Readers’ Christmas List

No doubt about it, publishing is changing and lots of authors are scratching their heads, wondering what to do next.  In light of this, I asked some readers what they’d like to see happening for 2010 in the reading world.  Here’s the list, dutifully checked twice:

• Better and cheaper ebook readers.  Please, please, please.  My daughter, a college student and mother of four boys, can’t get her reading fix unless she can carry books, and she can’t carry text books, fiction books, the baby, and herd the other three boys all at one time.  An e-reader (good quality and affordable) with all her text books and a bazillion romance novels would suit her just fine.
• Ix-nay on the headhopping.  This is from my older daughter, who says headhopping is confusing, especially if your reading time is frequently interrupted.  She gets annoyed when she has to go back, then keep score until she figures out whose head she’s in before she can start reading again.
• More historicals set somewhere besides the British Isles.  What about Bolivia? Russia? South Africa? Mongolia?   There’s romance all over the world, not just in the British Isles.  And westerns are cool, too.  Why do we have to go to small press for western romances?  This question is from a friend of mine who has been reading romances since the late 1970s.  I wonder the same thing.
• My older daughter adamantly states that she can do without abrupt changes of subplots, too.  One of her favorite authors has taken to this technique, and my daughter may stop reading her books because of it.  I’m wondering if this pet peeve also has to do with the lack of time.  Time pressures seem to crop up several times.
• More fantasy, more humor, and fewer dark vampire stories.  Yes, one friend refuses to read one more vampire story, saying the market is glutted and she is weary of being inundated by stories she doesn’t care for.
• More dark vampire stories.  Another friend says while there have been many vampire books released in the past few years, the readership has grown, and told my other friend to “Deal with it—vampires now are their own subgenre.”
• Less kink and more romance.  This friend has stopped reading all but sweet Romance, and has gone on to Fantasy and Historical Fiction.  She enjoyed most all Romances early in the decade, but never did get on the Erotic Romance bandwagon.  (There are a couple really excellent readers’ loops where the members feel the same way.)
• Strong plot and emotional depth in hot, sexy stories.  Erotic Romance readers point out, as did a friend of mine, that this market has been underserved for decades.  Thea Divine and Bertrice Small were about the only authors who delivered the goods through NY publishers.  At first, erotic romance novels as a subgenre were only available as ebooks, and Ellora’s Cave really made some hay.  Spicier books started making an appearance at Kensington, who called for erotic romance submissions and developed Brava and Aphrodesia, then slowly the other NY publishers saw the need in the market as well.  Readers of these books want more!  And they want a good story to go along with the spice.
• More books in more formats.  I have one friend who is allergic to book dust, so can only read ebooks.  She’s delighted to have so many more choices now than she used to have, but she’s not happy with ebooks that are only available in Kindle format.  She has two readers, neither of which is a Kindle, and she wants to be able to buy books that she can read with either device.  This came up because she wanted to read my novella, but it’s only available in Kindle format.

Overall, it seems as if this unscientific sample of readers is squeezed for reading time but also is insatiable.  Readers want books however they can get them, and whether the stories are sweet, erotic, or somewhere in between, readers want quality stories that don’t cheat on plot or characterization.

Hmmm, no matter where technology takes us, readers want good stories.  Who knew?

Jacquie
Faery Merry Christmas (a Kindle novella)
Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues (See the Book Video featuring Justin Saragueta)
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Faery Special Romances * Book Video Royalties go to Children’s Tumor Foundation, ending Neurofibromatosis through Research