Poll Results So Far Give Food For Thought

Sorry - I slipped in to quasi-journalist mode there for a moment when I came up with the title of this post. But it does describe what I've learned so far from the results of my "book buying behavior" poll.

I plan on leaving the poll open for quite a while and see what happens.

The poll results so far show a fairly even split between "read the back cover blurb" and "read a few pages". Kerry Blaisdell noted that she tends "to read a few pages, to get a feel for the author and the story" and then wondered if that's what editors and agents do too.

That got me thinking. I've always put agents and editors in a different target market than ordinary people buying books. But maybe they're really not two separate target markets.

I'm coming to see that they're all readers. What grabs an agent or editor about the story is likely to be the same thing that grabs the bookstore customer.

I don't know why this is such a revelation to me but it's given me a whole new appreciation of the importance of the synopsis and having "hooks" in your story.