So yesterday I was catching up on my emails from adbooks and Child_Lit, two listservs that collectively generate about 2,568,034 emails per day. Some people were chatting about the books they're looking forward to, and I broke out my Blue Journal of Stuff I Gotta Read Before I Die and started copying down names.
I paused and thought, Why am I putting these titles down? In some cases, it was just a list of titles--no synopses, nothing. I don't know anything about their subject, their tone, or even their age level. But some author names I saw and went, "Oo, okay!"
I realized that I just trust the author that much. No matter what they've written (and sometimes the style and content vary wildly), it's well-done and absorbing. That's quite a thing, to gain the trust of your reader in that fashion.
Author trust is different than following a series. I'll request the latest Enola Holmes or the next Cronus Chronicles because I want to find out what happens next, but I'll have to hear a little bit about any title the author writes outside of that series before it does down in my Blue Journal.
The deepest author trust is when you hear the synopsis and go, ". . . Huh. I dunno about that one. If another author were writing it, I'd pass it over, but it's X. So I'll give it a whirl."
Sometimes it's style-related. I know what I'm getting from Meg Cabot, for instance--a fun, funny girl-centric story. There've been disappointments, sure, but not enough to destroy my trust. Sometimes it's just the characters. Catherine Gilbert Murdock, for instance, can be counted on for kick-ass girls, no matter if they play football or wear crowns.
But sometimes author trust is just there because the quality has been consistent on practically every page.
Here's a few more of my most trusted authors:
Lisa Yee
Diane Wynne-Jones
Meg Cabot
Eva Ibbotson
John Green
Mo Willems
Maureen Johnson
Emily Gravett
I'm sure there's more, but from flipping through my Blue Journal and noting the titles I wrote down without any need to hear a synopsis, that's my preliminary list.
Who are the authors you most trust?
Labels: authors, musings