What Do You Really Want?

I'm indulging in reading for the past seven days. I've been writing but not as much as I should. During A to Z last year I highlighted books that have taught me something about writing. One of the writers I used as an example was Anthony Ryan and his Raven's Shadow series. Over the past week I've reread the first two novels and now I'm reading Queen of Fire, the third and last book in the series. Though I've fallen in love with the characters, I always like it when a writer keeps a series to 3 or 4 books. One of the things that has struck me as I read these books is how Ryan makes every scene count. Every chapter moves the story forward and makes it really hard to put the book down. At least 3 nights I've stayed up past 1:00 a.m. because I wanted to read one more chapter. Highly recommend this series if you love fantasy novels.

One with some market news. A recent survey by RWA and Nielsen points out that romance readers at least buy first based on authors. Secondly they make their choice based on the book being part of a series. After that, the third things influencing buying decisions was bookstore displays or e-store promotions.

Another news tidbit is the amazing numbers or people who read books on their phones. I know I do this with my Kindle app on my iPhone. Here's an article about it.

Some good news for brick and mortar stores as there is a slight uptick in retail sales of books this year, June being a particular good month, in stats gathered by ABA. I used to buy tons of books but I probably average only one or two physical books per month now though I usually buy at least twice that many on my Kindle. I also read lots of books from the library.

Don't forget the BIG announcement coming up from IWSG next week. Very, very exciting.

The end of summer is getting scary close as more and more people claim to have heard predictions of another brutal winter. Can that really be predicted?

But I'm going to enjoy these lingering days of warmth and sunshine before the leaves turn and catch up on my TBR pile. That's what I really want to be doing on the front porch with a cup of coffee.

Do you read books on your phone? Have you contributed to the uptick in book sales this year? Have you heard rumors of another bad winter? Do you look for books by author first?

Are We Reading?

As the year nears its end, the stats will start to come out in many writing magazines, telling us how many books are being sold. What genre of books are being sold. What format books are being sold in. Google it and you can find all kinds of graphs and numbers.

One of the thing all book buying research agrees upon is what gender buys the most books. Some articles claim as much as 58% of the money spent on books comes from the purses of females. Women buy and read more books than men.

Some romance writers feel a need to defend their genre. Criticism of romance writing and reading is rather common but why should a romance writer feel the need to convince other writers or readers of their genre legitimacy? The numbers alone validate the genre. I love writing and reading fantasy and science fiction, but I make my writing money on my romance. Or you could go here and buy more of my fantasy to make that statement a lie. LOL

As a teacher (now retired) and the mother of some very successful students, parents often ask me about reading material for their children. I've always answered that what is important is that their children are reading. If the young ones fall in love with the written word early on don't stifle it by forcing them to read something they're not interested in. Read anything!

But are we as a people reading? I saw a disturbing statistic about reading among adults in the USA. In 2008, just over half of all adults had read at least one novel, short story or a poem. One. In 2012, less than 47% of adults claimed the same thing. Can you imagine not reading? It's so difficult to believe that when my house is so full of books and readers.

I'm sure there will be more articles referencing buying and reading stats in the course of the next two months. Do you have any expectations of what the stats might tell us? Do you see proof around you that supports the fear that people aren't reading as much as they did a few years ago? Did you join the contest at the IWSG yet?

SyFy & Fantasy Boom

One thing about being a full time writer is that I get my writing done during the day and have more time to catch some TV shows in the evening. I actually only have a few shows I try to catch every week but the new fall lineup has a lot of promising shows I'll have to check out. And the best part is that the small screen is taking a hint from the success of the large screen with a plethora of syfy and fantasy offerings.

I've always been a fan of this genre as evidenced by what I write so the past few years have been a bonanza of entertainment fun. On TV, we have some returning favorites of mine. Supernatural, Haven, Once Upon a Time and Game of Thrones will all be airing new episodes in the course of the next few months though we'll have to wait for GOT just like we do for the books. I'll be checking out some new shows over the next two months. Sleeping Hollow already started and I like it so far. I'm looking forward to Almost Human with Karl Urban, Dracula, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland and The

Tomorrow People. I might check out Marvel's Agents of Shield.

Not only do I enjoy watching these type of shows but they inspire me. I appreciate the creativity of the show writers and find their unique visions of fantasy creatures and worlds. And the more popular they are the more I hope that popularity spills over into the book market. I have so many friends who read syfy and fantasy that I start to think it's the most popular genre out there. Here's an interesting blog, Five Scribes, about those stats from a year ago.

I do also write romance which gets a big share of the market but I'm still hoping syfy and fantasy grabs a little more.

Are there any particular shows you're looking forward to return or new TV you're going to sample this fall? Do you think the recent popularity of syfy and fantasy on the big and small screens helps book sales? Do you think the trend will continue?