Methods of Finding New Books to Read

As I’m getting out of my reading slump (three books read in the past two weeks!) I’ve started to look back into how to find new books. When I was a kid I would just go to the library and wander around, throwing anything that caught my eye into the bag and taking it home to read. There really isn’t much else to do when you’re a kid, and I’ve always been an avid reader. But as I got older, I got significantly more picky. When I committed to reading something, I wanted it to be worth it, I didn’t have the same time as when I was a kid. I didn’t want to sit through books I didn’t love. Of course, it takes sitting through books you don’t entirely love to find books you do love. Every single one can’t be a winner. What I really was after was captivating prose. A book can be poor in narrative, character, structure, but as long as the prose is well written I can get through it. I always say in terms of creative output the greatest sin is to be boring. A book/movie can be bad yet entertaining, but something that’s bad AND boring is just a lost cause. 

So, in middle school and early high school I switched to Booktube. Book YouTube. I watched a few creators who I trusted and followed their recommendations. I was reading Sarah J. Maas like 10 years before she became huge on TikTok because some BookTubers recommended her to me. I definitely shouldn’t have been reading her at that age, and I’m sure her retained popularity has a lot to do with the romantasy craze which is a different blog in itself. All this to say that the age of the BookTuber seems to be over, leading to the rise of TikTok.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about BookTok. On one end there are a lot of vapid creators and readers, searching solely for tropes and cliches in their books. But on the other hand there are a lot of creators promoting interesting and captivating books I never would have heard of otherwise. I also love those videos that give recommendations ‘if you like this __ you’ll like __’ personally I find those the best way to recommend. It’s also true that BookTok has improved book sales, and helped a lot of people rediscover their love for reading. So, in a mixed bag of opinions and thoughts, BookTok comes out mainly positive. 

If I go through my saved posts right now I see a lot of books saved. A lot of them aim to collect books that fit a certain vibe or aesthetic. There’s a collection of books that changed this person’s perception of things, books that feel like a fever dream, and if you liked this movie read this book. This is just to name a few I’ve saved, one I thought was particularly interesting was this creator promoting the upcoming book Are you ready, Bunny? by Mona Awad. Awad has a special place in my heart as her novel Bunny is one of my favorite books ever. I also just finished her book, Rouge (review incoming), which I also loved for the same reasons. Her surrealist and dazy writing style is captivating, and she is probably one of my favorite stylistic authors. I definitely draw a lot of inspiration from her. But this method of promotion, I find highly effective. 

Books are difficult to market. Movies and shows just take clips from the show and chop them up into a trailer, it’s difficult to do that with a book. A lot of people also don’t love the little short films some companies try to do for books. A lot of the draw for books is the imaginative aspect, mixing a lower budget with an actor/visuals who doesn’t quite fit the character description can put people off. 

But I think advanced copies are incredibly effective. Especially for a sequel. Picking out a few creators from BookTok who have expressed love or admiration for the author and sending them copies to spread awareness of the upcoming release. It also allows for preemptive reviews and alerts people (like me!) to the book. One thing I think is underutilized are the edits people make on Booktube. Maybe rather than live action trailers, creating a sort of mood board of images set to music can help set the vibe of the novel and draw people in. Mona Awad’s Instagram featured a video that sort of mixed these elements, creating what I thought was a very well-done book trailer. Showcasing the feel of a book rather than trying to directly mimic the characters in a traditional trailer as done for TV and film is much more effective. 

However, the best seller and marketer of books, at least to me, is the book store. Waterstones vs. Barnes and Noble, I hate to say it to my friends back home but Waterstones wins. Barnes and Noble is fun to wander in and around, it’s fun to peek around and look through the books. But there’s something about the Waterstones shop that means whenever I enter the shop there’s a high likelihood I’m going to buy something. The set-up is much more open, with lots of tables and books turned out to highlight them. The smaller store also means more intimate browsing can partake, so I look more closely at books. I also find that Waterstones promotes a lot of different books, not just the most popular ones, allowing me to find something interesting I’ve never heard of. Barnes and Noble can feel like everywhere you turn you see a familiar title. The Waterstones selection also seems to change often. I was there two weeks ago and went back yesterday and everything is different! I found new titles which immediately made their way onto my to-be-read list. 

One final method of new books is apps like Storygraph and Goodreads. Both interfaces that I find excessively frustrating. I wish there was a Letterboxd equivalent for books, something easy to use that got the point across quickly. I still use Storygraph but I’m not happy about it. Finding books on these sites is just not effective either. I use it mainly to check the vibe for a book and overall reviews, but I found theories and conversations much more alive and interesting on Reddit. The online space for readers is not entirely perfected quite yet, but it has definitely improved since I was younger. Nothing has yet to beat the in-person book store experience for me, and I sincerely doubt anything ever will. The bookstore is just too fun.