All tagged Charlaine Harris

Podcast #15: Great (Reading) Expectations

Podcast #15: Great (Reading) Expectations

Sarah Moon
Podcast, Podcast: Season One

We're excited to bring you another episode of the Clear Eyes, Full Shelves podcast! We have such a good time recording the show and love that the podcast lets us dig into issues with more nuance than the blog format allows. 

In episode #15, Laura and I dig into the subject of reader expectations, the role of marketing in informing those expectations and the way consumers of creative works become intensely invested in those works. Please note, this episode was recorded prior to my writing this blog post; if it had been, we likely would have elaborated more regarding the notion of how we read, and if readers "owe" authors anything in that respect. 

As always, you can listen to the podcast by streaming on this page, downloading the MP3 below or by subscribing in iTunes. If you're an iTuner, we very much appreciate your rating and reviewing the podcast, as it helps us to show up in iTunes searches. We're also now on Stitcher Radio, so if you prefer that app, you can subscribe here. 

Reader Expectations & Authorial Intent: What Matters?

Reader Expectations & Authorial Intent: What Matters?

Sarah Moon
Opinion

Laura and I recorded a podcast on Monday which will be up on iTunes (Don't forget to rate us, yo!) and blog in the next few days in which we discuss the topic of reader expectations and reactions, particularly in the context of series and authors with large backlists. While Laura and I go in depth into the topic on that podcast, I know not everyone listens to it, and the discussion just keeps morphing online.

The reader expectations discussion erupted earlier this year when Charlaine Harris finally ended her Sookie Stackhouse series. Readers were unhappy that they'd invest 13 years into reading the series, watched Sookie float from love interest to love interest and finally end up with a partner who was, to them, rather unexciting.

Then we had the whole Divergent debacle in which some readers were incredibly upset about the choices author Veronica Roth made in the final book in that series, Allegiant. 

More recently, Gayle Forman has been criticized by readers frustrated with the companion novel to Just on Day, Just One Year. 

And there was also the brouhaha in the romance world because an author and reader (because--shocker--people can be both) "live tweeted" her reading of Susan Elizabeth Philips' Nobody's Baby But Mine (Janet detailed this on Dear Author earlier this week). 

This type of response isn't anything new, and it's not exclusive to reading.