Today on Twitter an active chat took place under the hashtag of #followreader.  The plan was for readers to talk to publishers about what they want.

I attended this chat to hear what readers had to say and while it wasn’t what I had expected (I was thinking more along the lines of content.), there were many great points being made.

I thought i’d summarize the ones that I noticed were mentioned more often. This list is by no means comprehensive and I would suggest a search of the hashtag for the complete discussion.

What readers want:

Industry wide heat ratings for books. This makes so much sense. I have found many books not marked erotic romance to be every bit as hot as erotic romance but whether it doesn’t exactly fit the defintion of ER or whether the marketing folks loathe to use the term, a heat rating would be most useful.
Readers of eBooks don’t want to be treated differently from paperback readers and feel that delaying the e release of a book does just that by punishing them for preferring an ebook.
Speaking of eBooks…Readers want formats that work on every device.
Publishers should keep an authors out of date books in e.  When a reader discovers a new to them author they should be able to easily find and read their entire backlist.
Readers want more promotions that include a free download of an authors last book to promote the new book. Sampling one free book does work.
Stop creating misleading covers and blurbs. They should match as closely to the content as possible.
For eBooks, please include the blurb after the title image.
Hyperlinks in eBooks would be nifty.
Readers love the trend of releasing series in quick succession instead of waiting a year for a sequel. And serials are good too!
To get even more books in the hands of readers, publishers should offer select authors lower cost e book only deals.

So there you have it. Readers know what they want and love publishers to listen.  Again, if you’d like to read the whole chat and see the parts I missed in this brief summary do a search on Twitter of #followreader.

Readers, feel free to add to the list in your comments and you can even tell me what content you want if you so desire. I’m dying to learn if you want more vampires, less shifters, more contemporary BDSM, etc.

Have a good one!

Eliza