[Amanda Brice]

I think this just goes to show that most authors are unknown to someone. An author who is considered a household name in my genre, might garner you blank stares in a different genre, or just amongst the general populace as a whole. And vice versa.

 

[Amanda Brice]

While I agree with your point you still have to wonder if any of those surveyed actually read.

Not necessarily. If you'd conducted this poll outside of a grocery store, I'd tend to agree with you. But since it was on the Amazon forums, I'm going to assume that not only are they readers, but they're fairly avid readers.

But just because they're readers doesn't mean they read the same things you or I do, or that they necessarily read the NYT list books.

I took a look at that list, and I will admit that for some of them, I only had the slightest, most vaguest idea of what they might actually write. I may have heard their name, but only in the context of being a book on the NYT list. Yes, being on that list means you've sold a lot of copies, but there are many, many more readers out there than the number of readers it takes to hit a list.

 

[Amanda Brice]

I also don't really check or look up whats on the NY bestseller list, I have no clue.

I generally don't either, but when I hear that a friend of mine or chaptermate has hit the list (usually the extended list), then I will. But even then, it's not to find recommendations, but really just to gush over my friend's name.

Seriously, half the names on the list for that survey I couldn't have told you what they write. I maybe vaguely recognize the name, but only because I'd heard it bandied about. But I've never read them, and likely never will. It doesn't mean I'm not well read, I just read what I want to read.

 

[Amanda Brice]

eta: to add, in some cases I might know the title of the book, but couldn't for the life of me recall the name of the author. So I might have seen books of the authors on that list at some point, who knows.

Another good point. I'm much more likely to know the title of a book but not the author, so by conducting a survey like this and only polling on the basis of authors' names, I'd probably answer "not familiar" or "somewhat familiar" to most of the authors, even if I've heard their title all the time, simply because I don't realize that's who wrote it.

I read a lot. 100+ books per year. But just because I don't read most of the authors on that list doesn't mean I'm "not a reader." It just means I have different tastes in reading than you do.

 

[Amanda Brice]

Maybe author name recognition is not as critical as I had believed or beeen told. There were some heavy hitters on that list too Thanks Julie.

I don't think it shows that name recognition is not critical, just that name recognition is often very genre-specific. Sometimes people on here namedrop and I stare blankly at the screen and say "who?" and I'm sure the same thing happens when I namedrop. We don't all read the same books, and that's not surprising.

Household names can vary depending on what circle you run in, and what genres you read.