Cara/Andrea here, As many of you can probably tell from our monthly “What Are We Reading” posts, I am an avid reader as well an author—as are all the Wenches. So the question of how to discover new books and new-to-us authors in this age of shrinking bricks and mortar bookstores and expanding e-universe of titles is doubly important to me. The Wenches talk about it a lot among ourselves, but I’d love to hear YOUR thoughts on the state of reading today.
Gutenberg’s invention of movable allowed books to be mass-produced, and for almost four centuries, readers pretty much accessed books in the same way—they purchased them at bookstores, had a membership to a circulating library, or were lucky enough to borrow volumes from friends. (The wealthy, of course, could afford to amass fabulous collections of their own, and often bought books with plain cardboard coverings so they could bind them in fancy leather and gold-stamp decorations.)
The books people read were, aside from the occasional vanity press offerings, produced by publishing companies. Editing, production binding, distributing—until very recently the process was expensive, and as publishers counted on making a profit on their investment, they had a real incentive to turn out a quality product. A reader could pretty much count that a book bearing the imprint of one of the many firms that blossomed in major cities around the globe would meet a certain standard in terms of grammar, language, and the other basic elements of style, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. One might not like the content, but it would likely be a professional product.
But as we all know, things have changed radically in recent years. These days anyone can be a publisher—the local library cat can format and upload his book to Amazon if he happens to walk across the keyboard in just the right sequence. (I am only half jesting!) Like anything, there are good and bad points about this digital revolution—but mostly I find myself confused on how to go about discovering new and interesting reads. In the past I loved browsing through the new release tables at my local bookstore (both have gone out of business, and the local Barnes and Noble sells mostly children’s educational toys.) But the traditional publishers are 
shrinking their lists, especially in mass market paperback, because the competition from cheaper indie e-books is making it hard for them to stay in business.
Okay, you might say—why not simply browse genres on one of the big online booksellers? But I find it not at all the same! There is SO much out there, and if a book doesn’t come from a trad publisher, how does one sort the wheat from the chaff?
In thinking about this conundrum, I noodled up a handful of questions. I’d love to hear your answers to them:
In looking for a new author or new series, what influences you most? Recommendations from friends? Reading about it on a blog? Goodreads? Is there any “go-to” online site you trust the most for the skinny on books?
Do you buy on impulse or instinct? How much do covers affect your decision to buy a new-to-you author? How much do the blurbs?
What about pricing? Are you put off by the trad publishers selling an e-book at the same price as a paper book? Does that affect how many trad e-books you buy now? Conversely, are you willing to buy lots of $.99 books, even if you end up with a bunch of awful ones?
Lastly, do you find yourself or buying less—and even reading less—because the ocean out there is just too big and uncharted to navigate?
Please share your thoughts with fellow readers, and chime in with any aspect I've missed. As a token of thanks, I’ll be giving away a paper copy of Scandalously Yours, the first book in my “Hellions of High Street” series to one lucky winner chosen from those who leave a comment here between now and Thursday evening.
