Poll: Are you less likely to pick up holiday releases?

Sarah Lin

Entirely true! However, because it's nearly impossible to do a controlled experiment with books, I don't have good access to less biased sources of data.

Cicero

Maybe take this poll with a grain of salt. People like to imagine themselves as independent actors free from context influencing their decisions. Just imagine if you made a poll asking, "Do ads influence what you buy?"

Cameron Pickerill

Personally I just read books constantly year round. Something releases and it sounds good, I pick it up and read it immediately. But I feel like the kind of people who subscribe to author's patreons to read a book as it releases might have some self selection bias.

I read almost exclusively ebooks, and if anything on the holidays I normally increase the amount of books that I buy, as I have more time to browse around and look for new stuff, or check if there are new releases for series that I read.

Tom Pulk

The issue is in the past about 10 yrs ago I knew releases because they came all through publishing houses and their catalogs we're available 6 months ahead. This is something that indie authors don't have which is still hit or miss depending on how I follow each author. The holiday issue is we know their are people with new gift cards and money after the holidays but this is money in hand which trends for impulse buys. This however requires the book to be available at the time of purchase. This has in the past meant early Dec has had some of the largest authors releases and Jan the books that the pub houses wanted to push. After the pandemic and all the issues in the last two years I honestly don't know what would be best.

taswyn

Honestly, if we were talking paper book releases, I would say it's important to hit by or a bit before the start of December, when people are looking for gifts or making gift lists. But with ebooks, I'd say (a) I'm not any less likely to notice an ebook release around Christmas and (b) I don't generally gift ebooks, so any related marketing concepts don't apply [for me] and maybe most importantly (c) I'm actually MORE likely than other times to purchase ebooks in the week after Christmas (so, including Boxing Day) if I've received gift certificates to related stores (and more likely to be *shopping* for books then, rather than just grabbing latest releases of series I had planned to get anyway or had even already pre-ordered). But maybe I'm just weird like that =^,^=

JT

You're asking a biased source. If it's a series I dont regularly follow but read out of boredom, I may miss the threads on forums that'd normally tell me to check out a new book.

Desertopa

Probably at least somewhat less likely when it comes to ebooks in particular. I've never bought ebooks as gifts, and there are so many other things which tend to be discounted around this time of year that if I'm thinking of getting something for myself, my attention will tend to be more focused on large purchases which I'm less likely to make at other times of the year. I don't know how much this would generalize to other people, but if the conventional wisdom is that this isn't a great time for book releases, that strikes me as plausible.

Alexander Dupree

I don't know really it's true I'm more busy then but it's also true I'm more likely to fly so I need a book for the flight.

Jerek Kimble

More likely to notice during the holidays. I have more free time.

I tend to notice them more because I have holidays/travel so there is more reading time!