A Year of Reading

Today is my birthday. Fifty-six now. Hard to believe. I still feel mentally about eighteen, but when I try to get up out of a chair my true age comes calling. I count my reading year from birthday to birthday. For the past couple of years I've done a post about it on this day, or soon after. Here's another.

My book consumption was down this year. I managed 72 books, which broke a 7 year streak of reading over 100 a year. This is actually my lowest average since 2000-2001, where I read 71 books. I also break my list down by genre. Westerns won this year, with 16 total. That's the most in this genre I've read since 1997-1998. Nonfiction and SF were next with 12 each. That's up for NF and down for SF from last year.

I have done more writing this year than last so that accounts for some of the decreased reading time and decreased reads, but I think more of the downturn is due to a decrease in certain genres. Three genres dipped pretty low this year, poetry, graphic novels, and YA fiction. All three of these are relatively short works compared to some others, meaning that they require less reading time. In contrast, NF works are generally slower reads. Overall, this is probably what added up to fewer total books.

I don't feel compelled to read 100 books a year, although I like to. The only real disappointment was that my average book consumption per year actually dropped a little this year, from 80.15 per year (since age 6) to 79.98. I don't actually have clear yearly records going back past 1987-1988, when I started keeping records like I'm doing now. But I have been keeping a general list of books I've read since my early teen years. I'm sure there are plenty of books that I forgot to write down in those years, when I wasn't quite so obsessive about it. And I probably have missed a number of books I read in the years before I hit my teens. So, the overall averages are just approximations, although I'm convinced they are fairly close.

In other news, I just sent out my third author Newsletter. Most of you who visit here regularly are certainly on the list to get it. But if you didn't and are interested in getting a copy, you can email me or message me on facebook and give me your email address. I send out no more than two a year so it won't clutter your inbox. My email is kainja at hotmail dot com.

Enjoy your day!
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To Newsletter or Not

I’m considering trying out an author newsletter to support my writing. I don’t read a lot of author newsletters but I find some intriguing stuff in them at times. I’d read more if I had more time, since I enjoy learning about authors whose work I like.  Knowing how busy I am, and knowing that others are similarly busy in this connected world, I would only want to do two issues a year, Spring/Summer, and Fall/Winter, and would not want them to be more than about 2 pages each. My thoughts right now are to call it the “Razored Zen Newsletter” to keep it tied to my blog and to Razored Zen Press. 

Content wise, I’m thinking of adding a very brief update on what is going on in my personal world, and then include mentions and teasers for a couple of recently published projects, with snippets of reviews of those publications.  I’d have a short “what I’m working on” piece, and maybe a poem or a sample of a story in progress. If space permitted, I could do capsule reviews on some of the stuff I’ve been reading.  Since this newsletter would be distributed primarily through email, I’d have embedded links to everything.

Here’s my questions for my visitors. 1. Does this sound like something that might attract readers to my work? Or drive them away?  2. Do you ever sign up for this kind of newsletter from authors?  3. If you do read such newsletters, what kind of things do you like to see in them?

Thanks.

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