I've seen the concept of reader loyalty discussed quite a bit in the YA book blogosphere. Something that I wonder about with regard to reader loyalty is whether there's a differential loyalty depending on genre for author vs. a book series. First off, what is the step to committing to author loyalty? You love one series so much that you deem an author an auto-buy author. You love an author's online presence and decide to get whatever they make because duh, they're awesome. But what of when an author says something you don't agree with? What if their personal opinions are counter--or anathema--to your own? But even more interesting to me -- what is that step between becoming loyal to an author versus loyal to a series? I've been thinking about this a bunch because I think that in fantasy, you can get a lot more people loyal to finishing out the series whereas in contemporary, they very much emphasize being loyal to an author. Rainbow Rowell, Gayle Forman, John Green-- they've all built their names to be their own brands, and that's without a series; their contemporary work can be very different, but their voice, their writing has become what draws in your loyalty. For fantasy, or most SFF series, it seems like people are committed to the series itself, more so than the author. Undoubtedly there will be people who are interested in following Marissa Meyer's new books, for example, but how many people are loyal to her and her new projects compared to those who were excited for the Lunar Chronicles? Is there a big difference? I don't know. I also found myself thinking about the massive popularity of authors like Sarah J. Maas and Maggie Stiefvater, authors who have earned reader loyalty more than usual, loyalty to the author maybe more so or on par with loyalty to the series they write (or the fandoms are great at making everyone else think that?). And I started to wonder whether in SFF, the bridging ground between author loyalty and book loyalty are the characters. Something about characters and being able to write about them in fanfics or fanart makes fans more loyal to the creator, doesn't it? Do you think that part of the difference in author vs. book loyalty has to do with the genre and the characters? What makes you transition from being loyal to finishing a book series to being loyal to the author?
