Saturday, September 29, 2012

Fresh Start September- Blogger Guest Post Featuring Alison From The Cheap Reader

Hello everyone! This week is the last week of Fresh Start September. We hope that you have enjoyed the interviews, discussions, and guest posts. Also, be sure to get your entries in to our fantastic giveaways. Links  to enter will be at the bottom of this post. Today I'm happy to be bringing you a guest post from Alison, who blogs over at The Cheap Reader Be sure you stop by and check out her blog!

I asked Alison to share her thoughts on debuts. Specifically, I asked her the following questions: 
 "What makes you want to pick up a debut title? Do you think that you are more, less, or equally critical of debut titles as compared to titles from authors who have written multiple books?"

Here's what Alison had to say in response:

To be honest, I try treat all books the same. A book has got to have an interesting summary to make me want to read it. I don't care if it's a debut book by a self published author or the 20th book by a New York Times Best Seller author. If the summary doesn't interest me, I'm probably not going to read the book. I think a good summary is almost as important as a good cover. The summary gives a reader a quick glance into the book. It's how we figure out if a book is 'worth' our time.  I want a summary to give me just enough about the story but hold out on me. I want a summary that makes me pick up the book and start reading.

With that being said, debut books (especially ones being traditionally published) are a bit interesting. This book had something interesting and stand out about it. A publisher wades through many, many manuscripts and somehow this book was the one that won out to be published. That's a bit exciting. What was it that made it stand out? I want to know!

I would say I'm just a bit little less critical of debut books. With an already published author, there's a level that has already been set. If I've read something from them before, I know to a certain extent what I'm going to get. If I haven't read something from them, I can look around at reviews and get a decent picture of what to expect. Either way, I'll have an idea of what to expect so I can evaluate how much the book lives up to those expectations. With a debut author, I don't have that background. I know nothing about them so I don't know what I'm getting into. Since I don't know anything about them, it's hard to say if they've lived up to my expectations. All I can judge the book on in the end is my enjoyment of the story. Of course my enjoyment is pretty subjective and personal making it a bit hard to be super critical.

First off, I want to say a big thank you to Alison for agreeing to be a guest poster as part of Fresh Start September! Faye, Daphne and I really appreciate your being a part of the event. 

I'm curious, are you more, less, or equally critical of debut authors, let us know in the comments!

Don't Forget!

As a bonus part of  Fresh Start September, we are giving everyone a chance to win some prizes donated by our wonderful participants and ourselves! The prizes include:

  • 2 winners of Strange Chemistry ARC packs, each pack including a copy of Poltergeeks by Sean Cummings, The Assassin’s Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke AND Katya’s World by Jonathan L Howard (courtesy of Strange Chemistry)
  • 1 winner of an eBook of My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century by Rachel Harris (courtesy of Entangled Publishing)
  • 1 winner of a hardover copy of 34 Pieces of You by Carmen Rodrigues (courtesy of the author)-US only Enter here
  • 3 winners of a book of your choice from any that has been featured in Fresh Start September (each courtesy of the hosts)


a Rafflecopter giveaway

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