What Makes You Buy a Book?

Zoë Sharp

Last week I read a very interesting article by indie author Maggie Lynch on the Alliance of Independent Authors website about what makes readers buy books.

Maggie has clearly gone into a great deal of depth on this subject, including doing a questionnaire with her own email list. If you want to read the full study, follow the link above to the piece.

She also quotes from a very scientific survey done for the Australia Council of the Arts in 2016, which covers all kinds of genres, including non-fiction, and a lot of details on how else people spend their leisure time.

Maggie mentions various other surveys and studies, from which the answers vary quite a bit as to what are the main points of influence for book buying. A good deal of it seemed to revolve around what questions were asked and how they were phrased, although generally, we didn’t get to see that part.

Among Maggie’s own readership, the most important factor was how well known the author was to the reader, closely followed by the cover, if the book was recommended by a friend (as opposed to being recommended via social media, which rated much lower), the description, and if it was part of a series. Way down the list was apparent bestseller status, literary prizes won, or who the book was published by.

In the Australia Council of the Arts results, however, the subject matter was by far the most important aspect, although it doesn’t specify fiction or non-fiction here. That the reader had read and enjoyed previous works by that author was second (the reputation of the author was sixth) and third was that the book was available in the format the reader wanted – something that didn’t make it into the top ten on Maggie’s list. Number five was the price of the book.

Other interesting information that came up was that type size was quite a factor, which applies only to print books. People were far more influenced by prizes, and by reader reviews rather than by professional reviews. Recommendations by librarians or booksellers were also taken seriously.

Just as a point of clarity, on some of the results, ‘blurbs’ were listed as a factor. It was not always clear what was meant by that. To me, a blurb is an endorsement on the front of the book by another author or a quote from a review. The brief synopsis of the book’s subject matter I would always refer to as ‘jacket copy’ or ‘flap copy’ as it’s found on the back of the paperback, or the inside flap of the hardcover.

Mark Dawson did a survey of his readership last year, although it differs from the others because, as Maggie points out, it was asking what influenced people who had already purchased Mark’s books. He asked how people found him, for which advertising, such as BookBub promotions and Facebook ads ranked top, with Amazon Also Bought suggestions next, and a very low incidence of personal recommendation.

Mark also found that the blurb (and reading the transcript of the podcast he did on the subject, which you can find via the link above, meant the jacket copy description) was most important, followed by reviews, the Look Inside excerpt, and then the cover a distant fourth.

I know my own reasons for buying books have changed a lot in the last few years and they vary a lot depending on the format of the book. I buy physical books using different criteria to ebooks, and I buy them for different reasons.

If I’m buying non-fiction research books, then if the price is not too steep, I’d far rather have a physical copy. It’s much easier to flip back and forth and stick Post-it notes in a ‘real’ book than an ebook. But if it’s something that may only yield one or two pertinent facts, or if time is a factor, an ebook would be fine.

I receive a daily digest from BookBub of books on sale, so there’s an incentive to buy them there and then, before the offer window closes. In this case, the brief couple of sentences about the story has to really intrigue and appeal. The number of five-star ratings have no effect on my choice, nor do review quotes unless they particularly mention an aspect of the story that grabs me.

The cover doesn’t sway me except in a negative way – a really poor cover will put me off. If I like the sound of the plot, I’ll go and read the full jacket copy description on the book page, and if it still sounds good, I’ll do a Look Inside to see if I like the sound of that writer’s voice.

I keep stressing this – the writer’s voice is what keeps me coming back to an author time and again. When I see adverts that say: ‘If you like Jack Reacher or Mitch Rapp, you need to read…’ they don’t inspire me to check out the book, because even if the character was a carbon copy of Reacher, the writing style would not be the same as Lee Child.

In print, I’m far more fussy. There are authors whose books I will buy automatically as soon as they come out, like Lee. But having far less space for books means I have to be very hooked in order to want to give up precious bookshelf space. If I know the author personally, I’m far more likely to buy a physical copy and have them sign it for me, which makes it more special.

So, what influences your book choices?

Here are some of the reasons mentioned, in alphabetical order. Are any of these a factor?

·            Author familiarity or reputation

·            Advertising

·            Bestseller status of author or book

·            Book trailer video

·            Cover design

·            Endorsements (blurbs)

·            Format

·            Indie vs traditionally published author

·            Jacket copy description

·            Length of the book

·            Literary prize-winner or nominee

·            Look Inside segment or website excerpt

·            Price/offer

·            Publisher

·            Recommendations from family/friends

·            Recommendations from librarian/bookseller

·            Recommendations on social media

·            Reviews (professional)

·            Reviews (reader)

·            Series character

·            Setting

·            Subject

·            Type size

This week’s Word of the Week is cly-faker, meaning a pickpocket, using fake in its nineteenth-century slang sense of to rob or steal, and cly from claw or possibly from the Dutch kleed meaning a garment.

What Happens When You're Alone on an Island Paradise

Photo by Thanasis Krikis (Mykonos Confidential)

Jeff—Saturday

I can’t believe how quickly the summer’s flown by!  My Texas granddaughter and grandson already are back in school, and my New York granddaughter is gearing up for her entry onto the Long Island kindergarten scene.

Over here on Mykonos, the tectonic shift in tourists is underway. The hard partying young Southern Europeans have moved on, the Gay XLSIOR Festival crowd has moved in for a week, and all the island awaits September with its promise of returning old Mykonos hands lingering on into October.

I’ve spent many an August on Mykonos, and to be honest, I no longer feel affected by the dreaded August madness—other than incidentally impacted by the choking traffic, late night marauding crowds, and steeply escalated prices.  No doubt that’s because I rarely leave my writing garrets.  That’s plural, because I have several, depending on my mood. 

Outdoor office #1

View from OO#1

Outdoor office #2 

Outdoor office #3

Indoor office #1

Indoor office #2

Deadlines must be met.  It’s a curse I’ve labored under since my days as a lawyer, and mine always seem to fall at the end of summer.  This year, I started writing Kaldis #10 during the last week of May, aiming for a stride of 1000 words per day.  I hit that mark, and once Barbara abandoned me to the island for August (see above for reasons why), my output increased considerably.  After all, what else could there possibly be for me to do on Mykonos without her?

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. For example, I bet you can’t imagine the sorts of responses I received to this simple research question: “What are high season rates this year on Mykonos for prostitutes?”  Trust me, it’s integral to my story line.

One would expect such a question to raise an eyebrow or two, but each person I asked answered matter-of-factly, as if I’d asked for the time of day.  Was that reaction indicative of how islanders have come to accept the sex industry, and all it represents, as part of a new island normal?  Or were they simply treating it as just another of Jeffrey’s “crazy writer questions.”

Whatever their reasons, I obtained the information I needed, wrote my book, and two days ago, transferred it from the screen to hard copy pages for the next stage in the process. 

I’m comfortable in knowing that the book will meet its deadline (puh, puh, puh), and all I’ll have left to worry about is whether this is the Kaldis novel that will have me “swimming with the fishes.”

No matter, once Barbara returns, we’ll be off for a bit of vacation among the Greek Isles.

Ah, the joy of being a crime writer living on an island paradise.  You get to fictionalize its intriguing warts, while enjoying its honest pleasures.

—Jeff

What are words worth?

                       

The £10 million Gaelic school has raised questions of “equity and fairness”.

The official language of the Scottish people is English.  That might come as a bit of a surprise to those of you who have actually spoken to me and when I replied thought ‘eh?’ or as I would say, ‘Whit?’

Things have been that way since  1707, and for about 600 years before then most Scots spoke English anyway, or our form of English. There are three official languages of Scotland; English, Scots and Scots Gaelic.

                      

                       Many hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent duplicating the word  police. In case you can't recognise the stripey car with the flashing blue lights. Huge waste of money.

 And a load of tosh is written about the third one, in my humble opinion. The big controversy is raising its head, shown by the fact we have a commonly used phrase – the Tartan Taliban. It shows what most lowlanders think of the massive amount of money and resources that are ploughed into the maintenance of the language, and the fact that it’s pushed upon people who have no desire to use it.

There is a place. It cost the taxpayer £15 million to build. It teaches non-Gaelic speakers to speak Gaelic. The sign posts to it are all in Gaelic so no buggar can find it, neither will your sat nav or your phone google map- unless you switch them to Gaelic.

So very, very roughly, Scots Gaelic is spoken in the Western Isles. It comes from the same root as Irish Gaelic, in the 4^th century give or take a fortnight. In the east, there is the language of Scots which I have blogged about before; that gives us shelpit, a word that means bitter tasting or that white colour of kin that goes with a stomach bug, or, as I have used it, when describing the pallor of a  constant heroin user.   Scots is more fluid with English, I use both Scots and Gaelic words myself without realising.

                  

There might have been a time, the time of Picts and Gaels when most of ‘Scotland’ as it was then (not the geographical area it is now) spoke Gaelic. The place names give good evidence for this although there is not much to substantiate its wide use beyond the 1400s. The Western Islands language spread over the north of Scotland and to become Scottish Gaelic, replacing the Pictish tongue, but in the very north the Norse language replaced Pictish.

Just to complicate matters before 1400’s Inglis ("English") was spoken by us lot, with Gaelic being called Scottis by the Gaels on the islands. Then Scottis became known as Erse ("Irish") and the Lowland vernacular, the Inglis became Scots.

                  

Did you follow that? You don’t need to. If you speak Glaswegian nobody has a clue what you are blethering on about anyway. And probably think they are about to be mugged.

Less than 0.5% of scots are fully literate in the Gaelic language; most of them live in the Outer Hebrides.

Despite the fact that the use of Gaelic was at its height in 1000, it is still kicked about by politicians like the proverbial hot potato.  Or ‘teth 'bhuntàta’.  That is a guess!

Lowlanders get tattoos in Gaelic seeing the language as lyrical and romantic, which it is. But it is not our mother tongue and having any tattoo in a language you have no knowledge of is not without its risks.  Instead of ‘my heart sings of happiness’   some poor bugger got ‘My face is the shape of a beetroot.’ Serves them right.

              

Around the times of the gladiators, we had been called Scotia and our language was Lingua Scotia   and even my limited knowledge about Latin recognises that.

Amo amas amat and all that. Cave Canem Mathilda and pestis furcifer.

Anyway, tempis fugit as only tempis can.

There is now a huge revival effort in Gaelic. We have development boards and Scottish Gaelic schools - schools where kids are taught normally but in the Gaelic language and then we have the schools for adult non-Gaelic speakers to the language, considering it all fell apart when Malcolm the 3rd married a non-Gaelic bride… in 1050.

The wicked peadia lists Gaelic on the Endangered Languages Project as "threatened” status with about 25000 active users.

The big issue is that  the language was banned after the Battle Of Culloden in 1746- that’s the battle that daft folk believe  was English on  one side and Scots on the other ( the indeys have a memory blank spot about it) but it was highlander  versus lowland, French and Italians, landlords and land workers, Catholics and Protestants. It was a bloody time in our history and the atrocities that took place after the battle were as horrific as anything that would go on today. But it was not Scot Versus English.

                

Of course people want to keep their native tongue alive. I have no issues with that. But it’s not the native tongue of 99.95% of the population and I’ve never met a native Gaelic speaker ( and I know many!) who can’t flip back and forth. Indeed I have met a few, one just last week who went into a huge swearing  tirade about their language being used as a political tool and  describes those English speakers who want to learn  as a bunch of patronising *******.

 She went onto say that she speaks Gaelic in the house to her mum and her kids. When she shops locally on her island, she speaks Gaelic, but in town she speaks English and she’d really like her kids to learn  Spanish or Mandarin  as a third language at school, as they will already be fluent in English and Gaelic.

 And I think she’s right. It’s a big world out there as we bloggers at MIE know.                                                                                      

Oh, and my publisher was approached to put the new novel, as shown below, forward for the Highland Book Award. I think they have asked for it because of the view on the cover..

Caro Ramsay

Homicide and the inequality gap

Kwei Quartey for Michael - Thursday

Kwei Quartey

Kwei Quartey is one of my favorite mystery authors. I could be accused of bias because (a) he sets his books in Africa; (b) he is a Sunshine Noir author; (c) his detective Darko Dawson and our Kubu seem to come across similar issues, quite independently. But beyond that, he's a great story teller with a wonderful sense of place in Ghana and an understanding of the cultures there.

Born in Ghana, he now lives with his family in Pasadena, where until recently he practised medicine. Now he is concentrating full time on writing. Our gain! Michael Connelly said of his work: “Searing and original and done just right . . . Inspector Darko Dawson is relentless, and I look forward to riding with him again." If you haven't read any of the Darko mysteries, start with Wife of the Gods. You'll want to read them all.

In this thoughtful and thought-provoking piece, Kwei asks:

Does rising economic inequality lead to more murder?

The income inequality gap appears to have a relationship to the homicide rate in different countries. Complex, scholarly articles have considered the question in depth. The FBI has a study on the topic, and there’s a website called inequality.org. Professor Emeritus Martin Daly in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada has written a book called Killing the Competition: Economic Inequality and Homicide. He argues that homicides, which are primarily male-on-male and not male-on-female as often thought, are rooted in the fierce competition between and among men.  He connects this to income inequality using one of the most popular measures of inequality, the Gini coefficient (or index or ratio). You don’t need to know about the Gini in detail, but essentially, a coefficient of 0% means maximum equality, and 100% is maximum inequality. So, the higher the Gini, the more inequitable the society is from an income/economy standpoint.

 But in practice, how does inequality correlate with the homicide rate? Let’s say I live in a poverty-stricken, economically-downtrodden neighborhood in the US. I’m unemployed and frustrated. Some guy down the street looks at me sideways, or, worse, comes on to my girlfriend. I feel so “dissed,” I hunt him down and shoot him dead. Was it the awareness that Jeff Bezos is filthy rich and I’m dirt poor that drove me to kill? Clearly not. What I believe is happening here is that the institutional and political systems in place that serve to maintain and promote income inequality itself (the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer), lead to the malignant neglect of the poor and disenfranchised. Someone in that inexorable condition is heavily affected at a very personal level as the daily grind of hopelessness and vexation relentlessly continues. The outlet for this despair may be violence. In the US particularly, that violence comes too often in the form of fatal shootings.

 Across the world, gun deaths in multiple countries have a positive correlation with the Gini coefficient referenced above.

Fig. 1 Firearm homicide rate against GINI Index (World Bank estimates)
Norway is the orange disc with Gini 28.4 and Rate 0.05
US the yellow disc with Gini 40.8 and rate 3.65
South Africa the highest Gini at 61.9 and rate 20.29

However, hidden behind this graph is a third element that could skew the result, specifically, access to firearms. Compared to the US, for example, Norway has both a low Gini index and a low homicide-by-firearm rate, but availability of guns in the US is far greater than in Norway, and it’s fair to wonder how much that difference is influencing the results.

 I thought it would be better to correlate the Gini coefficient with all intentional homicide (excluding war/armed conflict) rather than firearm homicide specifically. Using data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the CIA World Factbook, I chose fifteen countries and plotted a graph of their Gini coefficients and corresponding intentional homicide rates (Table 1 and Figure 2):

COUNTRY	GINI COEFFICIENT (%)	INTENTIONAL HOMICIDE RATE (per 100,000 population)
Slovakia	25	1.1
Sweden	28	1.1
France	29	1.2
Switzerland	30	0.5
Canada	32	1.7
UK	35	1.2
USA	39	5.4
Turkey	40	4.3
Ghana	42	6.1
Mexico	46	19.2
Brazil	47	29.5
China	47	0.6
Nigeria	49	9.9
Rwanda	50	2.5
South Africa	62	34

Table 1. GINI Coefficient v Intentional Homicide Rate for selected countries

Fig. 2  GINI Coefficient v Intentional Homicide Rate (Kwei Quartey)

On my graph, the correlation between the Gini coefficient and homicide is moderate and non-linear. The left lower corner of the graph shows countries with whom we typically associate with both low Gini values and low homicide rates—the usual suspects of Western Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, and so on. The curve rises somewhat sharply after UK onward to USA, Turkey, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. Significantly off the curve are China, Rwanda (both with lower homicide rates), Mexico and Brazil (much higher homicide rates) and South Africa, with dramatically higher homicide rates and Gini coefficients.

 Caution should be applied to these data because of a number of unseen factors. For instance, not all the numbers are as up to date as others: US figures are from 2016, but others are from earlier than that. 

Fig. 3 Ghana, West Africa, on the Gulf of Guinea
(Shutterstock)

Since I write novels set in Ghana, West Africa, (Figure 3), I was particularly interested by its place on the graph. According to tradingeconomics.com, Ghana's economy expanded by 8.1 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2017. There is no doubt the country is developing, but the contrast between rich and poor Ghana could not be starker. Income inequality is perfectly represented by the high-rise buildings and luxury apartments that look down onto the streets below.

Fig 4. Luxury high-rise apartments
in Accra
 (Photo: Kwei Quartey)

Fig. 5 High-rise office building under construction,
 Accra
(Photo: Kwei Quartey)

Meanwhile, for ordinary folks, plumbing and road infrastructure go neglected.

Fig. 6 Unauthorized wood shack in Jamestown, Accra, without interior plumbing
(Photo: Kwei Quartey)

This readily observable inequality appears reflected in Ghana’s Gini coefficient, which is higher than that of the US, and so is Ghana’s respective homicide rate of 6.1. But according to the World Bank, Ghana’s homicide rate decreased overall from 2.2 per 100,000 population in 2001 to 1.7 in 2011. The jump to 6.1 in 2012 is surprising and out of place. Was that an unexplained “blip,” an error in data collection, or is it indeed correct? I have no figures for the years following 2012, so we can’t see how the 6.1 data point trended thereafter. I have requested updated figures from Ghana’s Statistical Service but haven’t yet heard back from them. Knowing Ghana well, it could be a while.

 Besides mere academics, what does this kind of information hold for readers and writers of crime fiction? It may appear as dry information, but behind all statistics are real people. Eudora Welty said, “The writing of a novel is taking life as it already exists, not to report it but to make an object, toward the end that the finished work might contain this life inside it and offer it to the reader . . .”

 That’s why we don’t write about vacuous settings detached from reality. Social inequity, a real thing, holds a particular fascination for me, as does cultural dissonance, but the task—something like wrestling a bull to the ground—is to figure out how and why the Gini Index at the human, micro level sets the stage for murder.