Seriously. When? Because if you have not actively thought about this question in the last 5 years, everything you are doing to reach out to readers right now, is probably not your best work.
Yes, more people found the library during the pandemic years, and also yes, we retained a surprisingly high number of them in the years since. Also true, overall readership among American adults is up.
But more readers reading more books means that there are more ways people pick books.
So we have the ones we know:
- I like this book or author so I want more by them.
- I want a book that takes place in this specific place or time
- I want a specific type of protagonist
- I want a specific genre/theme
- I want to read what is popular
- I want to read what is available right at the moment I am looking for something (no holds)
- I want a book with a specific vibe
- This is just a reader's way of expressing the appeal/feel of a book-- something we are very good at figuring out.
- For vibes only, use a reddit search, Novelist appeal mixer, or Whichbook.
All of these are entry points we know how to handle. These are things I write about all of the time and for which we each have our own favorite resources.
However, there is a trend I have noticed over the last 2 years, the growing reliance on chance by readers to choose their next book for them.
Now to be fair, readers are not choosing out of thin air from the universe of every possible book. They all have a variety of ways they find out about books and keep lists, but when I comes to choosing which book from the list gets read next, readers are searching for ways to let a randomizer chose for them.
Here and here are two examples from Reddit where people talk about using random number generators or even a spin the wheel app. But I have also heard readers share this randomizing strategy on bookish podcasts and have talked to patrons and friends about this as well.
When you really think about it, this makes a lot of sense. We have been living in a constant state of crisis since 2020. It has been one unsettling thing after another and getting your footing just on getting thought the week, or even the day, without something troubling (at best) interrupting is rare. This is also why people have turned toward reading in larger numbers because it provides a break from the real world.
But with so much constant turmoil and for 5 years now, it is no surprise that readers want to add a bit of chance and whimsy into tiny decisions. There are so few chances in a day to have a bit of harmless fun but this, randomizing your next read, is a great opportunity to make an activity they are looking forward to, even more fun. Remember, these are readers who already have long TBR (to be read) lists. They have done the work, but decision fatigue is real.
Now, I bet much of what I have written here rings true with what many of you have also observed, and yet, have you done anything to meet readers where they are? Because random.org and Tiny Decisions have.
We already spend time making lists and putting up displays- we could easily randomize the experience. with some simple code or install an app to our content that will choose for people from whatever list of ours they have found.
We don't want to make them have decision stress. We want reading to be fun. And this is interactive, and that is something I have said you need to strive for in all of your services-- interactivity. They can choose for themselves or let chance choose-- letting chance choose is a choice.
And why haven't we done this yet? Despite the evidence. Despite the fact that many of you were nodding along with what I wrote above. (This is not breaking news what I am saying.) Because we spend too much time in our library work heads and not enough time thinking like a reader.
In this case, we can use the old standby services we are very good at providing-- all those lists-- but add a new layer that addresses how our readers want to use those lists to pick their next read.
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