There's something special about being read. Even if it's by just a few people, here and there. Pretty much everything I've ever written before has been a requirement. Something I needed to do for a class: an assignment, an essay, a report. And someone had to read it. It was their job to do so, and they did it and moved on. Perhaps they enjoyed what they read, but I'm not egotistical enough to think that that was often the case. When I started working full time, what I wrote was mainly code, which machines read. But the occasional PowerPoint presentation or email was something that had to be read, by people who were paid to be there and while they were there, they felt they had to read what I wrote and add to it with their own words. That I had to then read.
But now, as an author, I have written things that no-one needs to read. No-one gets paid to do so, and it's not anyone's job to do so. (Excepting perhaps the content moderators who screen the endless stream of submissions to Kindle's publishing portal. Let's pour one out to those valiant souls!)
Now, I've published two ebooks so far and the numbers are nice and low, not gonna lie. But when I look at the few books that were sold, I can't help but think that someone read my blurb and decided to give it a try. And maybe they read my book and liked it. Or didn't. But they read it because they wanted to, not because they had to.
And when I look at the page reads for Kindle Unlimited, I can't help but think of it as an even better measure, one that makes me almost cry. Not because the number are low (they are) but because any number greater than zero is an indication that someone out there is reading what I wrote. And since the number of pages read is greater than the number of pages written, either there's a few people who read the whole thing, or an even larger number who read at least part of either book. And they did it because they wanted to.
That's pretty cool. I've written software that a surprisingly large number of corporate users use, but only because they have to. That nevertheless earns me a nice amount of money. But this, this is so much better. To have even just one person read what I wrote because they wanted to, makes me happy.
Yours,
Erik
