In general, many of us could say yes. After all, we can’t read a book or buy it if we’ve never heard of it. BUT is there a special marketing recipe to make a book more appealing? Is there a number of times that a person hears about a book that would lead them to read it? Does a magic number exist? That brings me to the question for today. How many times do you hear about a book before you read or buy it? While reading over other readers’ habits, I’ve found myself in many of their responses. I’m usually drawn to a book because the book aligns with my current tastes or is recommended by someone who has similar tastes as me. I often buy a beloved book to display it on my shelf. My other motivation is to support an author or for convenience. There are many books that I have heard about countless times and been recommended, but I’ll most likely never read. Why? None of those sources align with my tastes. Recommenders from celebrity book clubs and booktok could sing a book’s praises, but that doesn’t mean I’d read it. It’d only get me to check it out, but whether I read it depends on my impression of the book. These results provide some information about reading and buying habits, but none of these questions specifically addressed how the amount of times we’ve heard about a book can affect our reading or buying habits. Because of this, I took a look at Reddit to get a better understanding of how knowledge of a book can affect one’s probability of reading it. For the first question (How many times do you hear about a book before reading it?), the majority of readers picked the last option. Instead of focusing on how much they’ve heard about a book, they are more concerned about what they hear about the book. They need to know about the plot, characters, and alignment with their current reads to get them interested in a book. Interestingly, some noted that it wasn’t the amount of times they hear about a book, but rather whether there is a particular element that piques their interest. This could happen right away or over time. With that in mind, the second most popular response was “1 time.” This surprised me until I got a little more background on that decision. For some of these readers, hearing about a book one time from a trusted source is enough to get them to read it. At the same time, these readers need to hear about a book many times before reading it if it comes from a less trusted source. Annika Barranti Klein, another Book Riot contributor, explained her motivations: There is so much more to learn about the motivations to read a book and buy it. We’re just flipping through the first pages. To The Authors I’d Follow Anywhere To Read Or Not To Read: Book Recommendations We Have Books At Home: How I Decide What Books To Buy
