I remember reading an article a few months ago about how the vast majority of books published don’t make their production costs back. And this got me thinking. How many ‘new’ books do you read each year?
I’m not the most avid reader in the world (although, I’ve read 14 this year so, you know), but I’ve noticed that I rarely end up buying a book that’s brand new.
Some of this is marketing (I just don’t see potential new books), some of it is price (money is tight, new books can be expensive) and some of it is time (I work and have 2 young kids, I don’t have that much time to read any books, let alone the new bestsellers).
So my question: How do you consume your books. Are you a day 1 pre-order sort of reader, or do you keep a long list of books you’ll get to (maybe)?
It varies - there’s a few authors/series that I follow and will buy their book as soon as it drops as a paperback: Charles Stross’ Laundry Files, China Mieville’s fiction if he ever writes another one, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore and I will be all over Christopher Buehlman’s next fantasy. I also enjoyed Gareth Hanrahan’s Black Iron Legacy, so bounced on to his new, unconnected series.
However, most books I dig up are from recommendation threads where I’ve liked something and want more of the same. I’m usually late enough to that party for the books to be a few quid secondhand. So I recently finished Buehlman’s The Blacktongue Thief and it was exactly the kind of fantasy I was looking for, so I Googled for similar and took a punt on a few more, but realised one was already in my to-read pile so I took my life in my hands and dug it out.
I’ll obviously also buy new for presents, for myself or others.