Goodreads Users Reveal What Makes a Book Readable

Goodreads is not only one of the top sources for online book discovery, but the buzz platform also commissions a number of surveys that provide very real insight into what reading consumers are thinking. Asking their users detailed questions from how they are most likely to find new titles to what makes the choose a cover, actual useable information comes through via their surveys. Goodreads has now released a very telling infographic on book abandonment. This information, based once again on user surveys, asked respondents to explain how often they don’t finish a book, how much of it they felt obligated to read before deciding to walk away, and what some of the crucial characteristics are that make them decide to finish or abandon a particular book. The first set of data from the survey revealed the top five current titles that readers have abandoned part way through, as well as the top fives “classics” that readers just couldn’t bring themselves to finish. Among the current reads, JK Rowling’s A Casual Vacancy and EL James’ Fifty Shades of Grey topped the list, Rowling’s for being too vastly different from her previous works for fans’ liking, and James’ work for being an embarrassment to books. Rounding out that list were Wicked, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Eat, Pray, Love. It is interesting that those last three books have all been adapted for screen or stage, and that James’ work is currently in production for a film. In the case of Wicked, readers actually cited that as the reason they couldn’t finish the book, as they had bought it based on seeing the hugely popular Broadway production and were disappointed that the book and stage version didn’t align. More useful for authors and publishers alike may be the survey results that asked participants to explain why they abandon a book in the first place. Common culprits were an introduction that took too long to get interesting–the same reason that most people stated they had abandoned The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo–weak writing, and lack of connection with the main character, among others. While more than 38% of the respondents said that they do not abandon books, finishing it regardless, this is very telling information on what readers want. It might be tempting to dismiss the survey data as not being relevant. After all, JK Rowling set records at the time for pre-orders of her book, and EL James’ title has made her quite successful. And while the books that readers abandoned admittedly were paid for and the sale concluded, these authors may not be in a hurry to spend their time or money on the next titles from authors whose works they couldn’t stand to finish. Goodreads Users Reveal What Makes a Book Readable is a post from: E-Reader News

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