I am thinking about the buying habits of readers, and trying to subdivide them into several categories, in relation to a single author's works
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Yes, I usually pick a new author because they're writing in a genre that I like and it was recommended to me. (Normally it has to be both, although sometimes I will stray out of genre based on a strong personal recommendation).
I will stick with a series if I really like it -- I'll read the sequel to anything I rate a 9. I will usually try other books by the author if I really liked one that they wrote. But when I liked it but didn't feel strongly about it -- a 7 or an 8 -- then it gets more random whether I'll keep going. And that determines my likelihood of trying other books by the same author, too. If I'd give a 9 to one series but the first book in another is only a 7, it's much less likely I'll try a third. There is SO MUCH stuff out there. @_@
Y'know, that's a good related topic, 'what motivates you to pick up a book from an author you have not previously read other books by?' For me, I look for a few definite things
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I'll read the rest of a series if I liked the book a 4. (And subsequent books don't get worse.) I might even try other books by the same author, especially if they are later works. In addition to being an Author Fan I tend to be a "Completionist Fan". Even if the story kinda sucks, I probably still wanna know how it ends.
There are exceptions. That horrible book about that horrible man by that Donaldson wretch, for example.
Seems reasonable. Mostly I think of it more like 'I really like this author and want to read everything', 'I kind of like this author and I'll at least follow this series but I don't know if I want to read the rest of his stuff', 'I like this author's sci-fi but not his historical fiction', and the far-too-common 'I used to like this guy but his recent stuff really sucks'.
Then there's 'I like this author a lot and wanted to read everything but he/she wrote way too much and I got overwhelmed and just gave up entirely'. Which describes at least three authors.
I used to go on author kicks where I'd just read EVERYTHING by one author that I liked. I got on a kick for Diana Wynne Jones back in 2003 or so and read 30 books by her in the next six months. I did that with Bujold at one point, too. I haven't read everything by Sanderson, but most of his work. But yes, the fact that I have easy access to a huge variety of work makes me feel less motivated to hunt down the Sanderson books I haven't gotten to yet, say. I gave up on Song of Ice and Fire is when I realized I'd have to re-read the first three books before I could read the new one(s), and I was not motivated to do so. (It didn't help that the people I know who'd read book 4 were unimpressed by it, back in the days before the TV show.)
I used to be very author-completionist. Authors I read as a teenager, I read EVERYTHING (that the library had). And ones I really liked, I would buy what the library didn't. I think I just had more time as a teenager, and fewer books: I used to reread a lot, too (still do, but less so. There was a time when I could quote huge swaths of books I liked, or play memory games based on recalling and identifying dialogue snippets).
Possibly Madeleine L'Engle was the first author to break that for me: having finished all of her children's and YA books, I moved downstairs, and decided within five or ten pages of A Live Coal in the Sea that I was not old enough yet, and put it down. (This is also the first book I recall making a conscious decision not to finish
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"Theme/review based" can overlap with "series fan" (which is a combo of setting fan and character fan, I think? E.g., Cherryh's Foreigner series, or possibly Bujold's Vorkosiverse, where we love Miles but we'll read non-Miles books too, but Miles was kind of the "hook") -- sometimes a particular character/setting "clicks" and sometimes not. E.g., I can take or leave a lot of Cherryh's stuff, but I will follow the Adventures Of Bren And Associates till the end of days, and I love the hani of Pride of Chanur and sequels.
(The two Xanth books that I can pin down why I liked them are: Castle Roogna and the one with Mare Imbrium. Because I am a sucker for non-human characters, EVEN IF ONE IS A GIANT SPIDER AND I HATE BEING AROUND SPIDERS. *headdesk*)
I'm trying to think where Bujold's Vorkosiverse fits there. Mostly it's Miles, but it's also Cordelia for 3 books, and Ivan for one, and Ellie Quinn and Ethan of Athos, and the Quaddies. I don't really feel that it's got the flavor of the Discworld in the sense of setting? Maybe because the non-Miles books aren't always standalone... Shards of Honor/Barrayar are a duology, and Falling Free is a standalone, but while Ivan's book could stand alone, it's... so thoroughly enmeshed in... in Milesatude?
*flails*
(No, no, the Mallorean was the same story arc! It explicitly said it was a reprise, because of that prophecy thing doing a certain amount of "actually, you have to keep doing this till you get it right." Or something like that. I mostly just remember Velvet suborning that other fellow's snake and keeping it in her bodice. And Belgarion realizing that just because the prophecy said "one son" didn't mean that a bunch of little (dryad) daughters wasn't an option. And flying being like swimming -- you don't think about the depth of
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The Barrayar setting books are much more intermeshed than the Discworld ones are. Incidents in one book have a lot more consequences in others than occur (or would be plausible) in Discworld
Hmm, I know that I am attracted to certain genres, namely fantasy and scifi. I mainly read to escape, so fiction that is more realistic usually doesn't appeal to me as much. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books, and I didn't expect that. I guess if something has a good mystery, that can pull me along.
If I liked one book by an author, and they have more books in the same genre, I will try them out. I've learned, though, that I don't just blindly follow an author irregardless of genre. For instance, I love Ray Bradbury's science fiction novels, but Dandelion Wine did absolutely nothing for me.
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I will stick with a series if I really like it -- I'll read the sequel to anything I rate a 9. I will usually try other books by the author if I really liked one that they wrote. But when I liked it but didn't feel strongly about it -- a 7 or an 8 -- then it gets more random whether I'll keep going. And that determines my likelihood of trying other books by the same author, too. If I'd give a 9 to one series but the first book in another is only a 7, it's much less likely I'll try a third. There is SO MUCH stuff out there. @_@
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I'll read the rest of a series if I liked the book a 4. (And subsequent books don't get worse.) I might even try other books by the same author, especially if they are later works. In addition to being an Author Fan I tend to be a "Completionist Fan". Even if the story kinda sucks, I probably still wanna know how it ends.
There are exceptions. That horrible book about that horrible man by that Donaldson wretch, for example.
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Then there's 'I like this author a lot and wanted to read everything but he/she wrote way too much and I got overwhelmed and just gave up entirely'. Which describes at least three authors.
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I used to be very author-completionist. Authors I read as a teenager, I read EVERYTHING (that the library had). And ones I really liked, I would buy what the library didn't. I think I just had more time as a teenager, and fewer books: I used to reread a lot, too (still do, but less so. There was a time when I could quote huge swaths of books I liked, or play memory games based on recalling and identifying dialogue snippets).
Possibly Madeleine L'Engle was the first author to break that for me: having finished all of her children's and YA books, I moved downstairs, and decided within five or ten pages of A Live Coal in the Sea that I was not old enough yet, and put it down. (This is also the first book I recall making a conscious decision not to finish ( ... )
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(The two Xanth books that I can pin down why I liked them are: Castle Roogna and the one with Mare Imbrium. Because I am a sucker for non-human characters, EVEN IF ONE IS A GIANT SPIDER AND I HATE BEING AROUND SPIDERS. *headdesk*)
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*flails*
(No, no, the Mallorean was the same story arc! It explicitly said it was a reprise, because of that prophecy thing doing a certain amount of "actually, you have to keep doing this till you get it right." Or something like that. I mostly just remember Velvet suborning that other fellow's snake and keeping it in her bodice. And Belgarion realizing that just because the prophecy said "one son" didn't mean that a bunch of little (dryad) daughters wasn't an option. And flying being like swimming -- you don't think about the depth of ( ... )
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If I liked one book by an author, and they have more books in the same genre, I will try them out. I've learned, though, that I don't just blindly follow an author irregardless of genre. For instance, I love Ray Bradbury's science fiction novels, but Dandelion Wine did absolutely nothing for me.
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