Why I Buy What I Buy

I've had a couple people write and ask me how I choose what stories to review. What makes me buy the books I buy? I wish it was an easy answer. I'm not a one-genre kind of gal. I love gay romance as much as I love het as much as I love menage. I love paranormal, contemporaries, mysteries, and more. All right, I don't really love historicals, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate and love a good historical when I find one. So I guess the easier way to answer that is to explain how I go about my buying habits online.

1. I have 23 e-publishers I have bookmarked that I check at least once a week. Some of them, I know when they release, so I only check on that particular day to look at their new releases. Some of them, I've never been able to figure out a release schedule for so I'll check those once a day until I find something new. There are a couple I don't have bookmarked. For instance, I took Phaze off my list of publishers to check because they stopped doing excerpts. I won't buy a book unless I can read an excerpt. So if you're an author at an e-pub that doesn't do excerpts, the only way I'm even going to consider reviewing your book is if you direct me to where I can read an excerpt. Another I don't look at is Changeling Press. I'm sorry, I just can't look at all the awful covers. 99% of the time, I absolutely loathe the computer generated covers and since that's 99% of what they have...well, there are enough other e-pubs out there I'd rather do business with.

2. Then I read the blurb. If there's typos in the blurb, I don't look any further. If there are names in the blurb that make me laugh out loud, I don't look any further. If the blurb looks like it could have been written by my second-grader, I don't look any further. Sometimes, I hit one of these blocks, and I don't even finish reading the blurb. Cutesiness turns me off, as do plots where it looks like the thrust is soulmate business. Certain elements almost always mean I'm not going to bother with an excerpt, such as elves, fairies, and plots that revolve around sex toys. 75% of the new releases I look at every week never make it past me reading the blurb.

3. If the blurb intrigues me, I read the excerpt. My criteria here is fairly simple. No headhopping, no editorial mistakes, no dumb characters. I read a lot of different styles, so voice isn't important to me. What works for the story is all I care about.

4. I don't base my purchases on sales, cover art (except for Changeling), or reviews I see elsewhere. There are some people's whose opinions I respect but even with them, there are books we don't agree on. People are individual. We each bring our own perspectives and experiences to the book. As for seeing a book on the bestseller list, I've seen too many authors I think are awful top those so I don't trust them.

So see? Four easy steps. After all that, I still get caught out more often than not. I also believe that I've probably missed some good stories because something about the blurb or excerpt hit me the wrong way. I'm nowhere near comprehensive. I get tired of reading the same old thing, so my reviews hop from long stuff to short stuff to het to gay. I'm just a single reader, with her own opinions, and ultimately, these reviews are just meant to be another resource for other readers who consider this kind of thing before they buy.