Sarah Wendell is My Hero

Hello book people! I have a confession: I've been thinking about closing up shop here at My Book Addiction. I've been losing interest lately - on blogging, not reading - and I wasn't sure there was a point to this anymore. My brain doesn't seem to want to participate these days and my review output has dwindled to a point where I feel embarrassed. Who is going to want to keep coming to this blog if I don't do anything new every now and then? Am I contributing anything to book awareness on any level? In it's current state, would this be a blog that I would visit on a regular basis? The answers I come up with are depressing and discouraging.

But then, I saw three things today. Three things that make me think that this is not a waste of my time and I wanted to share them with you.

1. Here is part of a screenshot of one of the traffic counters I use. (Click on it if you can't read the tiny print.) This tells me that several book blogs that I read on a regular basis has links to my blog. Admittedly, some of them are just links provided by a book title search on google, but still. It reminds me other people do like what I have to say.
2. Kristi, aka The Story Siren, posted a discussion she recently had with an undisclosed author about the impact that book bloggers make on the book industry. I was disappointed to read the outlook many authors/publishers/agents have on book blogs (we are their fans, after all). Now, I am not interested in doing interviews and such but I do participate in a few memes/hops that are almost solely for bumping up follower counts. (Hey, every little bit helps.) And it may be my contrary nature but I didn't like the part about how book blogs don't affect book sales. So, I decided that I'll keep doing my part to make sure the word gets around that books are awesome and totally worth your time and money. I'll also be taking off the Followers widget from my blog. If you want to follow me, follow me, but stats don't lie - My Book Addiction gets more hits than total visitors - so I know people are coming back.
3. Here's where I mention where I got the title for this post. Earlier today, I read Sarah Wendell's latest column on Kirkus reviews. I check out Smart Bitches, Trashy Books regularly for her savvy insight into the goings on in publishing and her intelligent reviews of romance novels but she caught my eye today on Kirkus because there was a picture of the cover of Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me under her byline (a sure thing to catch my attention). Sarah recently gave the keynote address at SXSW's Kirkus Book Reviews PubCamp conference and it was about why readers are so important to publishing. She cited examples about how the book industry is doing it's hardest to keep us from reading: charging more for books; restricting ebooks using DRMs and not providing diversity in languages; the dwindling number of actual bookstores. The point? We readers love our books and will always love our books no matter what. When I finished reading this article I wanted to stand up and cheer! In my heart, I am a reader, not a writer, but I do want to share my thoughts on the books I read. So thank you, Sarah Wendell. Thank you for reminding me why I'm here. I needed it.