Booksquare passed along this tidbit from a piece in PW about increasing readership that really struck a chord with me:
One solution is simple enough: If you write, read. A lot. If you want a book published and sold in the marketplace, then buy and read and recommend enough books to nourish the system you want to enter. Advocate on behalf of literature. And, most quixotic of all, every MFA program should require all potential graduates to convert at least one eight-year-old into a passionate reader.
A major part of why I wanted to review in the first place was to let the world know about books that I thought were neglected or forgotten. I am always looking in catalogs for books that I think might get overlooked. Sometimes I end up just jumping on the bandwagon (albeit a little earlier than most - see King Dork for an example), but a lot of times I really get the satisfaction of writing about a book and then hearing from readers who had not heard about it and were thrilled to know the book existed.
So yeah - if you love books, if you love words, then you need to be buying and reading and recommending. And I do put my money where my mouth is; I just bought three books for my brother for his birthday and have two more book purchases on the horizon. (Not to mention a couple of titles I plan to buy for myself this summer just cause I love the authors!)
Write - Read - Recommend. Words to live by people.
