I will probably never be a best-selling author. I might not ever be published by one of the big publishing houses. That’s okay. I’d like to have an audience for my work, but that’s not very much in my control. All I can do is write and do what I can to reach readers. Which means I am exactly like thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of emerging writers who struggle to be published and read. If you’re one of those writers, this post is aimed at you.

There sure are a lot of books being published, aren’t there? Too many to keep up with. And the more I hang around writers, the more writers I know who have books coming out. I can’t read them all. But I can read some of them, and so can you. I can’t buy them all, either (although I buy more than I can read), but I can buy some of them. I can’t do full length reviews of every book I read. I don’t have that kind of time. But what I can do–and you can too–is do ratings and brief reviews on Goodreads and Amazon.com. It only takes a few minutes, and it is greatly appreciated by authors.

That’s it. Pretty simple.

1. From time to time, or more often, buy a book by an emerging writer.

2. Read the book.

3. Write a review on a blog–yours or someone else’s–or on Goodreads or on Amazon.com.

(P.S. The image is of an emerging cicada–the mid-Atlantic is seeing one of the 17-year broods at the moment.)