll explain what a reader magnet is (in case anyone is wondering).

Many organisations offer some kind of enticement to encourage and incentivise current and potential customers to sign up to receive their email newsletter. For example, some shops offer you a $20 voucher redeemable against your first purchase. Some offer you a voucher after you’ve spent a certain amount. Some offer you a free birthday gift.

The idea is to provide customers with an incentive to keep buying from that organisation. It works, and having a customer loyalty programme and customer newsletter are now standard marketing practices.

Around ten years ago, some savvy authors started using this principle to sell books, offering something free to attract readers. Over time, it has become almost standard for authors to offer new newsletter subscribers a free novella or even a free novel, usually the first in a series, in the hope that subscribers will download and enjoy the free book, then go on to buy the remaining books in the series.

Because this is now so common, it’s rare that I sign up to an author newsletter that isn’t offering me an enticing free book. If I do, it’s usually because someone has recommended the newsletter for the content. If you’re interested, here are three newsletters I recommend:

However, I don’t enjoy all the newsletters I subscribe to. Some are really long, some come too often, and sometimes I read the author’s books and find it’s not to my taste. (I then tend to unsubscribe, because authors pay their email providers based onthe number of subscribers and I don’t want them to be paying for me if I’m not going to read it.)

I have recently seen a few newsletter promotions where authors band together to share their free books and newsletter signups. I’ve found some great new authors as a result!

And this question reminds me that it’s time I updated my reader magnet, as it is years out of date – although I can’t offer a free book, because I only have two so far and they are both in Kindle Unlimited (which requires that ebooks are exclusive to Amazon and not available elsewhere).

So yes, I do sign up for author newsletters to get the free reader magnet, and I often go on to read and recommend their books.

What about you? Do you sign up to author newsletters? Do you enjoy the free reader magnets?

Do you review all the books in a box set?

Bookish Question #375 | Do you review all the books in a box set?

That depends on the box set:

  • Is it a series by a single author?
  • Is it a multi-author series?
  • Is it a group of unrelated books in the same genre?

I will almost always read the entire box set if it is a series by a single author. If so, I’ll then review the whole box set (although my review may focus more on the first couple of stories, as giving too much detail about later stories could be providing spoilers).

I will usually read all the books in a linked multi-author series, such as A Louisiana Christmas or A Tuscan Legacy. I may or may not read all the books where the stories are linked. I will therefore review the stories I’ve read.

In case you’re wondering, the Trinity Lakes Romance series is linked by a common location and some common background characters, and each story is designed to be read as a standalone romance. However, Trinity Lakes isn’t available as a box set.

If the box set is a collection of unrelated titles by different authors in the same genre (e.g. a compilation of rom-coms or a compilation of suspense stories), then I may not even read all the books.

Even where I do read all the books in a boxset, there is always one or two I enjoy more than the others, and one or two I don’t enjoy enough to finish. My review naturally focusses on the books I enjoyed most.

What about you? Do you read all the books in a multi-author box set? Do you review them all?

Do you read multi-author box sets in order?

Bookish Question #374 | Do you read multi-author box sets in order?

Many tasks and projects have a natural order, and it makes sense to follow that order. We even have proverbs to that effect:

  • Don’t put the cart before the horse.
  • Don’t count your chickens until they’ve hatched.

My logical mind therefore wants to read a series of books in order, and it annoys me if I accidentally buy Book #3 in a series without realising it is a series

(I’ve actually just finished a romance like that: I bought the book on a Kindle sale, knowing it was part of a series, but thinking that each story would stand alone. The romance element stood alone, but the book was clearly part of a longer series with an overarching plot arc.
As a result, the beginning of the book was confusing, as it introduced a dozen people in close succession, and it felt like the first day at a new job. And the end of the story felt incomplete, as while the main couple in the story got their happy-ever-after romantic ending, the background plot was nowhere near being resolved.)

Anyway, back to the question of the week: when I buy a box set of a series of books, I read from beginning to end:

  • Whether I buy the series in paper or ebook.
  • Whether the series is sold as a 4-in-1 volume or an actual box set of separate books.
  • Whether it is a single-author series or a multi-author series.

If it is a series, I will do my best to read every book, and I will read in order.

There have been series where I’ve deliberately bought the second or third book because I didn’t think I was interested in the earlier books. If I enjoy the book I bought, I invariably end up buying those earlier books so I can read the series again in order.

However, some multi-author box sets aren’t a series

They are merely a group of unrelated titles in the same genre. In these cases, I will read the ebook in order (because they are invariably sold in ebook format and it’s harder to skip around in an ebook than in a paperback), but I won’t necessarily read all the books in the set.

So I will read a multi-author box set in order if it is a series, but may not if the titles are unrelated.

What about you? Do you read multi-author box sets in order?

Do you read multi-author series?

Bookish Question #373 | Do you read multi-author series?

Yes 🙂

There seem to be a growing number of multi-author series, espeically in contemporary Christian romance. I can think of several I’ve read and enjoyed:

  • A Tuscan Legacy
  • Independence Islands
  • Easter in Gilead
  • Redemption Ridge
  • Trinity Lakes Romance

My favourite is the Trinity Lakes Romance series (no surprise, right?), and I’ve read all the stories in Trinity Lakes, A Tuscan Legacy, and Easter in Gilead (made easier because that one is only four books), and some of the Redemption Ridge books (which are totally addictive!).

What about you? Do you read multi-author series?

Which series have you read that you recommend?