What is your single most common method of book discovery?

[Shimarenda]

I typically discover a book through encountering it in another work. This mainly goes for nonfiction of course, but I discovered The Man Who Was Thursday through it's thematic use in Deus Ex.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I chose:

if those are my only choices.

But in reality, my number one method is: recommendations from other like-minded readers that it's taken me years to find. Whether they're online, down the street or across the hall.

Something similar for me. Word of mouth from an optimized set of sources including panels at sf-conventions, friends, and so on.

[Joonbug1]

This is a very helpful and informative topic that I didn't really think about before, so thank you to the OP for bringing it up. The responses are also enlightening.

I voted for "Reviews/recommendations from traditional media (newpapers, television, magazines)."

[JSWolf]

I would go to Smashwords much more often if the site allowed direct ePub uploading instead of just Word documents.

I did have to choose other as I browse bookstores, get recommendations from forums such as this & from family, browse new books in the library, look for favorite authors. and other ways. There just isn't one way I sue more then others.

[frddgls]

I chose other because browsing new library releases is my largest source.

I also browse the Mobile Read epub releases, the free sources listed in the Mobile Read Wiki, and the free books listed on the Kobo website.

I gather recommendations from friends, family, and on-line sources. When books I want to try are not available from the library I purchase them as either ebooks or paperbooks depending on price.

The largest number of books I have purchased have been from Feedbooks with coupons. Only one of these books was an author that was new to me. The rest were books by two authors that I discovered years ago in paper.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I would go to Smashwords much more often if the site allowed direct ePub uploading instead of just Word documents.

+1. Please, please, PLEASE can this be implemented? Super pretty please?

[pidgeon92]

Retailer recommendations (incl "people who bought this bought that")

This.

I look at one book on Amazon, and I end up seeing the entire row of people who bought this bought that below it and wanting at least half of them.

[Anabana]

I chose:
Recommendations from fellow readers on online forums, blogs, message boards
which is -almost- correct.
Mostly it's from fellow readers of a couple of online book discussion groups. Finding people who like several of the same books you like gives you more confidence in their recommendations. I still order them from the library first. If I know I'll want to read it again, I buy it.

[rdfry]

I use Bookpage it is available free at the library or online.

[JeremyR]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

+1. Please, please, PLEASE can this be implemented? Super pretty please?

Yeah, it's pretty silly that Amazon will accept epubs (run through KindleGen), but Smashwords doesn't...

[HappyMartin]

Time magazine comes up with some good stuff every now and again.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

Yeah, it's pretty silly that Amazon will accept epubs (run through KindleGen), but Smashwords doesn't...

Especially since it's relatively simple to covert from epub to other things. From Word to other things is so much more painful.

[cfrizz]

I look for new books from my favorite authors first. Then I look online to see if they have forums and join those. The discussions of other authors that other people like on these forums lead me to new authors to check out.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Especially since it's relatively simple to covert from epub to other things. From Word to other things is so much more painful.

Ana, the site tells you they sell Smashed Word documents on the homepage, and reminds you throughout. Don't act indignant.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Ana, the site tells you they sell Smashed Word documents on the homepage, and reminds you throughout. Don't act indignant.

??

I'm not indignant. I'm asking for increased functionality for authors, because it's a lot easier to load a clean, validated epub than to load ANYTHING (particularly a Word document) and hope for a good conversion (with results that you can't manually tweak, no less).

And I'm fully aware that Smashwords policy is clearly defined.

So, um, yeah.