The Average Joe is the weblog of Joe Wilkert, a publisher for Wiley. According to Scoble, one of the conditions for publishing Shel and his upcoming book was that Wiley needed to blog. Joe took up the challenge and in a recent entry is wondering:

Have you ever thought about what goes through your head before you purchase a book? Are you a “destination buyer” or an “impulse buyer”? Do you search out a particular author? Do you risk making a purchase simply on what you may have read on a cover or an Amazon description/review? Are you influenced by reviews on websites, blogs or in major magazines?

Let’s take these one at a time. No, until now, I don’t think I have actually ever thought about what goes into my head before purchasing a book.

I would say that 40% of the time I’m a destination buyer and 60% an impulse buyer. Impulse book buys have been books like Canseco’s book and Pete Rose’s book. Those were books I heard about on various sports talk radio shows and I bought them both on the day they came out. Most of the time, however, I’ll go perusing through the book section and pick out books that look good. Maybe with a compelling dust jacket or blurb or genres of interest.

Sometimes I’ll search out a specific author, but it’s rare. Certainly authors I’ve read and enjoyed before would be more likely to generate a purchase than a new/unknown author, but if the story sounds interesting enough — or topic if it’s non-fiction — I’ll buy a book from a new author. The last five to ten years I’ve predominantly purchased non-fiction books.

I would say I’m 75% influenced to buy a book by reviews online or hear about via the radio or TV. I would be particularly interested and curious in a book if I knew the author had an active web presence. Since buying a Tablet PC I’m also becoming more interested in reading material digitally. Regular readers will note that I currently read two magazine subscriptions through Zinio (PC Mag and MacWorld).

In the current day, I think authors owe it to their work to have a website and interact with readers, fans and critics. If they are just going to hole up somewhere and stay out of the public then I’d be less interested and motivated to buy their book(s). Why should I when other authors out there are more accessible and hungry?

For example, recently I became interested in Scott Sigler because he decided to release his science fiction novel, Earthcore, a podcast novel and have a website to support it. Which, BTW, this post reminded me I needed to go download his most recent chapters (Thanks Joe!). Now if Scott had just done a traditional audio book he probably never would have crossed my radar, but when he did something creative and relatively rare — a podcast novel — I’m so there. BTW, Scott’s original goal was to get 5,000 readers, and as of this writing he now has 1,242 — WTG Scott!

Also, I’m very curious about other exploratory, creative ideas that compliment the traditional print book. I think the internet could play a much more interactive part in book publishing and, in fact, I hope that’s what increasingly happens over the next 10 years.

Yesterday, I registered a couple domains for my own and other authors non-print published fiction. I’d like to publish material that has either only been published online or has never been published in print. I see the internet as a great way (just use Scott Sigler as an example) to get exposure for unpublished or unknown/unpopular published novelists, poets and short story writers. The publishing industry can only publish a ridiculously small number of submissions they receive every year (for practical reasons, of course) but an online publisher can publish almost everything it receives and let the readers ultimately become the slushpile promoters.

In a sense, that’s what some weblogs have been doing anyway. A few writers have earned book deals because of their blogs and demonstrating their narrative skill on a daily/consistent basis. Scoble, for example, probably would not have gotten a book deal without his blog. And I, too, have gotten a few paid writing gigs because of this website, so there is definitely an important relationship between print publishing, author and internet presence and activity.

Of course all this sales psychology is trumped by a compelling topic or storyline. If I have — or can allocate — the time, which is probably the biggest detractor to book purchases in my case, I’ll buy into a great topic or storyline 99.999999% of the time.

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