I love buying books from all kinds of sources, and when I choose one I look for the author’s bio, possibly the publisher, and read at least the first page before making my mind up. My partner buys them because she likes the book’s cover.
I’ve read quite a few of the books she’s purchased that way, or, I’ve started to read them, and after a few lines, not even paragraphs, I know that they’ve been self-published. I’ve even come across such books that are readable, but as a writer I’m far too harsh a critic anyway, and I’ve never finished one.
But I sometimes wonder whether the reading public really care. To get back to the only handy example I can base my public reader on, she’s next door, right now, reading a magazine, I think it’s called Take That, which I find appalling, yet she buys several similar ones on a regular basis. And she then exchanges them among her circle of friends.
She’s not dumb either, she reads Martina Cole and Linda La Plante, along with millions of others (who read those magazines and books). If I put Hemingway in front of her, I’d have to strap her down and promise her a new frock, or even a car, before she would read more than a page of it.
Yet I believe she is more representative of the average reader than possibly most members of this, or similar forums. She’s not interested in writing, she’s a reader, not a critical one, but one that just wants to be entertained.
If, therefore, she represents the average reader, she wouldn’t know the difference between Hodder and Lulu, and the author’s name wouldn’t mean anything to her either. She’s looking for a nice cover and a simple story of love and romance, or a bit of gangster gore.
70% of books are purchased by women aged between 35 and 55; just like the one next door reading Take That, although she could now be on Hello, she bought that as well this morning.
So could it be that self-publishing could be just as successful as the mainstream? I think it could, if the author had half-a-million to spend on promotion. Therein lies the rub.
If she ever reads what I’ve just written, I’m dead.