Discovering Fiction Readers Preferences, Habits and Attitudes ~~ by M.K. Tod

June 21, 2018 | By M.K. Tod | 1 Reply More

Readers and writers – a symbiotic relationship. Ideas spark writers to create stories and build worlds and characters for readers’ consumption. Readers add imagination and thought to interpret those stories, deriving meaning and enjoyment in the process. A story is incomplete without both reader and writer.

What then do readers want? What constitutes a compelling story? How do men and women differ in their preferences? Where do readers find recommendations? How do readers share their book experiences? These and other questions are part of the 2018 Reader Survey developed by M.K. Tod, Patricia Sands and Heather Burch.

Why? As authors, understanding the reading community is essential not only to shaping the stories we want to tell but also to finding readers who will enjoy those stories.

In 2012, I set out to find an answer to the question: Why do people read historical fiction? Searching GoogleLand I found almost nothing except a university class that had conducted and reported on twenty or thirty interviews with readers. There was no comprehensive body of knowledge offering insights to someone like me who was writing historical fiction.

“Well, then, I’ll do a survey,” I muttered to myself. “Can’t be all that difficult.” Wrong on that point, I might add.

With a little help from Sarah Johnson, who runs a blog called Reading the Past, the survey reached over 800 participants. I shared those results on my blog and happily discovered many other interested authors and bloggers. In 2013 and 2015, additional surveys reached over 2,000 participants each and provided much useful information. To my surprise, I became known amongst the historical fiction author crowd as ‘the survey lady’.

This year’s survey is not genre specific. Instead it seeks to understand readers at large—the what, when, why, and how of readers who enjoy fiction. Of particular interest is the role social media plays influencing and even shaping the reading experience. As Lake Union authors, Heather, Patricia and I feel these are important questions. We hope readers will too.

PS – if you haven’t taken the survey, please do and please share it around! Here’s the link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/68HL6F2

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M.K. (Mary) Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel, Time and Regret was published by Lake Union. Fellow authors Patricia Sands and Heather Burch helped design and plan the survey. Mary can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads or on her blog A Writer of History.