What do you want when you open a book?survey image

Here’s what romance readers said. Respondents ranked their choices with 1 being top choice in each question.
(click to tweet)

What’s your favorite romance genre?
#1 – Contemporary Romance
#2 – Regency/Georgian AND Paranormal Romance – TIED
#3 – Vikings/Medievals #4 – YA (Young Adult) #5 – NA (New Adult)
#6 – Pirates #7 – Westerns/Cowboys

What makes you buy a book?
#1 – Love the author
#2 – Back of the book blurb
#3 – The cover
#4 – Favorite reviewer’s recommendation
#5 – Love the series AND Great first page – TIED

When it comes to characters in a series, what makes you want the next book?
#1 – A hot secondary male character (60% of you voted for the hot man!)
#2 – An interesting secondary female character

What’s the most important story aspect?
#1 – Hook me! Make me want to keep turning the pages. (55% of you ranked “Hook me!” as #1)
#2 – Setting, Put me in another time and place.
#3 – Banter…lots of banter
#4 – Sensual tension…the hotter the better
#5 – Adventure and mayhem
#6 – Interesting secondary characters (0% of you voted for this)

What story themes do you like the most?
#1 – Beauty and the Beast theme
#2 – Cinderella theme
#3 – Quest theme (such as for treasure or relic)
#4 – Intrigue Theme
#5 – Love Triangle Theme

What’s your favorite type of hero?
#1 – Brilliant Recluse AND Brooding Ruffian – TIED
#2 – Arrogant Alpha
#3 – Debauched Rogue
#4 – Wounded Soldier

 

Curious for more? Check out “Doorway to History’s” blog http://bit.ly/17BpS8U for comments on setting and place. “What do you want when you open a book?” was a ranking survey with “1” as top choice and subsequent numbers as less desired choices. The survey garnered 61 respondents.