The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Bestseller - a lot of other people liked it
Award - either a lot of other people liked it or a jury who ought to know what they're talking about liked it
Review quotes - these people who ought to know what they're talking about liked it
Blurbs - these people who ought to know what they're talking about liked it
Now a major motion picture - someone thought it was worth making into a film

That's all, ultimately, factual information that might make me believe the book is worth my time. Anyone can say "

Unfortunately it might not be factual, or if it's true, misleading. See also how Top 100 singles was manipulated in 1960s-1970s.

Bestseller: Zero indication of quality even if true. Might be spurious, manipulated or misleading. See "Fifty Shades of Grey" and Oxfam built a castle out of unread/partially read copies.

Award: See controversies and how "judges" are picked. Judges may be bought or "literary" snobs. Now almost worthless guide to quality, or if I might like it. Meant more 40 years ago, esp. in SF&F.

Review quotes: How many are now sock puppets or bought? In some cases the reviews exist for books not yet written! See Goodreads and Amazon.

Blurbs: Can be accurate, or have spoilers or sometimes you wonder did Burb writer even read the book. A poor quide to quality, but tells you more about what the book is about than the others.

Now a major motion picture: Ha! Might mean books are great, or can be for some other Bizarre Corporate reason. Even 50 years ago not foolproof. c.f. the original movie "The Bishop's wife" vs the actual book. Admittedly rare that movie is better than the book. Loads of ghastly stuff has been made into movies.

These are all Marketing Ploys. Marketing people are not renowned for accuracy, honesty, or reading the book! A nickname is the Crayon Dept.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I don't really see why people are so exercised about the idea of trying to sell a book, when that is pretty much what a publisher is for.

Bestseller - a lot of other people liked it
Award - either a lot of other people liked it or a jury who ought to know what they're talking about liked it
Review quotes - these people who ought to know what they're talking about liked it
Blurbs - these people who ought to know what they're talking about liked it
Now a major motion picture - someone thought it was worth making into a film

That's all, ultimately, factual information that might make me believe the book is worth my time. Anyone can say "my book is great", and I'm not going to put much weight on that, but if you have someone else saying "your book is great" I might start to listen.

You might; for me that information is worthless. Millions of people may like a book, and yet the chances are exactly 50/50 whether I will like it or not; the same for a book with no awards or reviews. So I just ignore everything but the synopsis and the look inside. I'm not interested in other people's opinions about a book, as that rarely has any bearing on my like or dislike of it. I've disliked a lot of bestsellers/award winners and liked books no one has heard of. And vice versa, of course.

[JSWolf]

What bothers me is the so-called bonus material. I don't need to have a sample of the next book in the series.. I either liked the book I just read or not. If not, no blurb will help. If I liked it and want to read the next book, I will.

The blurb is NOT bonus material.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I'm not interested in other people's opinions about a book, as that rarely has any bearing on my like or dislike of it.

Then how do you ever find out about books? There are millions of books out there, you have to filter the list somehow. I only want to commit to reading something if I think I might like it, which means I need to know what others thought about it; whether it sounds like my kind of thing.

The value I place on any given data point might be vanishingly small - I am quite aware that the marketing team are trying to put the best light on it - but it will rarely get right down to zero.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Then how do you ever find out about books? There are millions of books out there, you have to filter the list somehow.

Usually I just browse new books released every month and decide for myself which of them I want to read. I don't read reviews, because as I said, other people liking it doesn't mean I would.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What bothers me is the so-called bonus material. I don't need to have a sample of the next book in the series.. I either liked the book I just read or not. If not, no blurb will help. If I liked it and want to read the next book, I will.

The blurb is NOT bonus material.

Rather than a sample of another book, I'd rather they just have a page to let you know about other books by the same author with links to allow you download a sample of a specific book if you choose.

[ownedbycats]

Another thing that confuses me if blurbs/review for an entirely different book on the description.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Then how do you ever find out about books? There are millions of books out there, you have to filter the list somehow. I only want to commit to reading something if I think I might like it, which means I need to know what others thought about it; whether it sounds like my kind of thing.

In days of olde, I browsed the shelves at my local book pushers and opened and read a few paragraphs.

Amazon has 'Look inside'.

One of the things I tend to do with books I buy, is remove the 'content' of the Sample Chapter. Those have tripped me up since print days... 'Oh! I have read this book', when in fact NOT. I really hate major cover changes (same book, more 'modern' cover) I had to use my Flatbed scanner when I documented my paperback collection in Calibre as the metadata download had the wrong cover.

[Quoth]

I bought "The Runaways" last week, fortunately cheap, to discover it's "Linnets and Valerians", which I have on paper and ebook already. WHY do that? There is a book before the re-release called "The Runaways". Why not put on the cover and the blurb that it's simply a re-release of "Linnets and Valerians" if they REALLY insist on renaming it!

What next? A book called "Lucy and the Professor", with the prequel called "The Professor's childhood", and maybe the last in the series called "The Professor's End".

Or "A Baby Goat for a Cent" (Currently "A kid for Two Farthings"). What is it the arrogance of publishers to change titles. See also HP in USA & UK. Or Joan Aiken's James III /Wolves series with different USA titles.

Such stupidity.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by theducks

In days of olde, I browsed the shelves at my local book pushers and opened and read a few paragraphs.

Amazon has 'Look inside'.

Yes. I keep telling myself:
Check number of pages. Check that the properties suggest it's reflowable. Use look inside. Sometimes you can download a sample.

Why have Amazon no Basket/Trolly/Cart for ebooks? It's also annoying they removed the download option from purchase.

Kobo lists at checkout if a title is reflowable. You can add to the Cart and remove one at Checkout. They also may have samples.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yes. I keep telling myself:
Check number of pages. Check that the properties suggest it's reflowable. Use look inside. Sometimes you can download a sample.

Why have Amazon no Basket/Trolly/Cart for ebooks? It's also annoying they removed the download option from purchase.

Kobo lists at checkout if a title is reflowable. You can add to the Cart and remove one at Checkout. They also may have samples.

What I don't like with Amazon is that if you have a gift card balance, you have you use it with eBook purchases even if you don't want to.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

The interesting thing about the article referenced above is that it was apparently on the authors to gather the blurbs at Simon & Schuster.

That was more or less standard procedure. The author had to reach out to get the blurbs, the publisher just printed them.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Another thing that confuses me if blurbs/review for an entirely different book on the description.

I recently read one book where 4 of the 5 blurbs were for books by one of the two authors but in a different series while the 5th blurb as near as I could tell was telling me what a great person the author was (since no names were mentioned, I wasn't even sure if this was talking about the book author).

Not to mention the popularity of quoting from Amazon/Kobo/whatever reviews which often seem to have been written before the book was released.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Usually I just browse new books released every month and decide for myself which of them I want to read. I don't read reviews, because as I said, other people liking it doesn't mean I would.

This is what I do also. I don't care what other people thought of a book. Over the years I came to realize that my taste in reading materials, as my taste in sports, does not correlate with the majority of people.
Apache

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by Apache

This is what I do also. I don't care what other people thought of a book. Over the years I came to realize that my taste in reading materials, as my taste in sports, does not correlate with the majority of people.
Apache

I do read reviews once in a while. Sometimes, what the review complains about is exactly what I'm looking for.

And when I suspect that spelling may be a big problem. I've read a lot of fanfic, and not even using a spellchecker means it's not worth the effort.