Post #584286

2026-02-17 19:36 UTC

I always find this interesting: how we can best reach readers looking for the next good read. Source: Written Word Media’s “Reader Survey 2026” (published Feb 2, 2026). Page (dataset/article): https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/reader-survey-2026/ The specific values in the chart come from the section on how readers discover books in 2026 (discovery channels), reported as percentages of survey respondents (n = 3,589). #Reading #Books #Bookstodon #Author #IndieAuthor

Replies (1)

@nlowell@indieauthors.social 2026-02-17 21:06

@steaphan Interesting in a few ways. 1. It snagged a lot of heavy readers. This is good because you can't make a living from people reading 1 book a year. While there are a lot of them, they're not reading indie authors. 2. It almost completely misses the boat on discovery. Heavy readers are not looking to discover a book. They're looking for an author with a catalog they can siphon up. It also sort of elides over the notion that you only need to be discovered once. The key there is to keep that audience engaged while you're busy writing the next book. 3. Reviews. I wish we could get over this idea that you need reviews to sell a book. You need to sell a book to get reviews. While there is a correlation between reviews and sales, the causal link is "Sales drive reviews" and not "Reviews drive sales." This single mistaken notion makes authors spend way too much time and attention on chasing reviews. Time and attention they could be spending on doing the single most important thing they can do to improve sales. Writing the next book. JMO.

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