From a discussion Rida and I had earlier today:
Where the heck do you find about new books you want to read?
I have a stable of about a dozen authors whose work I'll pick up without a second glance at the book. (this has resulted in my buying stuff I've already had but not read yet on several occasions) There are some lines of fiction – mostly related to properties like Warhammer or HALO – that I'll buy regardless of the author or the back cover text. I'll judge a book by its cover – at least in the pick-up-and-flip-through sense. If it has a good cover, it earns points that can be redeemed for further interest in checking out the book.
But what about stuff you've never heard of before?
Of course this topic is near and dear to us here. Being that most of our authors are new faces on the publishing field, it is an ever-present challenge to get people to pick up our books and realize how much they rock the house.
(Please note that they only figuratively rock the house, there is no empirical evidence of any house rocking caused by any of our titles. Although I suspect if you bought enough of them….)
So here's the question, folks. What grabs you? The cover? The subject matter? Quotes from other authors? The attractive picture of the author on the back? (Typically, you have to pick up the book first to get that) Candy stuffed into the pages?
Tomorrow I'm going to tackle reviews.