My Top Ten Auto-Buy Authors

July 16, 2019 Top Ten Tuesday 16

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. The meme was originally the brainchild of The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Books.

 

My auto-buying habits have changed a lot in the past 5 or 6 years. I read more library books and ARCs these days. I usually only buy physical books that I know I will want in my collection, and as my collection has grown, I’ve gotten a lot pickier about that. I used to feel that if I loved an author, I had to own everything they ever wrote. Now I am more comfortable with purchasing only the books I will read over and over, and letting the universe store the rest, as my sister says.

My habits have changed in other ways, too. I used to haunt the bookstores for the latest paperback mystery or romance from my favorite authors. These days, I hardly ever buy mass-market paperbacks. The Kindle version is usually around the same price, takes up no physical space on my shelves, and has scalable fonts. So I buy a fair number of Kindle books, especially on sale.

But despite those changes in my bookbuying habits, there are still a few authors I will buy no matter what, even in hardcover.

Authors come and go on this list. They get added because I fall in love with their books, and they fall off either because they die, or because, for whatever reason, their books stop appealing to me as strongly as they used to. Or sometimes, just because I’m running low on shelf space!

My Auto-Buy Authors

  1. Patrick Rothfuss
  2. Tamora Pierce
  3. Robin McKinley
  4. Laurie R. King – only her Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series
  5. Deborah Harkness
  6. Susanna Kearsley
  7. Naomi Novik
  8. Mary Balogh – mostly in Kindle these days
  9. Charles Finch – his Lenox series, in Kindle
  10. Lisa Kleypas – just her historical romances, mostly in Kindle
  11. Jayne Ann Krentz/Amanda Quick/Jayne Castle – I buy all her books in Kindle, but not until the price comes down to the equivalent of a mass-market paperback.
  12. Mary Jo Putney – just her historical romances, in Kindle
  13. Julia Quinn – in Kindle

Okay, I cheated; there are 12. And a few of those may slide off the auto-buy list and into the “read first, then decide” category, where they will join the others that used to be on my auto-buy list. It’s not because they aren’t good, or because I no longer love their books. Honestly, a lot of it is just that I’m running out of room for more books!

 

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16 Responses to “My Top Ten Auto-Buy Authors”

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      I went through about 10 years when I read a lot of historical romance. I’ve cut back some now, or rather, I’m balancing better with the other genres I love (mostly fantasy and mystery.) But there are still some authors I love and follow.

  3. Nicole

    My auto-buying has changed a lot, too. I never used to buy e-books unless I was going to read it *right now*, but now I have an owned e-book TBR nearly as big as my physical TBR. I’ve also made a lot more exceptions to the rule. Favorite author or not, for example, I don’t auto-buy books by them in genres that I don’t like. (I used to, out of a sense of duty to support my favorite authors. But then I wouldn’t read or didn’t like the books and felt guilty about having bought them.)
    Nicole recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday ~ Auto-Buy AuthorsMy Profile

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      I’m with you on not buying books by a favorite author if they are in genres you don’t like. Or series you don’t like. As for your ebook library, you could be describing my own. My owned-but-unread Kindle books could stock a small library, if they were real instead of virtual.

  4. Katherine @ I Wish I Lived in a Library

    I just discovered there a lot of Mary Balogh books on Audible’s Romance Package (or whatever they’re calling it now) and I’m thrilled! The Laurie R. King series is one I really need to catch up on. I have the audio of the next book in the series and as soon as school starts I’m diving back in. So many authors I love and so many authors I want to try.

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      I looked at that program. It’s a great deal for someone who listens to a lot of romances, because of the unlimited listening feature! But I don’t listen to that many hours per month overall—some months, hardly any. And I do most of my romance reading on Kindle, saving my listening for other genres. (I don’t know why; it just works out that way.) I have also discovered that if I’ve bought the Kindle version of a book, I can sometimes buy the Audible version at a discount, without an Audible subscription of any kind. So for me, Audible’s Romance Package is not the best option, at least right now.

      Avon has a program through Librio.fm (another audiobook company) called Avon Kiss Club, which puts up a selection of romance audiobooks every month that you can buy for $3.99 each, without a subscription. It’s restricted to Avon titles, but it’s another option for me to buy the occasional romance audio.

  5. Angela

    I’ve read a couple of Susanna Kearsley’s books and want to read more. I’m definitely like you, I’m picky about the books I add to my collection, because I also don’t have a lot of room!

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      I love her books! I have five or six backlist titles still unread. I own the books (bought them when she came to our nearest city—and got them signed!) but I haven’t decided whether to dole them out to myself slowly, or let myself binge-read my way through them LOL!

  6. Nora-Adrienne

    Cleo Coyle (AKA Alice Alfonsi) The Village Blend Mysteries
    Heather Webber
    Sheila Connolly
    Debbie Macomber Contemporary Romance
    Miranda James
    Sandra Hill Paranormal and not
    Kerry Greenwood the Phryne Fisher novels
    Samuel R. Delany
    Alfred Bester
    Lester DelRey
    Heinlein, Asimov & Clark
    Ellen Hart
    Julie Hyzy
    Laura Childs
    Carolyn Hart and many many many more.

    When you’re 71.5 years old and started reading at 5 or 6 it’s a very long list of authors that I’ve read, enjoyed and OWN!

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      I have collected some of those as well, and read some of the others. 🙂 I know whereof you speak! (Although you have about 15 years on me.)

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      I still have one Rothfuss to read. (I’ve sort of been saving it as a treat, since heaven knows when we’ll get Doors of Stone—which is fine; I’d rather it was fantastic than rushed and not as good as it could be.) And I need to read Novik’s Spinning Silver; I’ve been saving that one, too. 🙂