Quote:
Originally Posted by Muckraker
How often are we truly unfamiliar with an author though? Everything we need to get familiar is right there for the taking. Amazon reviews and customer ratings, sales ranks, writer blogs, forums, and--most importantly--the ability to preview a good chunk of whatever book you are thinking about buying.
It's only really a shot in the dark if you don't make use of these resources. The instant we see that a book has 100 reviews and a four star average, though, we can't claim to be unfamiliar anymore.
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What does that mean though? It means 100 people liked it enough to leave a review. And it received generally positive rating. But then some people, lots if the people I read on forums are representative will only leave positive ratings (4 or 5). And it says something different if that 100 comes from 250, 1000 or 10,000 copies sold but there's no easy way to tell that. Even if there were there's no way to tell how many people actually read it. Maybe there are books that particularly appeal to the e-hoarder (good blurb and nice cover).
And even after all that, if this really is a book truly loved by a lot of people, does that mean I'll like it? I've tried to read Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer and James Patterson and given up. But I enjoy authors that other people might hate.
So the info that's available is a hint, a small clue but we're still really not "familiar" with that author's work.
Not that I'm arguing for 99c prices. I'm arguing we need better ways to find out about new books than "try it out because it's cheap and got some good reviews"