Page 99

opentopage99.jpgFaced with a new book, how do you decide whether it’s worth reading? I usually read the first couple of pages to see how fast I’m drawn in. I figured this was what everyone did, especially since for books available on a Kindle, Amazon lets you download the first chapter before you buy.
But maybe not — according to this website, “people in bookstores often read page 99 of a book to get a taste for the writing — to determine if they’d buy the book.” They go on to say

You walk into Barnes & Noble or Chapters, wander around, find a book that intrigues you and check out the cover artwork, the title and author, and the snippet on the back — all of which are, of course, crafted to sell. Then? Then the savvy among us flip to page 99 and read that whole page.

That’s where the quality of the whole book can be revealed. How can that be? Well, page 99 is a perfectly random page and likely not as overworked as the opening and ending. So it can reveal a lot about the story, the tension — basically, the writing — in about 25 seconds.

How about you? How do you decide whether to read a book? (By the way, the website mentioned above, while not live yet, is going to allow writers to upload their page 99s for readers to get a taste of their publications.)

4 thoughts on “Page 99”

  1. Hmmm…I like this page 99 thing.

    If the book isn’t specifically recommended by someone, I usually browse in the shop by title and—well okay, I’ll admit it—I might be pulled in by the design—then I usually read the first couple of pages. However, the last time I did this, I couldn’t stand the book (and it was a staff recommendation) and I’m trading it in at my trade-in shop.

    So it’s page 99 for me.

  2. I have done this for the last couple years or so, but, in my case, it is page 69. Read a suggestion somewhere to do this and just liked the whole “69” joke reference so I stuck with it.

  3. I sit down on the floor in the bookstore and read the entire first chapter if I’m unfamiliar with the author and trying to decide whether to purchase the book or not. I’ve never tried the page 99 method before.

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