What do readers want?
[Consider this to be part two of last week’s “Forget that Audience.”]
One answer to this question would be some magic formula that guarantees an author s/he’ll have a bestseller. I’d be the first person standing in line to buy that formula, but I’m also enough of a realist to know that it doesn’t exist! What do Fifty Shades, The Martian, and Harry Potter have in common? They surprised the hell out of every agent and editor who thinks they’re privy to that formula, that’s what! Even Amazon admits that most books don’t sell many copies. Translation: most books don’t seem to give readers what they want.
Most authors’ books do poorly. I’m in that club. I probably should win a prize for being the least successful author. But, as a reviewer of other authors’ books, I can’t figure out why some authors achieve success and others, like me, walk in a desert that seems to be devoid of readers. Maybe it’s a saturation problem—too many good books and authors, not enough readers. Maybe it’s a time problem—there are people who want to read more, but they’re busy with other things. Of course, those other things might be the latest TV soap opera from Amazon or NetFlix; in other words, people choose to spend their free time elsewhere, not reading.
But I’ve increased my participation on Goodreads and have anecdotal answers to the question in the title—necessary conditions a reader wants satisfied before s/he picks up a book to read. That’s a different answer to the question and speaks to what a reader wants even before s/he opens the author’s book. Here’s a list:
Paper or ebook version? Some readers want both, others prefer one or the other. There are some demographic differences here. Longtime readers (OK, we tend to be old and wary of new technologies) often like paper—they like the solid feel of a real book where they can take notes in the margins, dog-ear the pages, and feel good about recirculating them in community book sales or used book stores. I’m in that category for a lot of non-fiction, what I call doorstop tomes. I’m currently reading a bio on Eisenhower; I finished reading one a while ago on Churchill. Just about all the doorstops you’ll ever need, but I can’t imagine reading these as an ebook.
On the other hand, for fiction—I read more of that—I like my Kindle. So do many other readers. Younger readers tend to read ebooks. They’re easy to buy online, and they’re more portable—that makes a big difference if you’re thinking about taking five or six novels on an ocean cruise, for example. And they don’t kill forests. Dedicated reading devices aren’t necessary either—you can read an ebook on most mobile devices and laptops.
It seems that paper books and ebooks are here to stay, so an author really should provide both. For me, that’s extra expense, so that remains a goal. For other authors, it might not be so tough to give readers what they want.
A well-edited and well-formatted book. This seems to be a sine qua non for readers (in the logical sense of a necessary condition, not a sufficient one). This goes for both paper and ebook versions. (The formatting is different for each, of course.) Text with gaps or run together, misspellings, bad grammar, dropped words, and so forth are big turn-offs. Readers don’t want to jump over hurdles when they’re reading, even if they got the book for free. They want a book to look professional. If an author can’t copy-edit their book, s/he should hire a pro copy-editor. If s/he can’t do a good formatting job, s/he should hire a pro formatter.
An attractive cover. This is part of looking professional too. For me, the title and author’s name on the cover would be sufficient—I’m more into the content. I rarely choose a book for its cover. OK, maybe I’ll reject it for a really bad cover. Many covers are as bad as those old space opera books where the ET is chowing down on some damsel with big boobs—more often than not, the story has nothing to do with that scene. Most readers aren’t overly critical about the cover, but again, they want it to look professional. And because most writers aren’t graphics artists, they should hire a pro. The cover is a bit like the wrapping paper and ribbon around the Christmas present—good quality creates anticipation that something good inside awaits.
Good writing. This is really necessary condition #1. Most readers don’t know much about the techniques for writing a good story. Plot, characterization, setting, dialogue, POV usage, and so forth are often as obscure as the fundamental theorem of calculus. They don’t care what the syntax is, but they’ll know a good, well-told story when they read it. They’ll know if they relate to the author’s characters. Many well know that the bodega at forty-eighth and Broadway isn’t really there either (don’t check me out on that one). They might be generous and give the author a few passes, but they’ll know if the writer writes crap. (Of course, one person’s crap is another person’s jewel.)
This is one place where authors can forget about editing. We’re talking about content-editing here, and the author should never hire an editor for that, unless s/he’s just feeding facts to a ghost writer who’s writing her or his memoir or expose (many books in those categories are written exactly that way—99% of celebrities books, I’d wager). Content editing is the writer’s job; it’s part of writing a book. A reader wants your voice, not one from a hired schmuck. So that “good writing” is on the author—the buck stops with the writer.
Reasonable price. Readers don’t want to pay a fortune for a book, unless they’re buying an expensive art or coffee-table book to impress guests who visit. Many readers peruse used book stores. Many use public libraries. And many interchange books among friends. Traditional publishers have forsaken those readers who want a reasonable price for the most part. There are few bargains anymore among the traditionally published books, and ebooks cost about the same as paper. The author can only provide exciting entertainment at a reasonable price if s/he goes indie. And that’s what readers want.
Generally speaking, hardbound and paper versions are more expensive than ebooks (or they should be)—traditional publishing is in denial here. That cost differential is easy to justify: an ebook is just a computer file; a paper book has a lot more costly materials associated with its publishing. Audiobooks are the worse (production costs usually include a pro reader). Around $30 per book, that’s paying a lot of money for convenience. But some readers want that too—reading their Kindle propped on the steering wheel is generally recognized as insanity.
Still looking for that magic formula? Don’t, if you’re an author. But, with the above, you’ll have the necessary conditions a reader is looking for. Your book will snowball into one like those I named above only if you win the publishing lottery, though. Don’t quit your day-job otherwise!
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May Day Sale. It continues this week. Mary Jo Melendez invites you to a Kindle Countdown Sale. Her stories, Muddlin’ Through and Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By, will be on sale through May 6, $0.99 each, reduced from $2.99. That’s a lot of spring and summer reading for only $2. Want more summer reading? Check out my catalog: here’s my Amazon page. Three more series, twenty more recent books, all save one for $3.99 or less, including my new sci-fi/fantasy novel, Rogue Planet, for $2.99. What are you waiting for?
[Note: This article and “Forget that Audience” repeat many of the points a writer will find in my five-lesson course on fiction writing. You should also peruse some of the other articles on writing. You’ll find them all in the archive “Writing.”]
In libris libertas….
