Browsing for Books

Today I had a fun experience that I hadn't enjoyed for a while: I went into a bookstore and browsed.

I've always loved to read, but I'm afraid I haven't done as much of it as I should have for the past several years, mostly because I've been spending a lot of time writing, editing and trying to get noticed. I still enjoy scanning a shelf, though, letting my eyes guide me to something interesting, so it was nice to have the opportunity again, thanks to my local bookstore, Spellbound. (And yes, I walked out of there with three books.)

Some people don't have a local bookstore, sadly, and this is becoming more common. So what should you do if this is the case? You can try a site like amazon.com, but you kind of have to know what you want there. Most of the time, book shopping isn't a matter of knowing what you want in advance.

Thanks to Facebook, I have found a website that can help. If you like to browse through books without exactly knowing what you want, this is the place: iAuthor
(It's based in the U.K. but has authors from the U.S. as well.)

The fun thing about this site is that you can search for books by either genre or theme. There is an amazing variety of themes, too: Fiction written in the first person singular, Books with a fiendishly clever twist, Female Protagonist, Funny Mysteries & Crime Fiction, etc. When you select a theme, you will see a whole page of book covers (and you can click on 'More" at the bottom). When you hover over a cover (wow, look at that fun phrase!), you can see a blurb on most of them. If you click on the cover, you can see all sorts of information about the book, the author, how to buy it, how many people liked the cover or the blurb, and how many people have recommended it. You can also learn more about the author.

I'm afraid I could get lost in there, but that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Give it a try sometime.

In case you're interested, you can find my novels in the themes Character-Driven Sci-Fi, Science Fiction and Space. I'll probably add them to more themes when I can. It's another way I hope to get my novels discovered.

I hope you'll take a look. Who knows? You might find your next favorite book!