Reader Psychology Book-shapers

I enjoy having conversations with authors who are just discovering reader psychology. Maybe you are also fascinated by how the psychology of reading factors into the role of writers creating stories or nonfiction.

Imagine how understanding some of these truisms, quirks, shifts, or trends might affect your writing intentionalities.

According to the National Literacy Institute, in 2024 “54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).”

Reader Psychology Book-Shapers Question One:

Are you creating fiction or nonfiction that frustrates the reading skill level of half of the reading adults in America?

What you’re presenting to them then–despite your desire to sound uber-intelligent or clever in your word choices–is either extra work or frustration for half of those you’d like to consider your readers. Or are you writing only to the audience of readers who possess a higher-than-average literacy level? Did you intend to make your work inaccessible for so many?

Before you raise a “Not Gonna Dumb It Down” flag, that’s not what this author/agent is suggesting. Many of us are drawn to sharp, smart, even challenging reads. But if you know your audience well, including their literacy levels–numbers a publishing house will also know–are you investing in writing sharply, smartly while making your nonfiction or stories accessible to the very people you want to reach?

Reader Psychology Book-Shapers Question Two:

How many minutes transpire between a change in camera-angle (using a film or TV ad analogy) or another crucial point in your nonfiction? (Even this blog post is rated by time between headers!)

Irisreading.com notes “teens in grades 7 through 12 can read between 115 words per minute and 185 words per minute. College-aged adults can read between 200 and 300 words, while adults have an average reading rate of 200 words and 250 words per minute.”

According to sciencedirect.com, the average silent reading rate for adults (in English) is about 240 wpm for non-fiction. It’s slightly higher at 260 wpm for fiction.

Consider how that might affect whether your use one more illustration or add a header to break up the text. Have you ever thought about the average rate of reading and what you’re presenting to the reader? How does that change if your reader is a teen?

Reader Psychology Book-Shapers Question Three:

Speed-readers aside, if an adult audience is reading your 100,000-word novel, it will take about 7 hours of straight, uninterrupted reading time. Raise your hand if you often have uninterrupted time to read. I thought so. The question is related to reader commitment. If you’ve ever been tempted to try to argue your way into a 200,000-word epic novel that publishers are resistant to even consider, think about not only the cost of producing that book, but doubling the reader’s commitment. That might work for someone with a long recuperation from surgery–if it weren’t for physical therapy appointments and check-ups and the fact that everything including teeth-brushing takes longer.

Are your readers caught in a time-crunch? Does the length of your book make it an appealing commitment or add to their time stressors?

Note: A too-short book that doesn’t comply with publishing expectations has its own psychological implications. If the spine of the book is too “skinny,” the reader may believe it’s a quick reader, but subconsciously they may feel cheated out of the expected reading experience or resent that half a book isn’t necessarily half the price, due to the sheer costs of producing a book, any book.

Reader Psychology Question Four:

Do your book projects contribute to tired-eye-syndrome?

Asthenopia (or eye strain) decreased when light bulbs replaced candles or oil lamps and increased with the invention of computers, smartphones, and other handheld devices.

How you wondered why critique partners or editors (or agents) have encouraged you to write shorter paragraphs or add more dialogue? Part of the reason is that solid blocks of text on the page is exhausting for eye muscles. It’s not just a trend or a preference for the easily distracted. It’s hard on the eyes to move left to right, left to right, left to right over and over with no rest stops, no breathing places like short exchanges of dialogue.

Those who self-publish sometimes consider a slightly smaller font so they can fit more words on the page. It won’t save you an appreciable amount of money but it will cost you in readers who find the pages hard to read, and cause the reader more eyestrain than they already experienced.

Conversely, too large a font (should be easier on the eyes, right?) is also wearying because the excessively large font is speeding up that left to right, left to right eye movement.

Reader Psychology Question Five:

What else do we need to know about reader habits?

This seems the perfect place to express what we’re hearing from publishers almost across the board. Longer chapters don’t make the book seem meatier and more significant. They discourage the reader who has innumerable other reading options. The psychology of it relates to another subconscious reader response.

If other responsibilities call to them, they may flip ahead to see how many pages are left in the chapter. If just a few pages are left, they may press through to the end of the chapter…and they may even be tempted to read just a bit into the next. Before they realize it, they’ve read much more than they intended.

But if many pages are left in the chapter, they will often stop right there. Bookmark it. Lay it open upside down on the nightstand or end table or desk or kitchen counter…and life may keep them from ever getting back to your book.

How your book is structured can affect how well it’s digested by the reader, and how much it appeals.

Reader Psychology Question Six:

How well do you know your specific audience? What do they really need?

Is your reader grieving? Do you have awesome insights to offer the person experiencing deep loss, words you know will help them right now in the early stages of their crisis? Have you considered whether you can reach them at that stage of their loss? What “helpful” books were you reading when you walked the early days of your own journey?

Most of us recognize the utterly suffocating fog immediately following a hard diagnosis or a crippling loss. You may long to help the early-griever through those days, but can you in book form? Are they reading then?

It’s not a silly question. It helps you form how you write your “Help! My Husband Just Filed for Divorce!” book or your “What to Do the Day After the Funeral” missive.

Here’s another consideration.

Reader Psychology Question Seven:

What is happening behind the scenes that will either shape the form or the timing of your book?

It’s a hard truth to swallow, but as reported by ProLiteracy, “two-thirds of US students who are not proficient in reading by the end of fourth grade end up in jail or on welfare. Approximately 85% of juveniles in the court system are functionally illiterate, emphasizing the link between literacy and legal troubles​” (from a report by Skillademia.com).

Are you writing books you hope will be read by the incarcerated? It’s a wonderful mission, but working toward their literacy may need to come before writing books that focus on their needs.

Would you like to write children’s books for refugee children in war-torn countries? Only 50% of refugee children have access to elementary education. War, displacement, and trauma affect literacy. How will your books reach the very young people you want to serve? (statistic also from Skillademia.com)

How well will a book titled The Comprehensive, All-Inclusive, Heavily Notated New Mom’s Guide to Everything She’ll Need to Know to Raise Her Children and Equip Them for Adulthood sell in the bookstore? It might make a “thoughtful” baby shower gift, but odds are it will serve as a better prop than it will reading material. Will the new mom rather be drawn to the Two Simple Tips for Surviving Today?

Now you know some of the whys:

 

What you know about your readers, their reading habits, their specific needs, and even how they will likely read your book–in fits and starts, in a marathon session late into the night, or in a group setting–influences how you write your book. If your historical romance reader is an all-nighter kind of reader, the action better pull them into the next scene or chapter, or their droopy eyelids and tomorrow’s to-do list will win out.

A reader is a reader is a reader, right? Not at all.

The psychology of reading plays a vital role in guiding a writer toward their true end goal–communicating with their specific reader who has been waiting for this book.

 

Stay tuned for a future blog post that takes a look at how screens have changed our reading endurance, information tolerance, and the physiology of reading.