The reason why I'm choosing now to do it is that I've got a bunch of coupons and reward $'s to spend and I want to use them all before they expire. For example, barnes and noble has a nice 25% off coupon going right now and I have near $30 in borders holiday rewards. On top of that, paypal is offering an incentive to purchase where if you use them at certain retailers, you can pick up a $20 discount on a purchase of $50. All of this adds up to incentive to find some new books I might like.
So what am I looking for? Perferably epic fantasy. I tend to like series with a long-spanning storyarc and lotsa character development/interplay. I think I've tapped most of the bigwigs in the field, but on the offchance I've missed something, toss in your two cents. I'm also willing to give books outside of fantasy a whirl, though my preference for series tends to make that iffy. I just like the idea of watching characters that you grow attached to develop over time. About the only non-fantasy series I've read is Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series and I can't help but feel like I'm short a X chromosome when I'm reading them. Something not as girly would probaly be a plus.