Feed the authors!

Have you fed your favorite author today? 

This makes me think of author’s as wild animals, and like wild animals, authors can become extinct if their readers don’t keep them well fed.  Feeding an author goes so far beyond just purchasing the books they create, it includes the reviews we write, the books we suggest to other readers, and the simple act of following them on social media.  Author’s anxiously put their babies in your hands when they hit publish, a baby they have spent hundreds of hours working on and have put their heart and soul into.  The only way they can really judge how well they did in our eyes is if we tell them.

When I first switched from physical books to reading them on my IPad mini using the Kindle app, I had no idea about leaving a review.  When I read a book, I didn’t make sure to flip all the way to the end and if the review box popped up I just put in my star rating.  Who knew that was actually meaningless as far as rating a book!  I Know, Right!  WTH!!!!  But it’s true.

After all these years and all of those fabulous books, I feel like a terrible customer.  I mean leaving a review is basically the same as tipping your waitress for good service, and I would never dream of leaving a restaurant without some kind of tip.  But I have been!  I have been enjoying all of these wonderful books and letting my favorite authors starve.  I can only hope that they can forgive me.

I have slowly been working on leaving reviews on the books I have already read, while trying not to completely neglect the new releases that come out every day.  I mean I have thousands of books on my kindle app (Seriously! Thousands!)  Okay some of them I didn’t really like the first time, so regretfully I will not be re-reading those.  Would you really want me to write that kind of review anyway?  But I have denied so many authors their hard-earned review that it is going to take some time to catch up.

It’s actually one of the reasons I started my Featured Series blog posts.  With these posts, I can include all of the books I am re-reading and reviewing at the same time.  Seriously!  I feel it is my duty as a customer to re-read all of the books in a series once I get started.  Geez, okay!  You are right!  I just love most of them that much, plus you pick up on so many things that you missed the first time when you re-read a book.  And it is just not the same if you skip any, well and I love them all.

For the author's sake, try not to be like me.  Be sure to tip your authors and leave them reviews on their books.  How else is an author supposed to feed their souls with the knowledge that you thoroughly enjoyed the hours of hard labor they put into their literary masterpiece?  No matter what your review is (Well unless you are a total douche canoe and put really hurtful nasty things in when you can express a negative opinion with just as much kindness as you can a positive one) the authors will be glad you did.  Well I am back to my list of books to read, it just seems to keep on growing.

Happy Reading
Sydney