Reader Preference Quotes

Every publisher or agent I've ever met told me the same thing - that Irish readers don't want to read about the bad old days of the Troubles; neither do the English and Americans - they only want to read about the Ireland of The Quiet Man, when red-haired widows are riding bicycles and everyone else is on a horse.

I'm my own "ideal reader" in the sense that I write novels that I would want to read.

A lot of people have read the Mira Grant books who are not urban fantasy readers, and they would never have picked up a book with an urban fantasist's name on the cover, but then they go on to read my urban fantasy and like it.

Readers seem to really like the fact that what I'm writing is not traditional fantasy.

If I'm reading a book by a footballer I don't want to read about games, how he scored or played well. People want to read what you thought, not what happened.

When Toni Morrison said 'write the book you want to read,' she didn't mean everybody.

I stopped reading William Faulkner because it's hard work. I want to read a good writer, but I also want to read something where the pages are going to move along. That's what I want. It doesn't have to be a thriller or a mystery. Just something where I get caught up in the story.

As a reader, I've always been interested in dystopian novels like 'Nineteen Eighty-four'.

I like to read the ending first.

There is always this quarrel about what is preferable: the straight, naturalistic, epic storytelling or the modernistic, disjointed, slightly hermetic one. To me it does not matter, as long as it's good. I like both kinds. Although the common reader seems to prefer the first, which is to be expected, and who would blame her?

If you find that the reader of popular romances--however uneducated a reader, however bad the romances--goes back to his old favourites again and again, then you have pretty good evidence that they are to him a sort of poetry.

Why the brevity? Because I'd rather people read my book twice than only half-way through

I'm not a fast reader. I like to linger over each sentence, enjoying the style. If I don't enjoy the writing, I stop.

The reason why books endure is because there are enough people who like them. It's the only reason why books last.

I've been saying for years that readers want inexpensive ebooks.

Chicago is my biggest base for U.S. readership. If I ask my readers where should I come, Chicago always has the most votes.

Where one man reads the Bible, a hundred read you and me.

Don't worry about how pretty (the story) sounds, how lilting it is, and the imagery, and the metaphor, all that. Most readers don't care. It's the people in your book that matter.

Oddly, for a book to do well merely because people like it is surprisingly rare.

I just write the books that I think I would want to read.

It's funny, because readers think they want the characters to be blissfully happy, but it makes it kind of boring for the reader.

I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.

No one knows why books do well.

What reader wants to be told what attitude to strike?

I won't call 'Cabin' an anti-home invasion story, because that's not exactly true, but the home-invasion subgenre is one I generally don't gravitate toward as a reader or film viewer.