I agree with you - online bookstores are swamped with self-published works. Which doesn't mean that those books suck - but the probability of reading something that is bad is a lot higher. By "bad" I mean the craft of writing, not the story itself. Even Dan Brown can roll out a crappy story.
But since I too have limited reading time, I want to enjoy that time. So I look at recommendations. Often it helps if authors provide free books, and it is good if those books are short. So you can read them in an hour or so and see if you like this guy's style.
I also look a lot at testimonials - especially in the case of
Mars Girl it was words like "fast-paced", "funny" and "frightening" that made me read it, since it did not in any way involve romance and I was not disappointed.
I HATE those romance novels that invade ALL categories simply because they might be crime romance or horror romance or whatever. I run away screaming.
Anyhow, I don't experiment, I listen to people. In restaurants I am hesitant to try things that I don't know, because on the rare occasion that I do fork out that much money, I want to go with something that I like. Which excludes noodles
Uhm ... what was the question?