How do books get discovered? A guide for publishers and authors who want their books to find an audience

We've all fallen under the spell of a truly great book. But where did we originally hear about it? How did we come to choose that particular book from among the literally millions of books in the world? Did a friend hand it to us and say, "You have to read this!" Or did we hear about it on NPR's "Fresh Air"? Or was it a 카지노싸이트 Recommendation that convinced us to give it a try?

From the publisher's perspective, discovery has always been shrouded in mystery, a sort of alchemical process through which readers find books they love. With a community of more than 7 million people and 250 million books shelved, 카지노싸이트 is uniquely equipped to shed some light on this eternal question. On Wednesday, our CEO Otis Chandler gave a talk at the conference in New York City presenting some data that helps get at one of the most pressing questions facing the publishing industry today—how do readers discover books?

What we found is that readers discover books in several different ways. While this may not seem surprising, it should serve as a reminder to authors and publishers that no one promotion or marketing technique is enough. To successfully promote a book, you have to reach out to readers in a variety of ways.

Below is a pie chart of the various methods 카지노싸이트 members use to find books on the site:



One of the biggest things we learned—or should we say confirmed—is the power of word of mouth. Searching for titles on 카지노싸이트 is the top way people find books for their to-read shelves. That means they first heard of it elsewhere—likely from friends or the media. Search represented the method of discovery with the widest distribution of titles, from the very popular to the very obscure.



Some of the methods for finding books, such as the registration process for 카지노싸이트, favor very popular books. We want to make sure you see something familiar when signing up, so we show books that many readers have liked. But other methods of discovery, such as updates from your friends and searching for specific books and authors, are better for finding more obscure books.

Our has been incredibly successful since we launched it last September. It was designed to show you interesting mid-list books (books that are neither best-sellers nor completely unknown titles) that you may not have heard of. As shown in the graph below, we succeeded. This makes sense, as nobody needs an algorithm to tell them about a best-seller. It's also worth pointing out that on the lower end our recommendation engine has a minimum threshold of several hundred ratings so we know enough about a book to be statistically comfortable recommending it. So authors, if you know of a strong comparable title to your book and you are able to market your book to those readers—and they respond by adding your book to their 카지노싸이트 account—our recommendation engine will notice this correlation and be even more likely to suggest your book to the right readers.



To find out more about where people initially hear about the books they read, we ran a survey of more than 3,200 카지노싸이트 members, asking them how they discovered books. The results were somewhat surprising.



As you can see, most 카지노싸이트 members get book recommendations from their friends, either on 카지노싸이트 or off. Conversely, very few 카지노싸이트 members rely on Twitter and Facebook to hear about new books.



And, as , an appearance on a popular NPR program or The Daily Show can give any book a "pop" on 카지노싸이트. It's worth noting, though, that maintaining that level of interest in the book relies on word of mouth. (In the graph below, the blue line shows the number of times was added after a member searched for it, and the brown curve shows the number of times the book was added because a member had seen a mention of the book in a friend's update.)



Discovery happens in a multitude of ways, and a successful marketing campaign should take that into account. But there are a few strategies that seem to work well.

Our best advice is to work hard to establish your core fan base. The more momentum on 카지노싸이트 you get, the more it will build. Encourage your readers to rate and review your book on 카지노싸이트. This will not only help generate word-of-mouth buzz, which is essential for a sustained promotion, but also help get your books onto the appropriate and onto the 카지노싸이트 Recommendation engine. Our lists are a great source of discovery for our members, including lots of mid-list titles. They tend to be specific, such as World War II Fiction or Pacific Northwest Books, so having your book on the right list can make a huge difference.



If you're an author who already has a following, be sure to promote your book heavily to your existing fans and fans of similar authors. Add a or to your Web site or blog and encourage your readers to add your books and become your fan. If you're just starting out, reach the right readers with an .

For more interesting data on how readers discover their books, be sure to explore the full slideshow below. We look forward to bringing you more of this kind of in-depth information that could only come from the world's largest site for readers and book recommendations.

Happy reading!
Otis, Kyusik, and Patrick