Reaching Readers and Tasting Chocolate Ice Cream

Thinking about reaching readers, I got caught in a loop. I don't know if this is obvious or interesting, but I realized people are averse to the feeling like they're missing something. And none of this is intended as criticism, this is mostly me thinking of me. I'm like a lot of people who say they're always looking for new books to enjoy. I was a reader long before I was a writer and I'm still a reader. I love finding a new book or new author who knocks me off my feet. But in the meantime, I'm not sitting around contemplating the absence of the startling, wonderful feeling of being thrilled by a new book. That would be too painful. Plus I'm too busy for that. I have my personal list of go to authors, whose books I consistently enjoy, enough that I don't want to miss any of them.

Moving away from books, if I've never tasted chocolate ice cream, it doesn't matter how delicious chocolate ice cream might taste to me, I don't feel like I'm missing anything. If someone comes over to my house with a carton of the stuff, I can take a bite and discover how tasty it is. If they pop over empty-handed and just tell me about chocolate ice cream, I might toss it in the memory bank as something to try when I get the chance, but I'm not going to spend the time it takes to get to the nearest grocery store drooling over how much I might enjoy chocolate ice cream that I, at that point, only know my friend finds tasty.

Back to books again. Enjoyment of a book requires more work than somehow getting chocolate ice cream to land on a taste bud. When we consider that people are, on a deeply subconscious level, averse to feeling like they're missing something, it shows the difficulty in reaching them. Then people are resistant even to hearing things like, "You should check out this book!" (You're missing out on the experience of reading this book!) That's how word of mouth eventually works. After hearing enough times, from enough people, how good a book is we finally do feel like we're missing something, that pains us, and so we read that book. That's why just about everyone has read at least one Harry Potter book and a Hunger Games book. (Not saying those books aren't also enjoyable.) That would also explain why while most books are buried in obscurity there is always that occasional book everyone reads. Also the reason movie studios clobber us with advertising for movies. They aren't trying to make sure people see a movie's trailer and decide it's something they might enjoy. They're trying to create, through repetition, a compulsion to see that movie, like a need to scratch an itch. (Not always the case, in either case, a movie trailer can, by content alone, pique the interest of an audience, same with a book synopsis, but I more mean the challenge of reaching a larger audience.)

So I don't know how my theory, if there's anything to it, could be applied to aid us little guys and gals in reaching readers. (I was hoping someone else would come up with that part.) And, again, not intended in any way as a complaint aimed at readers. I'm always amazed and impressed that intrepid readers come upon my books and take the time to read them, with all the literature available, besides being extremely grateful when they do.