Recently the local press has been delivering a stack of their weekly newspapers to my apartment complex as a freebie. There are 13 apartments in this complex and we often receive twenty or more newspapers. Of those twenty newspapers, at least 80% go directly to the recycling bin at the end of the week, unopened and unread.

As an author, the last thing I want is to be unread.

Along that path…. I once saw a sign at one of those Joe’s Diners that read: I’d rather serve ten meals to one customer than one meal to ten customers.

That sign tells me he hoped his food and service was so good that folks would come back again and again, not just once to check him out and keep on going. He’d rather have regulars than customers. It made me think…. I’d rather sell one book to someone who reads it and enjoys it than ten books that never get read. I’d rather have readers than customers.

The last thing an author wants is to be unread.

Still on that path… I recently found this post on The Writers Guide to E-Publishing by Scott Nicholson: Writing for One Reader. In the post Scott writes:

Oddly, the modern conversation around writing has moved away from words and toward numbers: how much money you can make self-publishing, the best price for an ebook, the sales totals and the rank and the royalty percentages. At this historic opportunity to share words with readers, writers seem far less interested in their readers than they do their customers.

I may be out of sync, but I’d rather have a few good readers than a lot of unread books sold to customers. Numbers do not tell it all. Happy readers do. When a reader takes the time to tell me they enjoyed my book I call that my payday. I’ve have a lot of really good paydays lately. BTW, I’m very happy with my many good readers and my numbers. I thank each and every one of them from the tips of my fingers and the bottom of my heart.

So to all of my readers, blog and book, Thanks….. and Enjoy always, T