How many people are avid fiction readers, really?

I fear that there are more authors who are writing books than there are avid readers, at least in the US market. How many people actually engage with bookweb vs how many people actually read books popular on bookweb?

I think that if the bestsellers list was more accurate, most people read a lot of stuff bookfluencers would never touch.

6 Likes

If we had more accurate sales figures, or even stats on what books people read cover to cover, the literary world would be turned upside down.

2 Likes

Yeah probably. A lot of books are influenced by social media such as Goodreads and Twitter now. Unless you’re already established, they probably won’t bar an eyelid at you, unless you self publish and make ripples.

And Twitter is a cesspool of rot. It’s definitely influencing the YA Market and mostly in some negative ways. Mostly influencing writers to write the same characters in a different setting and with the same end goal.

And when the books go on sale in the real world, they hardly get as much traction as they do online, it seems. People like them as a concept but don’t actually want to support them but you could say the same with comics.

Well, at least over here’s there’s a market for that kinda stuff in ASDA if you wanna write mediocre crime novels, romances and New Adult and sell them near the oat milk.

1 Like

In real life, very few people know what a Heartstoppers is, even though it has a Netflix show and a large fandom. Even on here, I have to explain what it even is.

1 Like

Because it’s not the target market mainly.

2 Likes

White Fang is considered a classic novel, it has found its way into a lot of households, but I never see people in bookweb say anything about it. And I know it’s not because they hate dogs!

2 Likes

I’ve never heard of bookweb, but then again, I don’t really pay attention to or participate in things like that, like bestseller lists, Goodreads, etc.

But I am an avid reader. Sure, I don’t read dozens to hundreds of books a year—thanks to my full-time job and slow reading capabilities—but I read as much as I possibly can from genres across the board. I’m currently working on my eleventh book this year, and if I stop buying books, I may be able to get through half of my TBR by the end of the year.

BookTok has also made me see that there are a lot of avid readers out there, too. Many of whom are on the “I read 100+ books a year.” I recently saw a video about a woman saying she reads across multiple formats at a time, allowing her to read 10+ books a month.

3 Likes

Bookweb is what I refer collectively to BookTok, BookTube, Goodreads, Bookstagram, Booktwitter, and more.

2 Likes

I have no idea what bookfluencers are, but I am pretty sure on Wattpad folks tend to read what’s already big or the books that hit a trend. Wattpad is actually an awesome place that has people who still read. Most people of my age barely manage a book a year or so, and that’s if it is super popular.

Generally, I read a lot on Wattpad and I read books that caught my attention on Colbert. Sometimes I check out books that are analyzed in the books on craft, but so far both were a disappointment.

I couldn’t finish Firm by Grimshaw, because I got a case of yawns after valiantly fighting it for 200 pages. Sure wasn’t a thriller I had expected. But damn well researched. Boring af.

And, the other book, Maass raved about, The Illusionists, I wasn’t sure why it impressed him. Sorry to say I write better and I am a hack on Wattpad.

1 Like

I hope that a larger sense of community gives people more will to read books, but I find that most people on there don’t want to read stuff like The Hidden Life of Trees, seeing it as “boring nonfiction”.

Only certain kinds of books get popular and praised, most others are entirely ignored.

2 Likes

Famous people of bookweb. If they like something, a lot of people will follow suit.

1 Like

Yeah, if only they liked my book :slight_smile:

1 Like

Your day will come. Maybe you’ll end up on Oprah’s book club!

2 Likes

Also boring af. I remember trying to make my way through it as a teen… Jack London wasn’t my writer for sure.

1 Like

Lol, very much doubt it. Plus, I don’t really like her. Being on Colbert would make my day… but he is more along the line of ‘you are a celebrity and you wrote a book’.

1 Like

What I mean is that I never see it naturally show up in a booktube video, I need to look for reviews online.

But if I had a dollar for every time I’ve been told about Grishaverse, I could buy a brand new drawing tablet.

1 Like

The Epic of Gilgamesh might be more your speed.

Yeah, I haven’t read that, but I hate it with a passion along with Anastasia because I hate that someone made it big on Slavic/Russian and it wasn’t me. And people keep telling me, see, Russian could be popular. And I am like, then why you are not reading my book?

1 Like

At least nobody has gotten in on writing Venezuelan fantasy yet.

But I worry.

1 Like

God no. The best I could do was the first book of Mahabharata. I am not into epic poetry. Apparently, I lost interest in poetry by age 25 and I can never really read English-language poetry. French and Russian, yeah. But English? It just sounds weird. Pardon me all those who love Shakespeare

1 Like