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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nellisir" data-source="post: 9635040" data-attributes="member: 70">That may be, but it's useful for discovering authors and areas you might be interested in. You need to diversify your book discovery methods.YES, which is why it's a BAD way of finding new authors and books. Bookstores want to SELL books. In an ideal world sort of way they'd love to "grow the audience" and "open new markets", but they have to pay rent, and insurance, and salaries, and etc etc. Which means they have to sell things they know will sell. They serve the existing markets.Women do most of the shopping. Women are generally better educated. Women are reading more. Love it or hate it, women are buying books. Arguing bookstores should stock more masculine-coded books to "grow the male audience" is asking bookstores to stock more books they likely won't sell.I basically stopped reading for a few years because "I couldn't find anything good". Eventually, I realized that had to be naughty word. Absolute naughty word. So many books published each year, and I couldn't find a few good ones? It was nonsensical. So I did research. I combed lists of the best sf books, the best fantasy books. I went back 10-15 years in the NYT best sellers lists. I look at Pulitzer winners, and the Hugos, and a few others. I went through 10 years of The Years Best SF books and noted down authors that wrote short stories I liked. I dug into lists on Goodreads and a few other places (this was around 2010-2012). Then I weeded out books I was pretty certain I wouldn't enjoy (anything that mentioned "rollercoaster of emotions; heart-wrenching; sobbing"; anything about growing up in the 19-anything; etc; etc.). I ended up with a list of...I dunno, a few hundred books, divided by genre and with an additional "Ooo, I really want this!" list. I didn't have much money but my town had a really big used book sale twice a year, so I went shopping. Came out with about fifty. Repeated that at the next sale. So on and so forth. Some I liked, some I didn't. Read a lot of historical biography; Scandinavian noir; and "literary" fiction. Neither do I.Find out who THEY like, and pick up THOSE authors. Check out lists - there are easily hundreds of "years/decades/centuries best SF" lists. Find ones that mention books you know you like.</blockquote>

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