Every month, I recommend 3 books to nearly 2,000 people. This has been an extremely rewarding experience. I’ve met some really great people through this newsletter. Some of these friends even kindly tell me to pick a new topic. I’m aware that books are not the most catchy hook, and that I could probably grow an audience at a different newsletter on a different—and more convenient!—topic. 

This advice would’ve appealed to me several years ago, when I started this newsletter in 2016, mainly to pad the imaginary book proposal that I was going to write. I started the newsletter with the intention of cultivating an audience that I would want to sell my book to, and that would help publishers buy into my proposal. 

That’s no longer my main goal with the newsletter—another story for another day.

The main reason to keep my newsletter the way it is: I just want to. 

There’s more than enough optimized content out there, and I’d prefer to make something that’s fun for me. I also appreciate this newsletter for the people it draws into my life. I’ve found the people I meet through the newsletter are patient, thoughtful, and kind.

I’d rather meet more of these people than 1,000x as many people who I don’t feel as energized to meet. I want to make more of what I want to see on the internet, and I’d love for other people to do the same as well.

In terms of time, the Best of Books newsletter doesn’t actually take too much work to write. It used to take a few hours including scanning text from paper books; now with the Kindle, it’s just a couple of hours. 

The more difficult work is actually making the time to read the books; at three books per month, that can take 24 hours—over half a workweek.

If I didn’t enjoy reading, it would be a hellish project to maintain. 

On the contrary though, because I really like reading, writing the newsletter each month has encouraged me to keep at it. This is easier said than done; reading takes effort to get started, and there are many distracting ways to spend energy that take much less effort to get started.

Still, I’ve had to make a few modifications over the years to keep the reading habit alive:

• I bought fewer paper books and bought more digital ones. I made this decision because I was running out of space, and because I was preparing to move across the world and wouldn’t be able to bring my books.
• I started listening to audiobooks. I try to first borrow the book from Libby, and if it’s not available (or there’s a long waitlist), I’ll buy it at Libro.fm. I always buy a copy on Kindle to mark up, and the first thing I do when I get to a computer is highlight the parts I can remember that I really liked (usually by recalling a keyword of some sort).
• I read books that catch my interest or are in a topic I want to learn more, not the ones that are most recommended or make it to a list. Usually I find those books less and less interesting.

Also, it’s much easier to write about what’s actually happening to you. Reading is not like that, in that I go out of my way to do it. I wouldn’t have much energy to dedicate to another project like that, especially if it would take 24 hours out of my month.