Reading Patterns

[rowyn]

I am thinking about the buying habits of readers, and trying to subdivide them into several categories, in relation to a single author's works:

* Character fan. Follows the books about one character/group of characters, may not read other books by same author.
* Setting fan. Follows the books in a particular setting. May not read other books by same author.
* Story arc fan: Reader will follow the story arc through a trilogy or series, but may not read more books in a new story arc about the same characters/setting.
* Genre fan. Reads author's works in a particular genre, but not in other genres.
* Theme/review based. Readers who pick up the author's works based on theme, or reviews. This group has tastes with regards to the author that are harder to slot into the usual groups, and the author's works sometimes suit those tastes and sometimes don't.
* Former fan: Reader followed one of the patterns above, but for one reason or another stopped. "Former fans" aren't necessarily people who stopped reading an author entirely. They might be people who bought the first five books of a ten+ book series, and then lost interest in that series but are still interested in one or more other works by the same author.
* Author fan. Reads everything the author writes, regardless.
* Casual. Picked up one book, may or may not ever get another by that author.
* Other

I don't mean for these categories to be "each person is one of these types of readers". I came up with these categories because they are all groups that I fall into for different authors.

Examples where I am:

Character Fan: P. B. O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books, Jim Hines' Libriomancer books.

Setting Fan: K.J. Charles, "Charm of Magpies" setting.

Author Fan: Diana Wynne Jones, Lois McMaster Bujold, Bard Bloom, Terry Pratchett, Brandon Sanderson

Story Arc Fan: J.K. Rowling's 7-book "Harry Potter" series.

Theme Fan: MCA Hogarth, Walter Jon Williams

Casual: Neil Gaiman (I started reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman in 1990 or so, and I've read at least three of his other books and a few short stories. I really liked Sandman at the time, but somehow none of his books that I tried have made me a fan of his non-comics work. I don't hate them, just not that into him.) 

Other: Courtney Milan. I've read eight or so novels/novellas by her, and I expect to read more. But she has a bunch of books out that I haven't yet bought or read, and I don't have any plans to go get more.

Former Fan: These are all cases where I read at least three books but stopped, even though more have come out:

Setting
George R.R. Martin: Wildcards

Story Arc:
George R.R. Martin: Song of Ice and Fire

Character:
David Weber: Honor Harrington
L. K. Hamilton: Anita Blake

Author:
Anne McCaffrey
Piers Anthony (I was young and foolish. Seriously, he really does think like a teenager and anecdotal evidence shows he is inexplicably appealling to kids between 10-17 or so, then they grow up and can't really remember why. If you're one of those people who still has nostalgic fondness for one of his books, DO NOT GO BACK AND READ IT. You will have regrets.)

In a lot of these cases, it's hard to pin down why my reading habits are the way they are. I liked  Charles' first three "Magpies" books and adored the spinoff, Jackdaw, but haven't sought out any of her other books in different series anyway.

In some cases, it was series fatigue: I stopped reading new Pern books long before I stopped reading McCaffrey entirely. I think that "historical romance fatigue" may be why I haven't read more books Courtney Milan. I liked the last historical romance I read by her, but I had a strange sense of 'sameness' while reading it that made me not want to get another one. I don't regard that as a "former fan" scenario because I'm pretty sure I will read more of her work in coming years.

Part of why I'm thinking about this is that it's so complicated. The "thousand true fans" theory hinges on the idea that you can hook people on your name, and they'll buy whatever you write. The "series sell" strategy hinges on "readers become hooked on a character or setting, and they won't necessarily read works with a different theme". And yet I know in my own experience that there are cases where I've read several books in a series and then quit that series -- but will still read other works by that author. As well as cases where I read a series but not other works by that author. OTOH, the "series sells" philosophy obviously works for most of the market, if not for me. Hamilton and Weber are very successful, 20+ books on in their series. And I've spoken to authors who kept writing in a successful series for the money, and yes, it worked for them better than branching out did. Even though they were sick of writing that series.

I don't really have any conclusions from this, just musings and questions. Do you have any categories I missed? Do you find yourself more likely to fall into a particular pattern with most authors, or does it vary wildly for you too?

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Seems reasonable. Mostly I think of it more like 'I really like this author and want to read everything', 'I kind of like this author and I'll at least follow this series but I don't know if I want to read the rest of his stuff', 'I like this author's sci-fi but not his historical fiction', and the far-too-common 'I used to like this guy but his recent stuff really sucks'.

Then there's 'I like this author a lot and wanted to read everything but he/she wrote way too much and I got overwhelmed and just gave up entirely'. Which describes at least three authors.

[tagryn]

Agree on all that.

I honestly can't think of one author that's a "I'll buy everything regardless" for me. There's just too much else out there that I want to read, and not enough time to do it in...maybe there was more "author fandom" back in the days when it was harder to get a hold of any but the most popular books in the genre, but those days are long gone. Plus, even giants like Martin and Gaiman and Scalzi have their off days; those tend to end up in anthologies where it gets sold as "NEW STORY BY XXX!" and turns out to be a disappointment more often than not.

I don't know if this qualifies as an actual "fan" category, but there's a fair number of authors that I'd fan as "I respect this person's work, and a lot of people I respect seem to like it, but I just don't have the time right now to even keep up with the series I'm already interested in, so..." These fans may actually buy some books, which end up sitting unread for years, but its more on reputation than actual experience enjoying their work. For me as a fan, I'd put Leckie, Martin, Gaiman, and Pratchett in that category. This is a phenomena that only the "superstars" probably get to experience and profit from, though.

[rowyn]

I used to go on author kicks where I'd just read EVERYTHING by one author that I liked. I got on a kick for Diana Wynne Jones back in 2003 or so and read 30 books by her in the next six months. I did that with Bujold at one point, too. I haven't read everything by Sanderson, but most of his work. But yes, the fact that I have easy access to a huge variety of work makes me feel less motivated to hunt down the Sanderson books I haven't gotten to yet, say. I gave up on Song of Ice and Fire is when I realized I'd have to re-read the first three books before I could read the new one(s), and I was not motivated to do so. (It didn't help that the people I know who'd read book 4 were unimpressed by it, back in the days before the TV show.)

[3rdragon]

I could have written that comment.

I used to be very author-completionist. Authors I read as a teenager, I read EVERYTHING (that the library had). And ones I really liked, I would buy what the library didn't. I think I just had more time as a teenager, and fewer books: I used to reread a lot, too (still do, but less so. There was a time when I could quote huge swaths of books I liked, or play memory games based on recalling and identifying dialogue snippets).

Possibly Madeleine L'Engle was the first author to break that for me: having finished all of her children's and YA books, I moved downstairs, and decided within five or ten pages of A Live Coal in the Sea that I was not old enough yet, and put it down. (This is also the first book I recall making a conscious decision not to finish.)

I suppose that I'm still pretty author-completionist for authors I really like (Bujold, Leckie, Wein, Hilari Bell -- or DWJ used to be), or for ones like Tamora Pierce or Robin McKinley that I'm not as over-the-top about, but who haven't lost my interest. Some authors that I used to be author-completionist about, I've shifted to series or character completionist as newer series haven't grabbed me as much (Sherwood Smith, which is probably related to growing out of the target audience for her younger books). A good rule of thumb is that if the first book really grabs me, I'll be author-completionist until dissuaded, and even then would probably be inclined to try new series unless I bounced pretty hard. (Conversely, if the first book I try is a bounce, I'm unlikely to try other series at all, unless something comes highly recommended, and even then I'll drag my feet. I'm unlikely to pick up Diana Gabaldon, even though people I know like some of her stuff a good bit.)

Then there's people who I'm not at a completionist level, but whose books impressed me sufficiently that I'd be open to reading more in any world or characters (right now you, Jo Walton, Neil Gaiman, Sanderson, and Sarah Monette are in this category).

I would have said that I was never story-arc-completionist, but no, you're right, Harry Potter is definitely that. I'm also aware that I'm more completionist than really necessary -- I'll probably finish anything that's a 2, 3 if I'm feeling finicky, though my long to-read list is making me a little more discerning. And if the story arc isn't complete, I may read a sequel, even if it's only a 5 or so.

It's worth noting that my read-though value depends strongly on time vs. numerical rating vs. impression the book made on me. I also dropped GRRM because the books were too much effort and too much waiting for too little payback. If I didn't like a book super-well but it had a cliffhanger ending and the sequel is easy to get, I'm much more likely to read it than if the sequel doesn't come out until next year, by which time the wait will have dulled the emotional investment that would urge me forward, leaving only the general 'meh,' assuming I remember the book at all.

I would say that I am mostly not a genre fan, unless the author writes in one genre I like and one I actively avoid. (Too far into horror or erotica, say.) I don't really understand the people who get mad because Bujold writes space opera and fantasy-romance. (Though I would understand people who got mad because Ursula Vernon writes children's and whatever her T. Kingfisher stuff is. I guess Vernon is as close as I get to genre fandom, but that's more target age than actual genre division.)

I think the TL;DR takeaway from me is that if I like something, my potential readthrough value is generally quite high, so long as it doesn't require too much effort or too much waiting. The real trick is to break into the category where I'll actively seek out an author's work, rather than passively reading it if it comes my way, or throwing it onto the several-hundred-book-long list of stuff to read sometime. (I also buy very few books, and mostly get stuff from the library. Books I buy are either gifts, things I like so much that I need my own copy (relatively few, recently, especially as the library here is so good), or things that I want to read actively enough that I buy them when they come out/when I can't get them at the library.

[rowyn]

That is a lot of overwhelming.

I used to think it wasn't possible for an author I liked to write faster than I was willing to read, but no. I was wrong. It is. /o_o\