How do you choose a book?

After discussing various options for a book cover, it was noticeable that I was the odd-one-out and I'm attracted to different book covers than most other people.  I was asked how I choose a book, and I realised I rarely look at the cover at all.

If I'm in a bookshop (which tbh I try to avoid as they are dangerous places for me! lol), I look at the title on the spine.  Then, if the title grabs me, I'll read the blurb on the back, and more often than no, that book'll end up in the basket for me to buy.  If I'm buying a book for someone else, I tend to look a bit more thoroughly, looking at the font and whether there are any illustrations etc. In this case, I may look at the front cover because I know, for example, my children are a lot more fussy regarding what a book looks like.



If I'm choosing a Kindle book (which I do far more often simply because I've a huge pile of books by my bed, most of my house is covered in bookshelves and they're all at least 2 books deep) then it depends if it was a recommendation or not.  Recommendations get immediately put on my Amazon Wishlist, so I can buy them if I receive vouchers for Christmas or my Birthday. 

Otherwise, the first thing I do is sort by price low-high.  I read the title, and then I read the blurb.  If it's free and I like it, it immediately gets bought and added to my Kindle.  Most of the books on my Kindle are free ones.  I'm not stupid - I know it's a ploy by the author to get you hooked, so you end up buying the rest of the series.  And yet, I still get hooked.  some of the free books are not very good or not to my taste.  Unless it's absolutely awful or objectionable, I won't review it.  For example, it's not fair for me to say such-and-such isn't a good book, when other people may enjoy it, it's just a subject matter that doesn't turn me on.  I do have favourite genres: fantasy, sci-fi, thrillers, mystery and romance, (yes, all those are favourites) but if a book is free I'll give any topic a go.

So, where do I get my free books from?  Sometimes it is a simple Amazon search.  I follow Bookbub on Facebook which promotes free books frequently, and there are other Facebook groups which share and recommend books that are free for short periods of time, such as Christian e-book downloads.  Whilst these are sources of free books, I try not to search out free books too often as I've a huge reading list - I have over 500 unread books on my kindle, that I am slowly working my way through, but I'm trying not to download any more, until I have read a decent number of them.  That is, I'm trying not to download any more starter-books; obviously I need to get the subsequent books in the series! Which reminds me...